Subwoofer Direction: Whats the difference?

[SpeeDFX 10+ year member]

1. Is it better to have to subs facing toward the inside of the car, or facing away from inside of the car (For high sound quality purposes)? How do the sound differences compare? AND, if I mounted my amps into the back seat of my 94 accord, and had the woofers fireing towards them (since they have to point toward the back seat to point toward the inside of the car) would it hurt the amps because of vibration, or evem the rear deck speakers?

2. Do people usually put subs facing away from the car (in the trunk) because it is pleasing to the eye, or does it concern sound quality etc...?

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[Cieprus 10+ year member]

I think its because the way the sound reverberates off the trunk. Its just a better surface to face, the arch/curve of the trunk, instead of the flat back of the backseat.

But im just shooting in the wind here

 

[JLAudioEXTREME 10+ year member]

Mostly in a car the best way to face the subs is towards the trunk for it will bounce the waves off it...increasing the responce by nearly TWICE..Plus it will make it sound better..If you are looking for your system to be louder..Face them towards the back towards the trunk...Personally I wouldn't put the amps where all the bass hits them..Another thing is don't put them on the BOX..When the subs bump they flex the box..This in return will rattle and vibrate the amp and can eventually cause the amps to send bad signals and/or Blow..So mount the amps away from where the subs bump and turn the subs towards the trunk..You will have rattling problems but a little Dynomat and you will be set..

Blake

 

[noname323 10+ year member]

I've usually seen subs being pointed away from the front of the car.....since its in the trunk you're just going to get alot of thump and not much pure sound quality. Also be careful where you place the amps.......not only for vibrating purposes but you don't want to burn the bad boys up.......

Garry

 

[wolfey 10+ year member]

There are several other things you need to consider in my opinion. First off i would recommend you try aiming the subs in different directions to find by ear what sounds the best to you. Try them facing towards the inside of the car, facing up, and facing the rear. In my car i had my old system with my subs facing backwards. I later got 3 subs and i had them facing back also but it vibrated my trunk really bad. I decided to aim my subs towards the inside of my car to get rid of the huge rattling in my trunk since i'm too lazy and broke to afford dynamat or other dampening material. It took out almost all the rattle in my trunk completely. THe sound quality seemed just as good or better, and the spl was maybe slightly less. This is in a 95 ford hatchback.

Also, it is true that mounting an amplifier on a box is not the best choice in a car. like they said, it will recieve more vibration and its easier to still. However, I had my amp installed on my box however for over a year and it never had any problems. Since then i sold it to my friend and its still bumping just fine for him and he's had it for like 6 months now. Also, if mounting an amp on a box was such a horrible idea i dont think there would be a huge number of home audio subwoofers powered by an amplifier thats mounted on the box.

 

[XDrkmanX 10+ year member]

I heard that bass travels backwards

True?

 

[Wonderbread 5,000+ posts]

speakers create two waves, a front wavea nd a rear wave...

the reason you ahve a box is to stop that rear wave from getting to long and bouncing off the stuff behind the driver, reflecting forwards and cancelling out your front wave.

not the most scientific explanation ever, but its close, lol.

in your accord, you will likely notice a fairly significant loss of sound quality but facing them towards your seats.

They seats will muffle it and you will FEEL them more than HEAR them...

keep em faced towards the back of the trunk, but experiment with HOW FAR FROM THE licence plate end it is //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif trust me it can make a difference...

it can hurt your amps to have your subs firing directly at tehm, sound is merely vibrations int eh air... loud sound = big vibrations, big vibrations puls expensive electronics = expensive crap

hope i helped