Box building and design

[moetpoppin]

Any place to get good answers for these questions?

Reasons why to design a box a certain way?

What is the best frequency to tune a box? and why?

When 2+ drivers share an enclosure, how does that effect the design of said enclosure? volume/tuning?

I have spent hours combing through this and other forums, but have not found decent answers.

The only thing I have found so far is: "I am getting an "X" amount of "X" kind of subwoofer. What box should I build?"

Well I am a strong believer of the chinese proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

However, I am trying to learn how to build a decent box on my own but have not been able to find decent information. I think it would be beneficial to everyone if they could find out the answers to these questions. If you try to teach everyone how to fish, most people will be fed for a lifetime.

Any input is appreciated.

Thank you

TY

Edited August 3, 2010 by moetpoppin

[fecupe2001]

Any place to get good answers for these questions?

Reasons why to design a box a certain way?

What is the best frequency to tune a box? and why?

When 2+ drivers share an enclosure, how does that effect the design of said enclosure? volume/tuning?

I have spent hours combing through this and other forums, but have not found decent answers.

The only thing I have found so far is: "I am getting an "X" amount of "X" kind of subwoofer. What box should I build?"

Well I am a strong believer of the chinese proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

However, I am trying to learn how to build a decent box on my own but have not been able to find decent information. I think it would be beneficial to everyone if they could find out the answers to these questions. If you try to teach everyone how to fish, most people will be fed for a lifetime.

Any input is appreciated.

Thank you

TY

1) Well, designing a box it´s kind of tricky, you depend on the power, car, subs, porpouse, music likes and stuff like that.

2) Best frequency? depends on the kind of music you like the most, on the US people tune boxes between 35-38 hz most of the times imo, that´s because the music you guys like the most has some nice 35-45 hz frequencies, in my case, i always tune around 42 hz, because on latin america we listen more "punchy" music, techno,merengue,salsa,reggeton and stuff like that.

3)Common chamber it´s much easier and i think has better results (at least on my experience) than sepearte chamber, if there´s two subs on a single box, you have to get a proper internal space, port area, alignement, etc etc.

About your lost time on forums, well, sometimes people find boring explaining the good stuff to new people on this car audio world, myself, i try my best to help, when i started around 1997 i had to lost A LOT of money learning because forums didn´t exist, so now you cna take advantage of that; When you read those "X" , they mean for example 2 cubic feet @ 35 hz, tuning depends on the kind of music you like, the size of the box depends on a lot of factors i mentioned to you a few line ago, but to give you an idea, i use something like this:

10" sub: 1.5 cubic feet for daily, 20SQ of port if i have small power and 24SQ of port if i have a nice power

12" sub: 2 cubic feet for daily, 26SQ of port if i have small power and 32SQ of port if i have a nice power

15" sub: 3-4.5 cubic feet for daily, same story.

18" sub: 5-7 cubic feet for daily, same story.

If you like rock, techno, latin music and some nice hip hop i would tune around 42 hz, if you like the lows i tune around 35 hz, box size also come together with music likes, if you want to hit the lows a small box doesn´t work that nice, you need a big box with a low tuning, if you want to pound hard the punchy music, you get a regular size box with a higher tuning.

Tell me what kind of music you like, the sub your are using, the car, the amplifier, the porpouse of this box, and i´ll give you a much better example, let´s help you fish my friend!!!

[fecupe2001]

I forgot to mention something very important, amount of power come in hand with box size:

Small power - big box

Huge power - Small box

A small box gets you a better cone control and power handling when you have a big amplifier, if you have a small power you need to get the box bigger to compesate the lack of a big ass amplifier...

[sub2weeker]

i build big.... my buddy put 2 10in diamand audios in a 9 cubic foot box with this port you could crawl in and did a 145 on music.

i believe in the big port theory, your port should be a minimum of 16sqin per 1 foot of box airspace. and use a port calculator to tune the frequency.

also.... if you build your own sub. or recone it and decide to stiffen up the suspension by say adding 4 or 5 stiff spiders. the Subwoofer will control itself and at that point the box is just a means to amplify and produce a bigger sounding wave when it comes out the port.

[fecupe2001]

i build big.... my buddy put 2 10in diamand audios in a 9 cubic foot box with this port you could crawl in and did a 145 on music.

i believe in the big port theory, your port should be a minimum of 16sqin per 1 foot of box airspace. and use a port calculator to tune the frequency.

also.... if you build your own sub. or recone it and decide to stiffen up the suspension by say adding 4 or 5 stiff spiders. the Subwoofer will control itself and at that point the box is just a means to amplify and produce a bigger sounding wave when it comes out the port.

9 cubic feet???? holy shit!ahaha, in my case, for daily i love the sound of the 10´s on 1.7 per sub, depends on the sub also, i don´t think you can´t get a 9 cubic feet box for 2 kenwood 10´s hehe, what subs were on that box? best i hit wth my daily system on the swift, 148.1 dbs with 3 dd´s 1510 and 4000 watts on 2 batteries, loved that system!!

[moetpoppin]

great info! So going past the recommended size isnt bad as long as you are building it the right way?

I put some volume and tuning information into WinISD on two 12" RF P3D412s I have, and I liked the way the curve looked. But it was about 2x the recommended volume for my drivers. It was something like 7 ft³ compared to the recommended 3.5 ft³. However, it made the bass about 16x as loud in a certain range than my current sealed box. And it was louder than my sealed box at all ranges except for below 25hz which was already in the -11dB range so it shouldnt matter anyways. I will be trying this build in a few months and after i get a decent table saw to make my cuts nice.

The next build I am thinking about tho are two 15" PYLE woofers, they have a 4ohm DVC and will probably be powering them on a 4ch Pioneer GM-X574. It should be pushing about 200w bridged into two channels at 2ohm each. I am thinking about running one sub/channel giving each sub around 200W RMS.

Also I have another amp in my boat that pushes 150w RMS at 4ohms.

How do you feel about both subs in a shared 8 ft³ tuned around 40 hz?

Or if I decide to split this pair of subs up, how would you feel about each driver in about a 4-5 ft³ tuned to around the same frequency?

I like most rap music with the deep bass. Like jeezy and three 6 mafia

[fecupe2001]

I strongly suggest you to forget about the curves on the programs, if they were real, the people that build for SPL competitions wouldn´t even test anything, they change the moment you get the box in the car, 7 cubic feet for 2 12´s it´s huge!!! Maybe it could work very nice, but for those subs i wouldn´t even try that internal space, the sweet thing is that you can try and learn for yourself bro, that´s fun IMO!!

For the 15´s , i think that´s a very good box, sounds great , i think you could even build bigger with that small power...

[moetpoppin]

what would be the max space to put the 12"s in then you think? I dont have them with me at the moment but building a new box is the first thing im doing when i get them back. How about like a 5-6 ft³?

I am trying to get the pyles to sound good since they aren't very good subs. And they are rated at 1400W each but im thinking they wont be able to handle that very well and I dont want to drop money on a decent amp for crap subs. So you think they would boom a little in the big box with little wattage behind them?

[moetpoppin]

and whats the deal with this port area thing? I know about tuning boxes and there are many tuning calculators, but whats the deal with the port area? Does that have to do with the size of the slot if you make a slotted port? like a 3 inch wide port in a 12 inch tall box would be about 31 inches²? What is best for different applications? More power vs Less power

[Ray]

vent are depends on which woofer your using.

you will never learn all of the tricks to making a correct box on a forum.

comes from alot of practice and trial and error and TL time in cars