E30 Zone

I have a good old style Alpine head unit with standard size Hertz up front and JBL in rear deck.

I need SOME bass

Birthday coming up and was thinking a new JL 10" or 12" (which is better for E30?) sub at around £150 with a 2nd hand E-bay mono amp as cheap as i can get but staying Alpine / Kenwood.

Is that a reasonable plan for cheap bass addition? (JL Sub box looks small ans classy imo and dont want big/trashy looking box in boot!).


Cheers

Touring, cab or saloon?

small box you have 2 options really:
sealed design giving you tight, fast bass but not particularly low.
isobaric ported giving small box but you'll need 2 drivers the same.

I had my 2 12" Sonys (yes I know they are rubbish) in a proper designed sealed enclosure for a while, I changed it to a ported design (4" ports) and about 3'x'3'x1' in size lol. I'll never go sealed again.

You could also look at the Kicker Solobarics as these are supposed to give good response in small enclosures although I have never used them.

single 12 with a simple ported box, big box (3 cu.ft) but use the dead space under the parcel shelf, this pic is in my cab, but box now lives in my tin top.

more bass than i will ever need, boot still usable for shopping, golf clubs, wakeboard..what ever floats your boat.

reckon for everyday usage a nice 10 inch in a smaller ported box under the rear shelf would be sufficient.

oh and moved to ICE section!

Did you port it through the ski hatch knockout?

no, there is no ski hatch in a cab, so the box is actualy designed to get the best out of car responce (according to the blurb that came with the speaker) and as i considered the bass speaker in the sealed boot and i was sitting effectively out of the boot, so i wanted the best out of car (or boot) responce. it is very deep and bassy but struggles with very hard punchy bass at high volume. good for chilled music, but hardcore drum and bass not

the port is 13x4 and fires to the side of the box pointing away from the pic (i.e under the amp)

it was designed to fit under the roof enclosure of the cab as its only 11inches high, hence the slanted front, and i also wanted easy access to the spare wheel - the whole thing just un plugs and comes out.

i have the ski hatch out on my tin top and it makes little difference inside the cabin, also the direction the speaker faces makes little difference (low frequency waves are omni-directional anyway, unlike high frequency tweeters that make a huge difference which way they point)

It is one of the better sounding systems i have heard considering the budget i spent on it, and more than enough bass - infact too much for the cab as there is no where to put decent sized mid range speakers - but nice in the tin top

Thanks for replies.

Been down to car audio shop and best item he has is :

MTX 12" sub with reasonable looking plain grey unported box for £100 - cheap offer as its been there a while and effectively ex-display

OR what i think is far better (not the bottom range sub in their range and ported box)

JL Audio from E-Bay delivered for £129

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JL-Audio-JL-C ... %26ps%3D54


Probably a no brainer but would appreciate any knowledge on MTX subs - any good or stick with the higher budget range JL (as it also has a port and possibly better designed box).

Cheers All

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JL-AUDIO-CP11 ... %26ps%3D54


correct link - same product but £129 delivered

mrLEE30 wrote:the direction the speaker faces makes little difference (low frequency waves are omni-directional anyway, unlike high frequency tweeters that make a huge difference which way they point)

This isn't exactly true, so whilst the low frequency waves may be omni-directional, the direction the speaker faces can make a huge difference. This is due to many factors including standing waves. That is why you get some people saying that their subs sound louder with either the window or boot open. If these people turned the sub boxes the other way round their subs would be as loud as they were with the window or boot open.

As for the JL sub, I would say that the JL boxes get the most out of their subs and that sub at that price sounds like a good deal, just make sure you get a good amp 1X300wrms minimum @ 4ohms.

This isn't exactly true, so whilst the low frequency waves may be omni-directional, the direction the speaker faces can make a huge difference. This is due to many factors including standing waves.

yes you are correct (actually no sound waves are truely omni-directional as the pressure waves propogate radially from the source, the differecne in hearing the different frequencies to my understanding, is more to do with the attentuation they experience, thus a tweeter pointing high frequency waves at your ear will transmit more sound than a tweeter pointing away from your ear, as it gets more attenuated due to the longer distance and reflections, lower frequrencies do not attenuate as much thus the affect is not as apparant to the ear), but in a ported box the majority of the sound is created by the internal box and port, this is why i say it makes little difference, really the box design, size and porting make a bigger impact than the speaker direction

mrLEE30 wrote:yes you are correct (actually no sound waves are truely omni-directional as the pressure waves propogate radially from the source, the differecne in hearing the different frequencies to my understanding, is more to do with the attentuation they experience, thus a tweeter pointing high frequency waves at your ear will transmit more sound than a tweeter pointing away from your ear, as it gets more attenuated due to the longer distance and reflections, lower frequrencies do not attenuate as much thus the affect is not as apparant to the ear),

Agreed

mrLEE30 wrote:but in a ported box the majority of the sound is created by the internal box and port, this is why i say it makes little difference, really the box design, size and porting make a bigger impact than the speaker direction

Alot of the sound IS created in the box and almost all of the sound at the tuning frequency, but this doesn't mean it can't suffer from sound cancellation due to standing waves and reflections.

I always try my boxes I build in different positions and the best position can vary due to position of any port(s) and the remaining boot space.

this is getting technical

E30S wrote:this is getting technical

LOL, it is abit.

Firstly, what type of music do you listen too, as this will depend on what size Sub you go for.

12" gives a nice low frequency and better suited to RnB, reggae etc...

and a 10" will give a puchy bass, more for Dance music trans etc.......

Then it will depend on what type of box you go for, standard, ported, iso........ the list goes on.

Rav what about bhangra? Loll

I have a self amped 10inch sub in my car, and i listen mostly to deep low down bass reaggae, dub and dubstep.. Its pretty good but i still want more!

Thinkin of going for a 12inch sub with a phonenix gold amp iv got kickin about

I have 2 x 12" pioneers in a box in the Cab
And I bought 2x12" Infinitys for the Chromie.

Always bigger, the better.

Oh, don't listen to Bhangra

I've had enough of listening to that for the past 20yrs with my brother and his studio

mrLEE30 wrote: As for the JL sub, I would say that the JL boxes get the most out of their subs and that sub at that price sounds like a good deal, just make sure you get a good amp 1X300wrms minimum @ 4ohms.

can u recommend any good amp brand for this JL sub? ( with link if possible)
cheers

Vibe slick 12"
Knock your fillings out, still room for 2 bmxes, mates long board and a couple rucksacks.


This is mine.

[youtube][/youtube]