# sub direction



## xt_out (Jun 23, 2003)

which way is ideal to aim a sub in a sentra??


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## droppinbottom (Jun 30, 2003)

each enclosure will sound different i like to face my subs towards the rear. trunk allows sound to bounce off of it


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## xt_out (Jun 23, 2003)

that's what i told my dumb ass friend who insisted the sub HAS to be faced near the rear or it sounds like shit. i said each car was different and that he was a ******  (i've been spending too much time with this b!t<# someone back me up here so i can send him your reply and prove im right! 
ps he drives a honda civic HB, (well he did till he crashed it)
proves what he knows huh


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## go4broke44 (Jan 14, 2003)

i found that facing the subs towards the back, hits the hardest, but i dunno, that could just be my opinion. i have a large sealed box with 2 12's


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## xt_out (Jun 23, 2003)

tHE GUYS AT PHOENIX GOld say generally facing backwards is more SP while facing them frontwards is more SQ and facing them up is in between


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## droppinbottom (Jun 30, 2003)

xt_out said:


> *tHE GUYS AT PHOENIX GOld say generally facing backwards is more SP while facing them frontwards is more SQ and facing them up is in between *



that is generally true


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## sfhellwig (Feb 4, 2003)

You can face it any way you want but the closer the cone is to the rear of the car the better.It hits harder this way because of less cancellation. Same thing in a house. You don't put your sub in the middle of the room because it has nothing to reflect off of and several cancellation frequencies. If you put the sub right behind the back seat of a car it sends a wave forward and backward and when they meet back in the middle they cancel. This would be like putting it in the middle of a room. If you put it 6" from the rear of your trunk the wave immediately reflects and forms one main standing wave from trunk wall to firewall. I didn't graph the exact differences when I moved my sub but I gained nearly 5 db peak from flipping my sub to rear facing.


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## xt_out (Jun 23, 2003)

thanks for all the f/b


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## Slayer2003 (Jun 4, 2003)

face them to the trunk, and if you can, fold one side of your backseat down. wooooooo. :d


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## Paul79UF (Jan 23, 2003)

sfhellwig said:


> *You can face it any way you want but the closer the cone is to the rear of the car the better.It hits harder this way because of less cancellation. Same thing in a house. You don't put your sub in the middle of the room because it has nothing to reflect off of and several cancellation frequencies. If you put the sub right behind the back seat of a car it sends a wave forward and backward and when they meet back in the middle they cancel. This would be like putting it in the middle of a room. If you put it 6" from the rear of your trunk the wave immediately reflects and forms one main standing wave from trunk wall to firewall. I didn't graph the exact differences when I moved my sub but I gained nearly 5 db peak from flipping my sub to rear facing. *


damn that sux....i have mine facing rear with about 2 feet to the end of the trunk.....but it would look like crap if i flipped it to show all the wires and such.

oh well.....but i see your point


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## Guest (Jul 21, 2003)

i dont know if this is true, they say bass is multi-directional? so whichever you face your sub, bass will be heard just like playing drums in the jungle.

o BTW my ride has a SQ set-up and my sub is facing towards the trunk.


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## sfhellwig (Feb 4, 2003)

Having room between the subs and the back of the trunk is not entirely bad. I am trying to find the web site that finally made me understand. Had great illustrations and put sub alignments into 4 categories.
1. Front facing, front of trunk
2. Rear facing, front of trunk
3. Front facing, rear of trunk
4. Rear facing, rear of trunk
1 is worst, 4 is best. 2 & 3 can be the same pending size of your trunk/box. Plus every car has unique characteristics.

As for unidirectional, yes bass is. But that can actually cause more cancellation. Since the wave moves out in all directions it will reflect off of every wall. Every pair of walls that are semi prallel will create a cancellation or reinforcement. Moving the sub in relation to walls can have drastic differences on cancellation frequencies both for the good an the bad. Some cars happened to be shaped well, others not. I have seen reference to Accords and Thunderbirds simply "swallowing" the bass up regardless of how the sub was placed.


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## sr20dem0n (Mar 19, 2003)

sfhellwig - How is #1 bad? Is it bad for SQ or SPL? Those are 2 very different things, and you have to position the sub differently for each of them. You can't just say something is _bad_ or _good_, it all depends on what the person is looking for out of their bass


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## sfhellwig (Feb 4, 2003)

Your right, I guess I don't think in those terms as I shoot for middle of the road on SQ/SPL. #1 would probably be better for SQ as long as you have enough power. The bass is very transient and clean with very deep extension. I just wasn't as loud as I thought it should be. #4 is defenitly good for SPL but can also be the best for SQ. My sub seemed to loose a little extension but the bass drum in ALL music came up and is very punchy. Bass music is still good but I can tell I hit harder over a wider frequency range. This will be different for every car. I liked the sound of position #1 for my car but it was plagued with alot of cancellation. YMMV in that your car may sound better for a certain application with #2 or 3. If you are planning a very involved box I would suggest building a simple box first. Get an SPL meter and a test disk and plot all 4 positions. Then plan your build. Your SQ/SPL requirements and likings may be very different from mine.


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## sr20dem0n (Mar 19, 2003)

ah that's much better, I think I'll try #1 at first, and if it isn't loud enough then I'll start moving it around. I'm going to have a single 12 with ~900watts going to it, so I think it should be loud enough, but we'll see.


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## sfhellwig (Feb 4, 2003)

Also so I don't send anyone in the wrong direction, all comments I have made are about my system in my 90' 4-door cutlass supreme. I will be transplanting the system into the Nissan soon but have not peronally tryed the sub placement in my 200SX.


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## W0rp3D (Jul 18, 2003)

There was an article in a magazine where they tested this, the best position was to place the sub in the back corner of the boot facing into the corner, they specified which way was best side but i cant remember, i had a kicker 12" up the front of the boot facing backwards, due to money issue's i had to sell it, i then picked up a cheap pioneer 10" and put it in the back corner and it sounds better than the 12", in the test they did they said that having 1 of them in the back corner had the same amount of gain as having 2 of them up against the back seat facing forward.

Bass for thought


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## Modernmav (Jul 2, 2003)

Hey, i put some 8"subs 2 of them facing the trunk, rear of the car, which u guys siad would probably give more spl, but i think it gives me better SQ . at least in my sentra thats the way it seems. i test it with "Brassy Monkey"- by the beastie's that song hits pretty hard.
mav


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## GTRsentra (Jul 10, 2003)

if subs are aim like this does it still give good sound


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## sfhellwig (Feb 4, 2003)

GTRsentra, that is a nice install. You completely chopped your rear deck to do that right? Wether that's free air or a box, as long as the baffle completely seals the cabin from the trunk that is the best way to go. It would be the same as mounting your subs in the back trunk wall and building a box outside of the car. I dream of loosing the back seat and building a baffle for a single 15". Nothing like a 10 ft3 sealed box.


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## GTRsentra (Jul 10, 2003)

thats not my car would be nice. I was wondering if the subs face that way in my truck will it sound good the subs am getting look pretty like that from the back of them so i want to show it off if it will still sound good?


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## Russia (Jul 24, 2003)

Thats a really good Q...Im getting 2 15" subs soon and I have no idea what to do...It would be BEAST to put them in the back of the trunk facing front and fold the seats down...hahaha...but yea, I guess having it face towards the very back of the car is the best from ur input so Ill see what my friend thats doing the install says and go from there.


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## xt_out (Jun 23, 2003)

i hope im happy with the way my box is set up then cuz it would be a bitch to redo everything, as my amps are already installed and the only thing i could do is turn the sub to the side and have it firing toward other side of trunk but that would probably have more cancellations...


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## sfhellwig (Feb 4, 2003)

Mounting the subs inverted is just fine, alot of people do that. Audio companies wouldn't make them so pretty if you couldn't run them that way. As long as the box is built right and placed right, inverted drivers loose very little radiating surface and there should be no difference in excursion capabilities. You will loose a little high frequency but that doesn't matter. Biggest problem will be chuffing. If the sub is a vented pole piece it will make mechanical noises when it gets to movin. But you may not hear it over the bass. Could be bad if you compete in SQ though.

As for being a PIA to redo your trunk, I found the rules of placement a week after finishing my box carpet and all. Now I have a little panel sticking off the side of my box to route wires that I don't even use. More trouble than it's worth to remove it and patch the carpet.


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## tekmode (Feb 22, 2003)

i have mine facing out, everything sounds find to me


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## GTRsentra (Jul 10, 2003)

sfhellwig said:


> *As long as the box is built right and placed right*


I can use normal box for inverted subs what you mean by place right?


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## sfhellwig (Feb 4, 2003)

By placed right I mean put in the correct spot in the trunk. The original topic of this post.


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## xt_out (Jun 23, 2003)

bwa ha ha. i figured it out. im alright. my box is in front of my wall, so basically if i deade that wall like a mofo, then its just like having the sub in the back of my trunk. i'll be allright. im sure its hard to make a w7 sound bad


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## Chrish_jr (Aug 12, 2003)

what I found was that with the dual 12" RF subs I had in my ported box they sounded the best with the speakers facing the floor of the trunk (port was facing down as well) with some 2x4 boards under the box keeping the speakers off the floor of the trunk. the 2x4's had carpet covering them that matched the box as well. The 200M punch amp was mounted on the back of the rear seat so that I could flip it down to do any adjustments as needed, this also kept the amp out of the way providing slightly more room in the trunk. a 1 farad cap was mounted near the amp on the back panel of the same seat.

-christian


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## PrOxLaMuS© (Aug 11, 2002)

The longer the sound waves, the better it sounds and there is less distortion....

shorter the waves.. the more distortion


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## SentraStyleEMW (Aug 15, 2002)

PrOxLaMuS© said:


> *The longer the sound waves, the better it sounds and there is less distortion....
> 
> shorter the waves.. the more distortion *


?...wtf?


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## xt_out (Jun 23, 2003)

SentraStyleEMW said:


> *?...wtf? *


i almost understood but then something happened


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## PrOxLaMuS© (Aug 11, 2002)

*sigh*
i thought it seemed fairly explainitory to me....

With huge subs... when you blast them really hard, you can get what is called distortion... where the sound waves basically slam into eachother and cause a really bad sound, sometimes sounding like the waves are distorted or broken or bent or something.


With loow low frequencies with subwoofers, they generally sound better with longer wave lengths... rather than being right next to them.. (short waves)

Meaning that the longer the wave's and the further the sound waves travel, the clearer and more distinct the sound becomes.

*If you want better sound, and more boom boom, turn your subs to the outside so the waves bounce off the trunk sending the waves through a longer distance to your ears. 


Ca-peesh?


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## xt_out (Jun 23, 2003)

ca-peesh.


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