How much bass is too much bass?

[boy&hisdogs]

So, I'm looking to piece together a system for my truck. I don't know exactly what I want. All I know is that I want to be able to put all my buddy's Walmart systems to shame, but without flexing my windows or rattling my doors loose. I also want my music to still be listen-able and not drowned out by BBBRRRRRRRRRRRRR all the time. I listen to almost everything there is. Rap, R&B, Rock/Metal, EDM, Country, and occasionally Classical.

I like the Kicker Comp R line of subs, because they seem to give you a pretty good watt-per-dollar ratio. The thing is, I don't know whether I want to push 400 (single 8), 600 (single 10), 800 (2-8s) or 1200 (2-10s) watts. Normally I would just "go big or go home" but it could mean the difference of a couple hundred dollars, depending on which route I go, and I don't want to waste it on a bunch of extra power that I'll never use.

Am I correct in assuming that wattage is the primary gauge of how loud something is (as opposed to cone surface area)? Is down, up, or out firing going to sound better? I want the bass to be more felt than heard.

The truck is a 98 Ext. Cab and I'll be building my own sealed box for under the back seat. I want to use the stock head unit for appearance reasons, and I know I need some kind of aftermarket converter but I don't know which one or whats specs are important. What do you guys recommend?

 

[SkyHighColorado]

I have 1 mtx 12" under the back seat, it's about 10 years old and still bumps! No sure on my amps but I have one for speakers and one for sub. Infinite is the speaker brand and I have no complaints about them either. I have a similar taste in music to you as well
My old jeep had a kicker cvr round 12 in a sealed box with 1000 watt amp and that was very loud! To much bass.

 

[Chris6060]

Curently I'm running a Rockford Fosgate P3D2-10 (500w RMS) powered by a 1000w Alpine monoblock wired to 4-ohm so its putting out 600w. Also have Rockford Fosgate T165 6.5" Power Coaxials in my kick panels (got a good deal on them, or else I would have gone components). Then two 4x6 Type S alpines in the dash, which I'll be switching out to 4x6 Rockford Fosgate Power series 4x6s.

This P3 is one of the louder 10" subs I've heard personally. I had a 10" Kicker CompVR in the same box before it and it blows the CompVR out of the water, even though its only 100w RMS higher. It goes all the way down to 27Hz (low for a 10", which is good.) Its a very fast sub and accurate. Only problem is, is that it has a mounting depth of 6.18 inches, so doing it under the back seat is difficult.

That being said, I'm adding two more of them under my back seat and will be powered by an 1100w Realm Monoblock (550w RMS to each sub).

Anyway. With all that being said, the system I have in my truck right now, with the ONE P3D2-10 in a sealed enclosure is awesome. It blows any "Walmart brand" system out of the water. And its not ridiculous, it won't rattle your truck apart. Extremely tight and accurate bass the whole way through the frequency response range.

Also. I would NOT recommend running a sub with stock speakers or a stock headunit. The quality will be lacking a LOT and the speakers won't keep up with even a lower end 10" sub in my opinion.

 

[RynoHarris]

Sounds to me like you want maybe a single or dual 12" setup that is affordable but still loud and clean. The funny thing I saw was "Wal-Mart systems"...kicker is sold at Wal-Mart lol they are a good brand and will let you best them to hell and back but I think they lack in quality. Look into some Rockford fosgate p1, p2 or p3 series subs. Any of those will please you very much and won't break your bank either. Their amps are awesome too but they aren't so affordable like their subwoofers. I run a crunch amplifier in my Tahoe...it doesn't put as much power as its rated for @3000 watts...it's closer to 2250-2750 but for $140 for that size amp it is awesome. They have many sizes to choose from too. You need a converter to run off your stock radio but I would highly dsicourage doing it, you won't get great sound quality and power out of your head unit. If I were you I'd go for a well sized single 12" sealed box. I use to have 3 12" JBL 12's and they were the cleanest and loudest "bang for my buck" system...1000 watts a piece and only $40 a subwoofer. Kenwood subs are good too for their price but lack in the clean sound of the other subs I noted. But for what you are wanting for sure a sealed box and 1 (preferebly 2 since you are looking at more afoordable subwoofers) 12" subwoofers you can't go wrong.


Edit....downfire box will sound best in your truck from my experience with ext cab beneath seat boxes

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk

 

[df2x4]

Without going into too much detail about my personal preferences or what I run, I'll do my best to answer some of your questions. Judging by your diverse musical taste (much like my own) you probably prefer a nice balanced system with emphasis on quality. Your assumption about wattage = volume is not really accurate when it comes to subs, what it boils down to is the ability to displace air. Cone area is important, speaker efficiency/sensitivity is important, and box volume is important. Higher power handling ability is a plus but I've seen properly built and tuned enclosures hit really hard with not much power at all. For your tastes I think you're on the right page with a sealed under-seat box. If I were you I would do some side by side comparisons of shallow mount subwoofers (less of the speaker taking up room in your box means more usable air space) and pick two 12" with good frequency response range, sensitivity, and a recommended sealed box volume that matches up with how big you can possibly build yours for each sub. Pick a mono amp for them with an adjustable crossover and as low of a THD (total harmonic distortion) rating as possible which also matches the RMS power ratings of your subs. To keep up with that you're probably going to want some better mids/highs. Components with separate tweeters will almost always sound better than coax, round speakers will almost always sound better than oblong speakers (like 4x10s or 4x6s). As with subs, some things to look for in mids/highs are frequency response range, sensitivity, and cone surround material (rubber is superior to foam). You could run a 4 channel amp for these in addition to your mono sub amp. Once again, adjustable crossovers and low THD with the addition of a good frequency response range. You can run something like this to use your factory radio...

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_161LC7IG/AudioControl-LC7i-Gray.html?tp=61671

But, like others here I really don't recommend it. If you spend enough money to buy all those decent speakers/amps you're just going to be crippling them by doing that. Sound quality from your factory Delco unit will not be excellent to say the least. If you want the absolute best sound quality out of a current production head unit that's under $1000, I'd recommend this guy right here.

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_13080PRS/Pioneer-DEH-80PRS.html?tp=5684

End of rant, that's some basics for you anyway.

EDIT - I was a little drunk when I wrote all that out. Corrected some spelling, made it look like it wasn't written by a 5 year old. If you want some help with side by side comparisons on some gear in a specific budget range let me know, happy to help.

 

[boy&hisdogs]

Wow, I have to hand it to all you guys, there's a lot of great info here!

What about the bose factory head units? I'd really like something that fills the available space and doesn't look out of place. I also don't want something that's going to attract thieves.

 

[df2x4]

As a general rule of thumb, Bose units don't like to work with anything aftermarket at all. Or anything factory that isn't Bose for that matter. You'd still have to run a converter like that AudioControl unit I linked, and honestly it would probably sound worse than what you have now. Aftermarket single din units really don't look that bad. It's all in how nice the install is, at least in my opinion. It won't fill the space completely, but as long as the install is good and the illumination doesn't look out of place you're fine. I personally really like that Pioneer, it's similar to mine and has the option to switch all the illumination to white and adjust the brightness to match your dash.

 

[michael hurd]

To answer your questions... there are many factors at play on how loud a system will play. Efficiency ( not to be confused with sensitivity [ voltage sensitivity ] ) plays a large part in this.

2nd: Bandwidth.

If you want to reproduce sound flat into the single digits, without having excess intermodulation distortion ( where simultaneous frequencies are being played, and the cone excursion from the low frequency modulates the upper frequency up and down in frequency )

This requires large radiating area, and / or reduced bandwidth. Ported ( also known as vented ) enclosures reduce cone motion at the Fb, this can add extra output, however they require a proper high pass filter to keep the driver from destroying itself if out of band signals below the tuning frequency are played.

The ported enclosure is not a trivial concept, and simply plugging woofer 'A' into a generic box yields far from optimum results. There is simulation software available to help in the design, but it's learning curve is relatively steep. I use WinISD to model enclosures, Unibox is another commonly used software package. Both are freeware that run on Windows platforms, you may be able to use them on Linux / Mac through emulation.

Sealed enclosures are relatively simple to construct, and are quite forgiving to errors in volume. Low frequency protection for the driver is good, they require no high pass filter, however they are the least efficient type of enclosure.

The way a ported box works, is the air mass in the port acts like a mass on a spring: it resonates at a certain frequency, tapering off on either side. The width of the port contribution is called the 'q'. Adding foam / fiberglass inside the enclosure can slightly widen the bandwidth of the port. ( where it works effectively )

Changing the diameter and length of the port changes the mass / spring relationship. Changing the enclosure volume ( also taking the port displacement and woofer displacement into consideration ) while keeping the port size the same also changes the tuning frequency.

In small enclosures, it is easy to have a gross error in volume calculation, which will cause errors in the tuning frequency.

Bandpass enclosures: these types of enclosures can be of a few different types, but for the sake of discussion, we will simplify it. In the 4th order bandpass, the woofer is in a sealed enclosure, that fires into another chamber that has a port. ALL output is through the port. They have fairly decent efficiency over a very limited bandwidth, are much more difficult to construct.

Bandpass enclosures have gross errors when it comes to phase response, and these also have large amounts of group delay. [ some frequencies are delayed with respect to others ]


To expand further, if space is a primary concern [ to most people that is the most important aspect ] then a sealed enclosure is your best bet. These are the most power hungry types of enclosures, especially small sealed boxes. Efficiency is rather low, albeit a raw driver with 89/db/w can in a sealed box, with the 'cabin gain' of a vehicle exceed 100 db/w in an vehicle.

With 128 watts on tap, you can exceed 120 db.

For the first time enclosure builder, I would not mess with attempting a ported box, a bandpass or a horn. These are the equivalents of the first time carpenter building a home without knowing how to.

For the best performance, I highly recommend a means of adjusting the phase relationship of the subwoofer to the main door speakers. You can adjust 180 degrees by simply swapping the wires at the output terminals at the amplifier or the enclosure itself. This can get you close, but there are other electronic means to vary the phase by few degrees.

Simply put with correct phase relationship, there will be no 'hole' where the door speakers drop off and the subwoofer starts operation. This also has to do with level, and the upper roll off on the subwoofer.

 

[michael hurd]

In your post, you mention that you don't want to attract thieves. Pretty simple, if you keep the volume reasonable driving around, with the windows UP, use the factory head unit with a line output converter, have the amp and driver out of sight, you should have zero problems.

 

[michael hurd]

A sealed box rolls off at a rate of 12 db / octave below a point determined by the box volume and the parameters of the driver: it's motor force, suspension compliance and mass all affect that.

When you have a sealed box that compliments the 'transfer function' of the vehicle, you can have almost flat response to DC, or wherever your amplifier has a high pass filter. Most class D amplifiers have a higher rolloff point than traditional old class AB amplifiers.

This is a screen shot of a measurement of an Acoustic Elegance AV12X driver in a sealed box, measured both outside, and then again inside my old Honda Accord with the measurement microphone clamped in the driver's side head rest.

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The blue measurement curve indicates the response of the box at one meter from the driver, you can see that the driver is down by 3 db at 41.8 hz, the red curve is the response at the headrest. Ignoring the measurement artifact at around 13 hz ( which is very narrow, and shows a resonance that is killing output ) the response is +- 4db from 10hz to 60 hz before any eq and adding in the main door speakers.

The high pass filter built into the cd player and the amplifier represent a 2nd order high pass filter around 10 hz.