Why do my JL's sound like crap in a wedge box????

[MxRacerCam 10+ year member]

I have two JL 10W3 D4's running off of a JL 500/1 amp. When these subs were in a plain rectangular box, they sounded great. Well, I came across a great deal on a pre-fabbed wedge box, I bought it. It is withing JL's specs for volume, but the subs bottom out quickly and sound anemic... does the lack of depth behind the subs in this type of box hurt performance??

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[Phatillusion 5,000+ posts]

I would say yes, I had a wedge box once, and had a 4 cheap 12's. I thought it was the 12's that were sorry, until I took 2 out, built a new rectangular box that gave plenty of room. They were slammin pretty hard after that. So definitely, if they sounded good in the other box and now you switched them and they don't sound great, then the box is most likely your problem. Sound waves bounce off other objects, and changing to a wedge box, changes the direction in which the waves bounce.

 

[Unregistered]

12W3 and all woofers need a particuler cubic air space for there proper funtion. to get the best perfomence out of your woofer got to JL audio .com and get thier speces sound like that box you bought is just the wrong size.

Tino :from Aztech Car Audio

 

[Unregistered]

an enclosure can make or break a sub, best to fab one urself or pay a professional to do it =)

 

[jellydime 10+ year member]

Did the wedge have seperate compartments for the subs? I have seen many beginners with that problem, they buy great subs and put them in a bad box and they sound like crap. Make sure that the box isn't one big compartment and if it is I'd be willing to bet that is your problem.

JELLYDIME

 

[MxRacerCam 10+ year member]

the box has a divider in it, although not having one doesn't effect performance that much. i had my brother solder them in while i was installing the amps and it turns out he wired one of them backwards.... thus one was out of phase. corrected the wiring and now they sound great!!