Improving on the meter

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

The box I built for my brother's F250 is very similar shape and I definitely felt as though the sides needed a little bracing. I'd also suggest that 10" round port is impractical on that side of the box, the port walls are just too close to the interior box walls to function properly and the mouth of the port is too close to your door to function properly. If it were mine I'd chop down 8" off the side of that box and play with 8" round port. You will get a truer idea of your tuning.

Can't comment on sub and port orientation. The one I did was sub to one side and port to the other just for the sake of it being the least likely orientation for him to break stuff by throwing junk in the back and he uses the rear seats to sleep on on long road trips. It functions well enough for the cone area and power but probably not really optimum for metering.

Also most vehicles are loudest DB Drag style with port pointing the opposite side as the meter. Direction of the port can be a big deal on the meter.

 

[YukonXL04]

lmao yeah mostly extreme rattle
that's a big *** box taking up a lot of airspace, almost looks too big. probably why you peaked higher. your cab almost looks smaller than mine but it's probably the way you took the pic.

2000 sierra ext cab with rear seat removed. Box is lifted up a little to fit a g31 blue top under it. 4ch is under as well.

If I remember right it was 10 cubes net and turned around 31-32ish. Built with 1" MDF and a bunch of bracing. That was before I started recessing all my subs.

How is your box not moving around?!

Haha I built a floor to level the box. Bolted to floor, trans hump and seat bolts. Box was then bolted to it. It was pretty solid, but looks like its floating haha.

I did a 05 ext cab Silverado, raised the back seat like 3 inches, did 2 of those same audiophiles but 12s in 5 cubes net but subs and port were rear fire. Slammed for a ext cab that still had a back seat. Did 144 outlaw on a AP1500.1 pretty sure same around 44-45hz.

All those were 8-10 years ago though

 

[YukonXL04]

It's double baffled but I don't deny it could use some bracing. Doesn't flex at all, but again, I can't exactly see small amounts of flex. It doesn't leak either, but I'll see if i can caulk the seams.

I'm betting the top has to be flexing some. That's a long panel. 54" long or so... and no bracing. Here's the bracing on my 4 12 Yukon box and its 49" long same double baffled. And probably still not enough bracing.

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

I didn't feel any flex, surprisingly. The box moves on lower notes for sure because it's not securely tied down to the floor, but that's a different problem.

I really can't move the box around to different orientations without in depth modifications to the box and I really don't want to put time into that for a few db's on the meter when I'm not competing and I know I'll be changing the setup completely soon anyways.

I did a ton of testing with higher tuning, and shrinking the box, and lost 2-3db although it peaked higher. Could be the port not being flared, idk. I believe I'm just fighting against where this orientation peaks in this cab and the peaks are moving further and further apart. It makes me happy that I was pretty close to the best tuning for this orientation to begin with, and I'll probably just leave it that way for a month or two until the next setup.

I have some screenshots I'll post in a bit to show what I'm talking about

 

[kr15 5,000+ posts]

Pickups are generally terrible platforms for sealed metering. Outlaw or meca, they gain big.

My teamates Colorado gains like 6db from sealed to outlaw

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

Pickups are generally terrible platforms for sealed metering. Outlaw or meca, they gain big.
My teamates Colorado gains like 6db from sealed to outlaw

I noticed that. If I went to a wall it'd be different for obvious reasons but as I said before I think it sounds awesome for daily and that's really what I'm after. It was well worth it to borrow the meter and learn more about my setup and what works and doesn't work though, so I still consider it successful.

 

[kr15 5,000+ posts]

Numbers are overrated anyways. Unless you are big into competing, it doesnt matter imo. Especially if you like how it sounds. My favorite setups havent been my loudest

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

Numbers are overrated anyways. Unless you are big into competing, it doesnt matter imo. Especially if you like how it sounds. My favorite setups havent been my loudest

I absolutely agree

If I were to compete I'd feel differently about it, but I enjoy it much more without the stress of chasing numbers although it is a great tool

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

@wew lad

Nice to meet you this weekend.  Shame you couldn't have stuck around to mess with that Taramps and motivate me to do some testing.  

You ought to post some pics of your new box here some time.   It sounded pretty good and those Team subs took that power like a champ.  Hopefully I'm around a bit next spring/summer.  I'd like to try a couple of my 15s in there and see what sort of numbers that'll do. 

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

@wew lad

Nice to meet you this weekend.  Shame you couldn't have stuck around to mess with that Taramps and motivate me to do some testing.  

You ought to post some pics of your new box here some time.   It sounded pretty good and those Team subs took that power like a champ.  Hopefully I'm around a bit next spring/summer.  I'd like to try a couple of my 15s in there and see what sort of numbers that'll do. 

Likewise, definitely worth the trip and I'll be back when the winter isn't so harsh. 

I completely forgot about this thread so I need to update it since there's been significant changes to the substage. 

I finished the box about 3-4 weeks ago literally days before I moved cross-country to Mass so the box is finished but the false floor is still loose and I have a few things I need to do still. Main thing is probably relocating the Bass 12k to my toolbox and putting the other 3 banks of caps I have under the false floor or in the toolbox with the Bass 12k. 

So the Taramps Bass 12k is at .5 now (.35dcr) and it makes great power. Something like 9-10k at ~1.4-1.6 lowest reactive impedance. On most music it's probably only putting out 6-7k. 

I added a 2nd Team AA 15 D2 so I have 2 of them now, with the 3rd having burnt tinsel leads. I'll either recone it or sell it as is. The box is something like 7.8 cubes net after displacement of the windows, subs, and port.

10 inch big ass port tuning the box to 35/36hz. The subs seem to love it and I peak at 40 now instead of 38 which is an improvement, I can play around and see if I want to tune higher later on. 

13 ply birch plywood double baffled and the rest is a single layer but the windows make it rock solid. Tons of kreg screws and the bottom baffle is screwed into the box and the top baffle to help them adhere better. 

Best score so far is 153.4. Huge gains from the single 15 that peaked at 148.2. 5db from doubling cone area, changing orientation, and dropping the amp to .5. 

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

3rd having burnt tinsel leads.

You didn't mention one with burnt tinsels.   Might just be able to perform some minor surgery and replace that for  few bucks worth of tinsel and some glue.  Well worth trying before you scrap it entirely!

In fact you can try to pry up the dustcap and see  what kind of glue is in the triple joint.  If you can dissolve some (try acetone, a little at a time rub with the corner of a rag or similar)  or burn it away with a soldering iron enough to expose 1/8 inch of the coil lead I've got some nice chunky tinsel up here we could use to get that back in action.  If you can get it soft with solvent or heat and  gently scrape with an exacto knife or tip of a utility knife you might could reveal enough of the coil lead to make it work too.  OR might even be able to get into it on the former between the cone and spiders depending how much room you have to get in there and how tight those are spaced.