placing sub enclosure in backseat
 

has anyone here tried folding down their backseats and place their sub enclosure their for maxium spl/loudness? basically the subwoofer enclosure will sit right on top of the backseat with the seats down. i have a coupe and was fiddling around finding the best location to obtain max spl/loudness from my 2 12's. before watsing the time doing this, i wanted to know if this would be a good location for what im trying to do?

I've done this in the past with my old 85 civic. Here's my take on your idea...

If you will always have the back seats down in order to listen to the stereo, then you have a great idea and it would work well.

If you want the seats up most of the time, I suiggest using the same cutom enclosure (angle matching the back seat angle) and face the subs toward the rear of the car. I did this in my 97 civic and it sounds great.

I just got an 05 civic HX and I'm simply going to take the box from the 97 and put it in.

Good luck


-Brian

just face your subs towards the back of the car. that will make the sound reflect back and it will be louder.

Pros:
1. Doing this can drastically reduce the noise of your trunk rattling like crazy.
2. It's a little bit louder.

Cons:
1. You''ll have to drag that box back to the trunk if someone needs to sit in the back seat.
2. It's gonna dash around like crazy when you're driving. Having a 50+lbs box slamming back and forth into the sides of your car isn't good.
3. Thieves will see your system in the car, then you're really f*cked.

Yeah keep it in the trunk.

decided ill keep it in the trunk cause of thieves, safety issues, and convience.

i know bass waves will get louder as it reflects, but will i notice more spl/loudness by just facing the subs toward the front of the car with backseats down?

from my experience, i would face them towards the rear of the vehicle with the seats up. remove your rear deck speakers and dynamat the whole rear dash with the exception of the holes where the speakers were. get a good set of kick panels and you're good to go.

definatly keep em in the trunk facing the rear of the car. they hit a lot harder and when they face the inside of the car w/ the seats down its nothin special i used to do it i have 2 12"s and i love em 4 now

SPL != loudness

The idea with SPL is to create pressure, putting your subs somewhere so they fire forward unrestricted is not very effective at creating pressure. It will probably be louder, but won't have better SPL. Putting the box firing backwards as close to the back of the car as possible will probably give you better SPL, because bouncing the waves off the back of the car will help create pressure, and give you better numbers.

If you want an example, I know of a guy who recently bought a new car for SPL. He had a very large box from his previous vehicle (a van) that has 4 10s or 12s in it, I can't remember. Previously in his van, he was hitting high 130s with the subs all firing up, presumably the roof was helping create the pressure. In his new car, he simply turned the box upright with the subs firing forward and had the box behind his back seat. It was kind of like a wall, but not really since it was just a box sitting on the back seat and not a real sealed off wall. I sat in the car and it was really really loud, but when he went in the lanes to do his run, he hit like 122dB. Why? Because his subs were freely firing forward with no means to pressurize the wave. Had he had a real wall, the wave woould have pressurized between the windshield and wall and he would have got a high number, but with the box simply on his back seat, NOTHING. But it was loud.

So yeah, SPL does not equal loud. Loud does not equal SPL.

how many inches away do you suggest placing the sub enclosure facing the BACK of the car away from the trunk lid?

im not sure if it was this site, but i remember someone said 6" away facing toward trunk lid was the best spl location for a basic build box?

I suggest whatever's loudest. With some boxes some things might be louder some things not, you have to test and see.