Thoughts on 2 12s and 2 10s...

[Flex68 10+ year member]

Hey. Okay, so, I have a 95 Civic Sedan (I needed something cheap that got good gas mileage so I could drive across the country and back a few times this summer) and after a month or so on the factory tape deck and 17 year old factory speakers, I had enough...
So, I bought a deck, tweeters, and new front and rear speakers.

A few days after that, I got the itch.. I needed some bass. I was on a budget, so I went with 1 JBL GT5-12 and a slot ported box, which, according to my calculations (which could be wrong..) is tuned to around 35hz, and a 250w rms mono amp.

The setup pounded pretty hard with my rear seat folded down, but didn't leave me completely satisfied. (My last build was a 93 Mercury Tracer wagon with an Alpine head unit, Alpine 6.5s and Alpine 6x9s running off some kinda 4 channel amp, I don't remember what it was.. Annnd a Kicker L7 15 in a custom ported box running off an Alpine V12 1000w(tested) RMS monoblock. Pounded HARD.)

So, I added another JBL GT5-12, and switched to a 1000w rms (500x2) 2 channel amp.

Loud. In some instances, the 2 JBL 12s are seemingly similar to my old L7. Heck, I even had the Sheriff show up at my house twice on a noise complaint and I don't even have immediate neighbors. I promptly told 'em to frigg off, since I live in the country, way outside the city limits, and there aren't even any noise ordinances, so.. Technically, there was nothing he could cite me for anyway.

ANYWAYS...

That lasted for a little while, and I decided I needed MORE bass.

Now, I'm SERIOUSLY limited on room. The Civic's trunk is SMALL.

I thought about getting rid of my 2 boxes, and building a ported box for 4 12s, but after doing some cubic foot measurements, with each GT5-12 requiring a 1.75 cubic foot box per sub, there really isn't anyway in heck I can make that box and fit it into my trunk. It has to be able to come out when I want, when I take the family grocery shopping, roadtrips, or whatever.

I did some math, and came up with the idea that I could fit 2 10s in a small sealed box (.75sq ft. per sub, which is what is recommended) and still fit it in the trunk, and, they would be removable, so if I was going on a trip and needed space, I could take out the 2 12s and leave the 10s, or leave the 12s, or 1 12, or whatever..

How do you think the setup would sound having 2 12s ported and 2 10s sealed, each subwoofer getting around 250w rms?

I'm also a tad worried that the placement of the 2x10 box directly behind the seat will hinder some of the 12s volume with the seat up/down. How much impact will this have? the 12s are in individual boxes on the rear corners of my trunk facing each other, with about 1.5ft of space in the middle. I feel like having a box in front of this "bass chamber" would hinder some of the sound flowing through where the seat rest would be.

Maybe I could remove the rear fiberboard dash panel, and drill a buncha big holes in the aluminum rear dash support panel thing to let more bass out of the trunk? I don't care how bad it looks, It's.. A 95 Civic...

Or, I could build a proper vented box for the 10s, fold down the backseat, and have them sitting on top of that facing the trunk area, and just take the 10s out when I have passengers or something?

SQ isn't the main issue here, SPL on a "budget" is. I'm trying to rattle my eyes out of my head and **** off the whole world. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

Any ideas and / or suggestions?

tl;dr

 

[Ineedmorebass 10+ year member]

Lol.. What?

 

[av83 10+ year member]

Lol.. What?

That means "too long; didn't read"

First off, you are about to get laughed at a lil bit. If your feelings get hurt easily, than get out now. But if you can take a ribbing you will garner a good bit of excellent advice from folks who play with audio every day. Believe me, I took my fair share, lol.

Second, the gains you would see by simply adding subs while using the same amount of power is minimal, at best. You will get better results by adding wattage and/or putting your current subs in an enclosure that maximizes what you are already working with. Am I correct in assuming that you purchased an enclosure that was already built (a.k.a. "prefab")?

 

[THATpurpleKUSH 5,000+ posts]

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/popcorn.gif.32dd9e22fd77e77bc3c907062768fcd2.gif

 

[Ronny 10+ year member]

How about a good battery in the rear, a lot of power, and a single ****** 12" driver with a proper enclosure? Or, the same premise, but with two ****** 10" drivers?

If you are after some decent SPL, I would highly recommend that, instead of 2 12" drivers ported, 4 12" drivers sealed, or 4 10" drivers ported with each driver receiving only 250Wrms. Yes, there is no replacement for displacement, but I guarantee that one of the recommendations above in this post would certainly out-perform your initial ideas with 250Wrms per driver.

 

[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

How about doing the 2 10's sealed and tell us how it works out. Everyone hates on the idea but NONE of them have any experience doing it. You might just start a new trend....

 

[Mitch86 5,000+ posts]

I been running 2 10s a 6x9 an 8 and 6 tweeters for years. I get the high highs, the low lows, the mids and the STDs in my ride //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

 

[quackhead 10+ year member]

if you cannot make 2 12's on 500w ea get loud enough, u should probably give up.

 

[mazdakid 5,000+ posts]

Obviously loud enough isnt the same for everyone.

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

More power, better equipment/ thread

 

[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

Obviously loud enough isnt the same for everyone.

there is no such thing it seems. Mine is ok loud some days, not very impressive on other days...

 

[quackhead 10+ year member]

there is no such thing it seems. Mine is ok loud some days, not very impressive on other days...

your hearing has a lot to do with that.

 

[Ineedmorebass 10+ year member]

I'm just gonna bui.d a custom box that will fit and stick a decent 15 in it and hope for the best..

 

[Ineedmorebass 10+ year member]

mlstrass, I did 2 sealed 10s a few years ago.. !0" CompVRs in a custom box, Alpine V12. They didn't really pound that hard, and I didn't like the way they sounded. I ended up putting like 500w to each of them and they started smokin'... So, I brought 'em back and got an L7 15 and was waaaaay more satisfied.

 

[Full Tilt 10+ year member]

Just out of curiosity, why are you tied to the L7? It's both expensive and calls for more space than a standard 15 (comparing to my SA-15), and both of those qualities are inconvenient for you. You pay for the name on Kicker, and there are better subwoofers out there that you can spend less on, which also require less space.