Rep Power: 276

i never attempted or even bothered to build my own sub enclosure. but it may be a nice project to attempt for expierence and just to tell my son "oh yeah, i built this sub box" lol. but i want some personal feedback and input of others who built their own sub boxes. i have no expierence with woodshop, craftsman ship, or use of materials. i want to try to create a ported wooden sub box for my sub woofer and wanted to know if thats difficult, easy, moderate, etc?

i bet the outer diameter would be ease but how about where the ring terminal matches up? i seen a buddies enclosure that came with the subs and the speaker terminals look pretty hard to try. but please let me know the basics, advice, anything about building a sub ported box.


thanks all.

 
Rep Power: 336

Its REALLY easy.

I use 3/4" MDF wood.

All you really need is a drill, jigsaw, hammer, and some glue/nails/screws.

Any imperfections in your worksmanship will be covered up by the carpet you cover your box with.

Of course, if you have better tools, you're box will come out better and be easier to make.

 
Rep Power: 276

question: what is 3/4" MDF wood? and why 3/4"?

most likely home depot would have it, is it exspensive?

 
Rep Power: 310

Hold the phone! It's one thing to make a wooden box, it's quite another to make a subwoofer enlosure. What's the difference? A sub enclosure must take a lot things into consideration which effect the sound and volume of your bass. There is oodles of info on this site if you search. You must consider sealed, ported, bandpass, Air space, port tuning, woofer displacement, etc, etc, etc. If you don't really care how it sounds, thats cool, just slam together a rectangle. But at least do the minimum research so you don't end up with a 3.4Cu" box for a single audiobahn 8.

MDF is Medium Density Fiberboard. It's the wood of choice for box building. Why 3/4" because it's typically the appropraite size for strenght and constructability.


BTW, personally, I think it will be 10x more gratifying if you take the time to build your box with high craftsmanship and to the specs of your subs. Any fabrication project is just that, a project. It should be planned, brainstormed, blueprinted, templated, whatever! I bet if you really put your mind to it, you'd surprise yourself at how good that enclosure will come out.

 
Rep Power: 336

well obviously i didnt litterally mean a box.

 
Rep Power: 0

Maybe you should consider building a simple sealed box. See how things go together. Insert sub and enjoy. Then start doing your homework on a ported box as J187 suggested.

I have only built sealed boxes. Four of them. First one was a wedge, just to be different. Next one was a simple cube. The next two were identical rectangles, made using the "Golden Rule", which I have forgotten.

 
Rep Power: 328

Also, for cutting the straight lines, I wouldn't use a jig saw. The imperfections will be magnified greatly by the performance. Use at least a skill saw, or rent a table saw.

 
Rep Power: 346

I don't think a ported box is that much harder than a sealed box, he might as well build a larger box, then if necessary, run it sealed with somethign inside to take up volume, then port it when he feels up to it.

With whatever you end up using, a jigsaw or a small circular saw, make a simple sawboard to cut straight lines. For the port, a router would cut better circles, but a jigsaw would be fine for it.


building a sub enclosure is pretty straight forward, a great learning experience anyway. a 4x8 sheet of .75" MDF is pretty cheap, around $22 or so from lowes or HD.

GL!

 
Rep Power: 310

Dude, it's not obvious, beleive me. You'd be surprised how many people just look at what trunk space they got available and start cutting wood into 6 sides. If you think its obvious that no one would just make a sub enclosure without considering T/S param or woofer displacement, you haven't been here long enough!

BTW, I wan't actually suggesting he build a ported box. I was just saying to consider different alternatives to figure out what he'd be better off with. ED, that's an awesome suggestion that never even crossed my mind. That's exactly what he should do if he wishes to port.