Side vented vs front?

[alexbush]

Hello I have a question about my subwoofer enclosure... I have a box that I picked up last year from a friend and it sounds pretty good in my trunk, but I'm not sure if I could buy a $50 enclosure from best buy that would sound better. Pic is attached.

It is vented on the right side (it's a little hard to see) and the subwoofer is enclosed in plexiglass. I haven't seen many enclosures vented on the side like that and I'm wondering if it would sound louder inside my car if I had an enclosure that was vented to the front.

Any opinions would be appreciated.

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[bgowdy 5,000+ posts]

what kind of car?

 

[sobe3yourself. 10+ year member]

either build or have one built. face it back (no plexi) with the port facing the same way and it will sound better (considering the box is well built)

it wont be the best possible sound, but a noticeable, relatively cheap upgrade.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

In my experience, sub/port back usually works the best. I have had instances where side firing works, but not as often.

 

[pro-rabbit 5,000+ posts]

side firing works when you need to the load the port a bit differently in some applications. However, in your situation you currently have a 4th order bandpass that is a generic "off the shelf" enclosure as would be the enclosure from best buy. If you can build it yourself I would do so and go that way. If you want one build it won't be as cheap unless you have someone local build it. However, a properly built/designed enclosure will normally have much better results over prefab enclosures.

 

[alexbush]

what kind of car?

It's a Lexus es300.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I'm not very expirienced with building such things and I was actually planning on buying a enclosure from best buy, but I'll check around locally to see if anyone builds sub boxes.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

I would strongly suggest you do that. Pre-fab enclosures suck, for the most part.

 

[Dirtrider4eva 10+ year member]

I would strongly suggest you do that. Pre-fab enclosures Suck, k

editted ^^ all better. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[The_Grimy_One 10+ year member]

I'm interested in this too, I currently have sub back port back. Was thinking of getting two 10s and was maybe gonna do port side with an aero. Would this be better?

 

[The_Grimy_One 10+ year member]

Thoughts ^^^

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

I would still do rear, unless there is some reason that rear won't work.

 

[FtheNutHuggers]

What data supports that preference? Without supporting data, it's a misleading statement that points him to believe that in nearly every instance, on axis ports are better. We dont even know what his goal is yet. This kind of stuff has to stop at some point if we want to know anything more than our predecessors did/do.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

What data supports that preference? Without supporting data, it's a misleading statement that points him to believe that in nearly every instance, on axis ports are better. We dont even know what his goal is yet. This kind of stuff has to stop at some point if we want to know anything more than our predecessors did/do.

Yes, yes you are right.

 

[GeekSquad 10+ year member]

Sound is omni-directional: meaning it travels in all directions at the same time. This is the fundamental cause of the group delay functions that take place in the automotive environment and the reason why the subwoofer output needs to be loaded as close as possible to the rear boundary of the vehicle. You can play around with this phenomena and acheive some interesting results, but this rule of thumb his yet to fail me in any vehicle.

BTW, there is tons of empirical evidence to support this conclusion, but who wants to read it besides the electrical and mechanical engineers among us??

 

[05trailblazer 10+ year member]

clueless