[Shotimes] (OT) audio advice, please: adding a sub to 94 CV

[Donald Mallinson]

I am a bass freak, not to the point of what kids do with rap 
and other music where you can hear it all over town (small 
town) at all times of the day and night, but nice deep bass 
that I can enjoy inside the car.

My 89 was good to go except for not enough bass.  I added a 
dedicated 200 watt amp, bridged to 400 watts and a 12" sub 
in an enclosed box in the trunk.  The large pickup truck box 
fits perfectly under the rear STB and isn't even bolted 
down, so I can pull it out for racing.  Amp is hooked in 
through the rear speakers with a simple adapter.  Amp output 
is run stereo to mono inside the amp for a single voice coil 
woofer, or you could run a double voice coil woofer and 
eliminate some of the electronics.

I think good deep bass is what most systems need.

How does it get into the cabin?  Well, it does because real 
bass is very low frequency and non-directional to the ears. 
  The structure of the car transmitts the sound into the 
cabin just fine for trunk mounted subs.  I found that when I 
aimed my sub at the back of the back seat (facing forward), 
that the sound was lousy.  We turned it around, facing to 
the rear and the sound was great.  Every installation is a 
little different.  Before building custom cabinets, get some 
advice and do some crude experimenting.

A sub with box/amp all together (bass tube etc) might sound 
great mounted in the RR corner of the trunk, but horrible 
right behind the seat!  Having it bolted down helps transfer 
the bass to the car.  If you don't go wild, a couple hundred 
watts is plenty and 10" can get you real bass. More cabinet 
is usually better than less.  I like sealed systems rather 
than ported.  Sealed sound better for deep clean bass, 
ported systems sound better for rap or boom bass.

Don Mallinson

van Oss wrote:
> My oldest son is driving our 94 Crown Vic.  He's expressed interest in
> adding more bass to the audio system.  That's what kids do these days.   : )
> His 17th birthday is coming up, so I am exploring subs, poking around
> FleaBay, etc.  Two things you should know:
> 
> -- My 92 SHO has factory JBL (two amps, one 6" sub) with 4 aftermarket
> speakers.  The quality and volume are more than enough to satisfy me and my
> son.  In fact I don't want him to have that much volume.  I'm looking for a
> qualitative improvement, not quantitative.
> 
> -- The CV has a $100 aftermarket CD receiver which we think has RCA
> connections for a sub.  The front-door speakers are factory but the rear
> 6x9s are 2-way aftermarkets.  The present system contains no amp.  He
> listens mostly to pop and hip-hop.
> 
> As always, budget is limited.  If you had $100 to spend on this audio
> system, what would you do?  Front speakers?  Main amp?  Powered mini-sub?
> 
> Also one specific area of question:  How do subs get sound into the cabin?
> I mean, the JBL sub points the sound through an opening in the rear shelf.
> The enclosures and tubes I'm looking at, it's not clear --- do they also
> want a hole in the rear shelf?  Or does the sub just sit in the trunk,
> sending rumbles through the rear seatback?
> 
> TIA for any advice.
> VO
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