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(65 votes) Published: Nov 13, 2007 5:06 p.m. Viewed 416 times
Ok this is complicated to people who can barely do origami. But for people who can visualize a box in their head and have patience, this is a great 4 hour project.
First of all, You need to know the diameter of the subwoofer, the reccomended box displacement, the depth of the cone of the subwoofer, what you plan to build the box out of, where you will mount it and also whether or not it should be ported.
Upon figuring out whether it is a 10 inch, 12 inch or 15 inch subwoofer, you should start to get a good idea in your head of how big it needs to be. The great thing about building your own box is that you can custom-form it to the specifications of your trunk or hatch so that it looks like a factory unit and fits perfectly. Wal-Mart sells great "build your own box" kits for subwoofers for $20-$35. These kits actually impress me quite alot. They are made from 5/8" MDF (medium density fiber board), they use strong foam sound adhesive, include woodscrews and mounting plates, they are completely enclosed and watertight and are pre-carpeted. It takes 15 minutes to assemble (its in 3 pieces). But for custom fitment to difficult trunk areas and retaining trunk space, a custom box should be built. Boxes can be as cheap as $91 from Bestbuy and they use 3/8" mdf and it is very poorly designed, some of them can be as expensive as $500 and are built from 5/8" mdf and have an angled backside just like the wal-mart BYOB kits.
In this egg, im not going to give you a huge lineup of different boxes to build, plans or anything like that because your own creativity will satisfy you more than following one of my eggs. It isnt that im lazy, its just that every subwoofer has its own box and they arent always universal.
DIFFERENT BOX DESIGN:
Square (cube): These boxes generally have a nice balanced sound at different frequencies and give a nice sturdy thud. When combined with low-wattage speakers, they sound hollow and smooth but not very crisp.
Ported: These boxes have their ups and their downs. You can take a mid-power sub and amp package and make it sound thunderous just by having a ported box. the issue is that it wont be clear. It is designed for a certain frequency range (ex. 45-100hz) The music will be very smooth and it will smoothen out the notes to make them less defined which can be good in some circumstances but bad in most.
Open-Air: Subwoofers exposed to open air have their ups and downs as well. The great thing is that the entire speaker range is felt. If the speaker is capable of going as low as 10hz and as high as 3khz than it will be known. It wont sound hollow and the sound will really ring out well. IT wont sound like it echoes so notes will be very crisp and defined. What is bad is that when these boxes are constructed poorly, they sound like shit. The boxes need to be built of MDF and needs to be built sturdily. Carpeting not only makes it look nice but it also helps to absorb and filter out some of the unwanted rattles and buzzes that are inevitable with some speaker setups at certain frequencies.
Triangulated/Trapezoid: These boxes have their ups and downs. The backside of the box is at an angle to the speaker. It helps to utilize the lost thud that goes out the backside of the speaker and hits the back of the box. IT angles that thud down towards the floor of the box. Rather than having the sound waves travel parralel to the walls of the box, they deflect and hit the walls of the box perpendicularly to get the biggest hit from the box in all directions.
This ported box with plexiglass over the speakers gives a loud thud from the speakers and protects the speakers from foreign objects but will generally be built for a certain frequency range and sound like shit.
This is your basic build your own box kit. It just comes with the top connected to the back, the front connected to the bottom, and then you put in the 3 middle segments to construct your 5-piece sub box. The issue is that it is only meant for a certain subwoofer. If that box is 2.50 cubic feet for the inside displacement, than you need to find 2 subwoofers that have the same diameter, and have the same reccomended box displacement that will fit in your trunk.
This box is rather space consuming for the size of the speaker that it holds. IT is ported and has a tube inside and has a great shape. I am sure that it has great sound quality when paired with the right speaker but there are cheaper alternatives to good sound than this.
Custom boxes can be as creative or unusual as you like them. Some people remove the spare-tire out of the floor of their trunk and replace it with a subwoofer system, some people put subwoofers underneath seats in their car. But make sure that it goes with the rest of the car. Fiberglass/epoxy/bondo work is great for making smooth finishes and custom curves and abnormality but it looks really out of place when it is put into a minivan or accompanied by gross external wiring in a car with a clean interior.
Manytimes the simpler will not only sound better, but it will be easier to fit in your trunk, look better and cleaner and is easiest to work on and modify for different amps and speaker packages that you cycle through. IF your subwoofers are in your trunk than you wont need to worry too much about the clarity of your music unless you open up your trunk to have a tailgating party. Ported/Plexiglass setups look really sweet and custom even if they are the $160 Dual Setup that BestBuy has on sale. You will get reactions from people at car shows and anywhere and it will look alot better than just a speaker in a big grey box in your trunk.
When you shop for a box or build your own box, keep in mind what your amplifier looks like. You dont want to purchase a super futuristic subwoofer box if your amplifier is a 1980’s 40-watt Jensen powerhouse. Dont place amplifiers in super cramped places because they create heat and you dont want to have a heatsource crammed in tight areas anyways. Keep your amplifiers in spots that they wont get wet, they wont get stomped on or the wires get ripped out, they wont get dirty and they wont be seen. Manytimes i find its easy to just mount it in the rear shelf area in your rear window and then tint your windows. If your weatherstripping in your trunk doesnt leak than mount it on the inside of your trunk lid.
Materials/Tools Needed to build a sub box:
5/8" MDF (medium Density Fiber Board) Purchased at Home Depot for pretty cheap money.
Woodscrews
GorillaGlue or even Waterproof Silicone Glue
Jigsaw
Powerdrill with a bit to drill pilot holes
Automotive Carpeting (very cheap) buy at Home Depot.
In total you can build a dual 12" subwoofer box that houses two 12 inch subwoofers with an angled backside, a chamber that separates the left and right speakers, and fits custom to your trunk for $25-$40 and takes 4 hours to build.
Never mount two subwoofers back-to-back on opposite sides of a box. The magnets of a subwoofer are almost always over 5 lbs each and they will pull/push eachother in unusual directions. Not only will they push and pull the other magnet in wierd directions, they will also push and pull the coils inside and the cone in wierd directions so that the music doesnt sound right, it sounds like shit, distorts easier and ive had them not play at all. The subwoofers in my car have 10 lb magnets EACH!
Have fun, get creative and dont be afraid to tackle a crazy subwoofer enclosure project. There are many plans online that describe custom boxes and it isnt nearly as hard as it looks. There is no reason to spend $300 on a box that was stamped out in China for $8.73 and is made from our recycled newspaper.
Nov 13, 2007 5:19 pm - The kit from wal-mart that i purchased and then modified was actually perfect for my car AND my subwoofers. The subwoofers i put into my car required a 1.25 cubic foot displacement box. So i bought 2 boxes for 2 subwoofers. The backside angle of the box was 70 degrees. The rear seat angle of the passenger seats in my car is exactly 70 degrees so this box fit perfectly against the metal backing behind the seats. IT actually covered up the ugly metal pretty well. But not only that, the width of the metal backing between my strut towers was 37 inches. Each one of these boxes was 18 inches in width so combined, it gave 1/2 inch on each side. They fit perfectly inside the trunk like it was meant to be. Thats how you are supposed to design your custom boxes. As of today, i have built 47 custom subwoofer setups for Volkswagens, BMWs, Toyotas, Hondas, Oldsmobiles, Mercuries, Chevies, Fords, Trucks, Coupes, Hatches, Sedans, Minivans, SUVs, and Mini Coopers.
Nov 13, 2007 5:23 pm - fuck this deserves a 4* but you get a 5* because all your other eggs are good. This is the kind of thing that needs original pics
Nov 13, 2007 5:27 pm - yeah the problem is just that i take pictures ALL THE TIME. I take pictures for my work for racing engines and project cars so my entire digital camera is filled to the brim with pictures. I have 3 SD cards that hold 2 gbs each and theyre filled with customer pictures for insurance reasons. I dont have the time to filter through thousands of photos and transfer them from my camera to my pc, put them on photoshop and onto here because it is completely unnecessary to get the message across. I want to make an egg on the actual construction of a speaker box but im just not sure how some people will handle it and whether or not some people have the patience to build one and then rate my egg.
Nov 13, 2007 6:08 pm - computer subwoofers are usually ported because they are low wattage and need to be loud. The clarity doesnt matter because the crossover is meant for such a low frequency for sound effects in videogames from grenades, bombs and thunderous bangs so the sound range doesnt matter. Ported Subwoofer Systems in car audio setups need to be accompanied by 4 large woofers in order to balance out the sound. The ported subwoofer should be set for a crossover frequency that is extremely low and the large (6x9 inch) woofers should be set for a crossover frequency from 200hz-4khz. Tweeters and mid range speakers are for higher frequencies. Using ported speakers and computer speakers limits you to the versitality of your frequency range. Bose speakers are actually cheap cardboard speakers. But they use a special porting system that ports larger speakers on a low frequency crossover in wider tubes for more bass, and it baffles and ports the other speakers for midrange and high frequencies with narrower sturdy tubing to amplify the sound without making it sound muddy. It uses really small tweeters to crisp up the high range sound more. This is why bose speakers can be so loud and compact with such low wattage. The number of decibels per watt in bose car audio systems is much lower because their car speakers are designed more conventionally.
Nov 13, 2007 6:34 pm - First of all, dont use a ported box. Ported boxes are good for rap because theyre loud and smooth and dont bring out the imperfections in the mixing of the original audio track.
I reccommend using an open-subwoofer on a box that has an angled back. It brings out the clarity and hits strong and instantaneous. What is your price range? I can give you a whole perfect lineup of the right amp,sub and wiring kit for your car.
Nov 14, 2007 2:23 pm - if you can afford to go expensive, i would do it. IF you want to build your own really nice subwoofer box with $40 than you can use $460 for other things. Personally, with $450 in car audio equipment, i would use a 12 inch Alpine Type R subwoofer, a 400 Watt Alpine V-Power Amplifier with a $60 car audio install wiring kit. The subwoofer can be found for $200 at most sources, or $230 at bestbuy. And the Amp can be found for $180 at most sources or $200 at best buy. People say "hey 400 watts isnt that much power". Well 400 watts RMS is ALOT of power. More than youll ever really need. Slightly underpowering the subwoofer is safer than putting it right on the edge of its capability. The subwoofer can handle 500 watts RMS or 1500 watts peak. The amplifier can be bridged, it puts out 600 watts peak power and has less than a 1% total power distortion in sound. With that particular setup, you can bridge it and use low impedance wire which will technically be 4 ohms but can range down to 2 ohms if bridged correctly to make the peak power 600 watts and rms power 400. These speakers are great because they are not only loud, but they are also extremely clear.
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