Tight & Musical subwoofer?

[zako 10+ year member]

+1. I would also look at the HF version of the same drivers. They like bigger boxes than the HO version. I'd go with one 12 sealed.
Also look at the aura sound amps while you are on PE. Very nice old school amps.

IMHO, 12 inch Daytnon HF does not seem the best option for the car. Based on its. T/S parameters, WinISD recommends >2.0cu ft sealed box. The 10 inch Dayton HF seems about right. WinISD recommends 0.8-1.0 cu ft box and this is what people have been using. A 1.5 cu ft dual chamber box stuffed with a little of polyfill would work great for two 10 inch Dayton HF subs. Of course, if the space is very valuable to the OP, I would say get Dayton HO 10 or 12. They require much smaller box.. but they also have much lower sensitivity so you need a more powerful amplifier.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Ported boxes with round ports are SQ oriented, slot ports are more geared towards SPL.

I cannot express to you how incorrect that statement is. If each one is done right, you wont be able to tell if you are listening to a round ported enclosure, or a slot port. The difference between the two is the round port tends to take less port area to avoid port noise than does a square port. Otherwise, performance will be virtually identical.

Slot ports use their port area less efficiently than round ports. And the right angles of the slot port means it requires lower air velocity to avoid the turbulence that causes port noise, which is why port area must be larger.

Slot ported enclosures must be larger than round ported ones. That's it. Performance wise, comparing apples to apples, they will perform the same.

 

[Tupolev 10+ year member]

Lul, groanbombed.

That statement was brought on by personal experience, unless you flare your port i can always hear chuffing. By round ports I mean Areoports, sorry to confuse anyone.

 

[bugflipper 10+ year member]

If you have the room I would go with 1 large displacement sub and have it sealed.

There are people much better at enclosure building than I that can make a ported sq sub sound very good. I have tried 10 times or so over the years and never made one I liked. They are always a little to boomy and loose for me. Most of the time sq ported enclosures are tuned in the high 20's-30hz depending on the sub.

As for the 10 vs 12 for sq. There is no such thing as one being better at transient response. I run an 18 ssa. Fast punchy bass cannot be discerned as being faster from an 8 or 10 as compared to a descent large displacement sq sub with an adequate motor. Just less output and they will not reproduce notes as low as a larger sub. Mine will play the sound of the kick pedal striking the skin along with the note. And it does not miss or muddy a beat with double kick pedal, multiple drummer bands like slipknot. A lot of it has to do with the enclosure, but as they say it's hard to polish a turd as well.

If you have the space I would look into a dayton 15 Reference HO. Since it is 4 ohm you would have to buy a little more expensive amp to make 400-500 watts at 4 ohm.

Or you could go with an Ascendant Audio Chaos, SSA Dcon or Icon, FI Q, Image Dynamics IDQ or like sub and get dual 4 ohm or dual 2 ohm voice coils so the amp will be a little easier on the wallet.

 

[wenn_du_weinst 10+ year member]

slot ports were made for sq boxes originally lmao. use the right amount of port and you won't hear any noise.

 

[pickup1 5,000+ posts]

I'd do 12's...i had 2 10's in my smaller pathfinder. It wasnt enough for me!

 

[duanebro 10+ year member]

I my opinion, I think that people think that larger subs are slower, or not as musical, do to a different frequency response. The smaller subs normally roll off earlier than the larger subs. Add cabin gain and the larger subs boost the low end more, making them boomy. (is that a word?)

This doesn't mean that larger subs are less musical, just that the design needs to take the frequency response of the sub and cabin gain into account.

I like large subs, and a 15 will be fine if it is built correctly.

 

[zako 10+ year member]

......

 

[zako 10+ year member]

The budget is kind of low. I personally would recommend to spend at least $200 on a subwoofer amplifier. Get something well known for quality amplifiers.. Alpine, JL Audio, Kicker, Boston Acoustics, etc. Now onto subwoofer..

The way I see it, if you like to play your music loud, a single 10 inch subwoofer will choke faster than a comparabler 12 inch subwoofer. A dual 10 inch sub setup will have better SQ (due to lower excursion) and power handling than a single 12, but it will also cost a lot more. So pick your poison..

In terms of what subwoofer to buy.. obviously there are too many brands to be familiar with all of them at once. I personally really like Harman Kardon (JBL/Infinity products). Most of mid-level or better Harman Kardon subwoofers are considered very good: JBL Power series, JBL WGTI, Infinity Kappa. The WGI is considered by some as the best SQ sub.. at any price. All of these will sound good in a sealed box. I personally consider the Kappa to be a sweet sub for a budget setup. Good sensitivity. Great sound in 1cu ft sealed box. Cheap.

Dayton HF12 requires a sealed box that's too big to be considered to be used in car/suv IMO.

Dayton HF10 seems fine, but the output may be limited for bass heavy stuff. It may be just right for rock and country.

Dayton HO 10/12.. IMHO.. these were designed for ported box use. In sealed box, these have pretty bad sensitivity and limited deep bass extension.

Image Dynamics IDQ v3: excellent subwoofer for compact sealed box application. Very good sensitivity and power handling. Expensive.

Peerless XLS: In the same league with Dayton HO (best works in ported box or with passive radiator), but more expensive.

Peerless XXLS: In the same league with Dayton HF (e.g. you need a biggish sealed box). Very good sensitivity. Expensive.

My personal pick for budget setup: Infinity Kappa 120.9w. Very nice and tight sound, and will get pretty loud even in a sealed box.

My pick for "no cost spared" setup: JBL WGTI. Sorry, never heard it, but based on reviews, exactly the sub I dream about..

 

[VWBobby 10+ year member]

I my opinion, I think that people think that larger subs are slower, or not as musical, do to a different frequency response. This doesn't mean that larger subs are less musical, just that the design needs to take the frequency response of the sub and cabin gain into account.

Good points! A lot of box designs don't take cabin gain into account, so someone winds up with too much boom.

With the right amount of power, and the right sub, Yes the size of the sub doesn't matter. However, there are a lot of crappy box designs and crappy subs that sound worse when you use their 15 or 18" model compared to the smaller versions..... A comparable 10 or 12 sounds tighter or performs better.

I've even read articles that stated many manufactures didn't even bother making 15 or 18" subs because they knew the application wasn't practical.

Personally, for SQ I always go with a 12 or 10. 8's sound too small, too high of Fs in most so they struggle with the low notes. 15's or 18's do great with low notes, chopped, heavy rap/test tones...... I don't find that they do very well with double-bass drum music like Slipnot, Lamb of God, etc unless you have a very high quality sub+box and enough power to drive the speaker hard (keeps it accurate in reproduction at high speed). //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif