Proper sub set up...

[dangerranger83]

The sub box only has the sub in it and only has 2 wires to put into it. I am running 8 guage wire to the amp and 16 guage wire to the sub from the amp, same size that was used when it was hooked to the 12 inch. The amp is a 4 channel but my radio is only a 2 channel. One thing that I do hate is how there is the hump behind the seats that raises up, kind kills off space behind the seats for stuff. I use to have a 400 watt amp pushing it but wasnt enough, hooked up the 500 and it made a world a difference. i guess I keep trying to compair my setup to what a vehicle who has theres in a trunk, will never sound the same. I am able to build a bigger box for the sub though, just need to rotate the rear speakers so they are vertical and I will have more room. Will putting a hole in the box help? The 12 inch one has that built into the box and it sounded bad ass.

I did get it tuned a little but living in the city, its not easy to do. First I will seal off the box better and see how it performs from there. I also played with the radio settings and that helped a bit too.

 

[nine-teen91stxranger]

look up the specs for the sub as for a sealed box for it, and ported, and that could be where your loosing some of your bass that the sub its self is being muted by pushing aginst your seat. take the sub and just sit it on your passanger seat and see if it sounds better.

 

[nine-teen91stxranger]

and theres alot more to porting/venting a box then cutting a hole in it. if you want some help but the guys are dicks over there, go over to caraudio.com and ask them some questions but most those guys are brand nuthugging fags.

 

[dangerranger83]

Its not pushing against my seat, its right behind the middle arm rest and more to the passengerside.

I came here for advice due to people here would know what its like to have a sub in a ranger and how they tuned it. I will sael the box better and see what its like from there.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

the only problem with using the OSB plywood like you have is that it is less dense than the layer plywood. i made my boxes out of some kind of pressed board (ill see if i can find a pic) and if i recall it was only 1/2" thick, but im only bumpin 8's. i think youll notice a difference once you seal up the seams, and just for fun you could put some polyfill in there (ill post a pic of how it looks rather than try to explain it over the interwebs); polyfill is really just a fancy name for pillow stuffing or quilt batting. you can get a bag at walmart for like $5 and it makes a world of difference in an undersized box.

here you can see the strip that i placed around the perimeter and the one that i put on the back of the box. you dont need much, just enough to cover the majority of the exposed wood.

i blew my shitty subs (pyramid audio) within a matter of days so i ran this kenwood 8" in a band pass box for a few months until i had the $ to buy my JLs.

heres the board that i used, luckily i had more left over after making the intial boxes because i had to cut out some spacer rings inorder to fit the bigger magnets in my boxes

 

[dangerranger83]

I do notice that you have a cover in front of your sub but there are holes in it meaning the sound is meant to come out of them? Im running basicly what your "spare seats" setup is like.

Ya didnt really know what the fill stuff was until you dumbed it down for me but I will give it a try when I get a chance. I just hate having a single cab but hey it was a gift from my dad (grad gift his old truck) and cant complian about it.

If I ever get money I will build a bigger box but I will try any cheap solution to get by.

 

[nine-teen91stxranger]

the wood he used to build his box is MDF which stands for medium density fiber board, and the box where his sub is covered is called a bandpass boxx which sounds ok, but theres better to be had. and yeah, just try to seal your box up again. and if you do deceide to build another box let me know, i can try and get a blue print for you to follow.

 

[RangerDan99]

as far as you guys saying that hitting the back of the seat muffels the subs it dose but hardly enough to make a big difference mine are mounted like that and as long as they are not hitting the seat they are fine. just like the 2009 f150's the subs hit down andabout a inch off the ground. and yes if you make a new box make sure you get the right materials they may be more expensive but it make a world of difference. also they are right about the porting of the box. you have to have it done right but if you do port it make sure you get port tubes. they make a big differnce to.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

the bad pass box gave me really deep bass, but the box had some water damage to the seams (swelling) as a result of living in a wrangler, so it was only a temporary solution for bass. ported boxes work well, but you have to have the required air space inside as well as the proper length and diameter port tube. this web site has many calculators that you can use to build or measure almost any type enclosure: http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/boxes.asp

 

[Blake.]

i had one 10" sub and two 5 way 6x9's all run off of a 600w 4-channel amp in my single cab s10 and i have to say it was the best set up i have had as far as just sounding good with some bump.

its all in the box. a cheap sub in a good box will do just fine. but an expensive sub in a cheap box will sound like crap. and like said before airspace.

i have two 12's in my dakota in a ported box for lows but the bass is sloppy. i need a sealed box.

 

[dangerranger83]

Well I found out that one of the things that is making mine sound like crap is the rear speakers that I have arent handling the bass so well due to being hooked to the radio that has the bass turned up all the way so that my sub puts out the best. If I adjust the front to rear sound fade and go front I loose my rear sound along with my sub fast so that doesnt help. I may just unhook my rear speakers and see what it sounds like. Right now the rears like to rattle rear bad due to the bass they are getting front the radio but then again they are in the words shittiest boxes too (homemade in 30 min) and the fronts arent any better either. May have to get better front dash speakers so that when I do want to hear the words i can (highs) and just have the sub in the rear (for my lows). Does this sound like a good plan, looked at pics from a few posts ago and didnt see rear speakers, just subs. If thats the case then I could actually someday put 2 subs in the rear. I also saw with just a 2 channel setup that you can hook 2 subs up a couple of ways Click me (look half way down or so and thats what Im talking about). Basiclly just want good sound without it sounding like a rattlecan spray can going off.

Took a closer look and saw the rear speakers are there and they are the same sized ones that I am runninng. How do you keep them from wanting to mix in with the bass, if that is possible?

 

[Blake.]

there should be a cut off in your radio, so you can keep below a set frequency from going to the rear speakers.

also get an amp for those mids and highs, it'll sound a whole lot cleaner. it makes a world of difference. just make sure you have speakers that can handle it. Ive gone through 4 sets of front door speakers in my dakota, 3 were covered under warranty

 

[Blake.]

also you dont necessarily want to turn the bass all the way up. keep it a few clicks from maxxed out and turn the mids and highs down to match. that'll help keep the distorted sound down some too

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

The way i have my sytem set up the radio only sends rca and remote signal to the amps and thats it. I bundled the speaker wires coming out of the radio and put a piece of shrink tube around them to keep them out of harms way. I have 3 amps on the back wall of the truck, the 2 outer ones each power a sub and the middle one handles the front and rear speakers. They are mtx speakers and the rms rating on them is higher than the rms output of the head unit so they sounded like crap wheni had them hooked up to the stock speaker wires. I ended up running all new wire from each speaker to the middle amp so now the rms ratings are equally matched and they sound much louder and clearerwith less distortion in the higher volume ranges. If you want to check out the mini build thread i put together for my set up just do a search for "?'s about wiring my system" and it should be the first result that pops up.

 

[dangerranger83]

My radio doesnt give options on what to send where, like I said, tis a cheap walmart cd player that I got, its better then the factory radio that I had.

Now if I turn my volume down a bit sounds good but if all that way up sounds like crap due to the speakers are trying to do both highs and lows from the radio. If my front ones were good, then I could actually understand the words (when I want to) and not have crackling from them when turned up. So maybe tomorrow I will unhook the rear speakers and see what it sounds like without them and have my fronts as the highs. Basiclly, some expiramenting is going to be going on.