OEM Stereo Upgrade: JL Audio or Alpine

Just pulled the trigger on my order:
-(2)Boston Acoustics GT-2200 amplifiers
-(1) Boston Acoustics Pro50SE components
This is some older discontinued models, but I know that this stuff rocks.
 
The JL under spare sub referenced by others is interesting. Has anyone here actually used one.... I'd be very interested in your opinion.

I don't want to rock the other cars at a stop light... just want some sub-base punch. If you have experience, what was the amp, it's feed, and performance inside the SHO?  Subs should be felt and not heard... usually like them passed at 50-60HZ using 12dB/octave. How does it move the air necessary when it's under the spare and the  spare cover? TIA

If it's any good I need to jump as I understand it is discontinued.
 
Did you notice that the JL box raises the whole floor, about 4-5 inchs supposedly. Says it makes it match the sides and front. If that's the case, I can easily build a false floor that only 5inchs tall myself, and put it on top of the spare tire. To where you just lift the box up to get to the spare.
 
Good point!  I can build my own box... port it and use 2 subs firing through the back seat to hit lower and move the air without compromising any more trunk... and likely less than $700.
 
I personally have not seen this enclosure but the actual 13" sub that JL uses is KILLER . I've seen and heard a few installs with it . You would probably want the sticky sound deadening material strategically placed to eliminate any rattling issues ......
 
To be fair, if it is raising the floor by that amount, you could definitely just build a false-floor subwoofer system with amp rack (I've made a bunch, this is my speciality...stealth)


If that box is under $500 though, you've got a good deal.  Something to start with, you could build a rack out of baltic birch ply (light and strong) around it for your amps, and cool them off with forced air flow.  Easy-peasy.
 
AT $700 for just and enclosure and a subwoofer it opens up a lot of options. Really when it comes down to it, the trunk space is so large that putting an enclosure up against the rear seats really does not take away much useable space.
 
This was my old 2 10inch box. I now have basically the same, but its moved all the way to the right, so I can still use the drives side pass through. Besides needing the pass through for my snowboard, I have never even filled up a 1/4 of the trunk, to where I needed that front ledge that the box sits on.

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Kolk1 said:
This was my old 2 10inch box. I now have basically the same, but its moved all the way to the right, so I can still use the drives side pass through. Besides needing the pass through for my snowboard, I have never even filled up a 1/4 of the trunk, to where I needed that front ledge that the box sits on.

7F2ECB17-52F9-4777-A61B-7E5569151FF5-5407-0000044EEF6002E2.jpg

Yeah that's the good typical spot for a sedan.  However, you can make it even cooler by building a beauty board and organizing the shapes a bit.  Here's an example of the ones I've done, after building the basic box facing back (for ideas)  See the space utilized here, I have a slide-out amp and processor rack (that's a MS8 and Massive 950.5) on drawer slides, so they can be accessed for tuning and whatnot when the beauty panel is moved out of the way.  The bars are aluminum U extrusions available at Home Depot / Lowes, rabbeted into the beauty panel.  Same trick I used for my Flex build, due to the strength.
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Covered originally in matching carpet, the owner wanted something with more flash so I re-covered the top panel with carbon-fiber vinyl in the same silver of the exterior paint.

Another option is to build UP with the subs, like this:
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And hide the equipment entirely with a simple panel.  Doing this means you'll attract less attention when the trunk is up, and the subs are completely protected.  That top thing is actually removable shelf, which holds emergency supplies, blankets, extra shoes, whatever up there with a ledge to keep things from flying around.  Simple, but works.
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Front had the amps, due to the fold down seats, why not, right?
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Now I want to demonstrate another solution, one that might work even better in the trunk of the SHO (and other sedans).  This is a box I made for a Fusion, building out of only wood I made a shape that used most of the extra trunk room that's lost to most "boxes" of rectangular beginnings.  Interestingly, the nature of the angles I used meant the box was extremely easy to build, because the angles "figured themselves out" mathematically. 
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So, even with an amp rack on the opposite side, there's still room to throw in TONS of stuff, lengthwise which may mean more to folks than width-wise in a sedan, because of those odd shapes at the corners in the back. 
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And mind you, that last system was capable of supporting massive subs and massive amps, so even with that there is space to spare.

Final examples for the moment, is a shallow false floor design, one that embraces the spare tire as an important part
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And, one that doesn't!
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Basically, there's lots of ways to make it work.

You might need to first ask yourself, do you want to mess with fiberglass?  It isn't hard, it is messy, expensive, and time-consuming as hell, so consider that.  IF you aren't going to go FG, then you can pare down your options to more conventional boxes, but that doesn't mean bad things.  Far from it!

If you have specific direct measurements of the trunk space with pics, I can try to make a 3D model of a box similar to the ones you've seen... if you like my style.
 
Really cool designs!  Are they all free air mounts?  How did you calculate box volume in the more irregular shapes?
 
I think one of the best solutions for our vehicles if you have the PP or can live without your spare tire, is to build an irregular shaped box that will fit under the floor covering in the trunk. I think there is ample volume available in that area especially with the shallow mount subs that are available. The only question I have that if the floor covering can be left intact and still get good bass response in the car's cabin?
 
BiGMaC said:
Really cool designs!  Are they all free air mounts?  How did you calculate box volume in the more irregular shapes?

I use sealed enclosures 90% of the time.  I have built bandpass (4th order) and vented boxes, but acoustically the car is well-suited to a low-Q (oversized sealed box) enclosure, by design.  That's because the car interior cabin itself is like a box.  Literally, being in the car is like being IN an enclosure, like being in a 4th order bandpass.  You can prove this by rolling windows down and listening to the frequency response change.  This is why I like sealed boxes in a car.  Exception:  A car that's purpose is to remain open for far-field music playback, for someone who likes to pop their hatch and play music at a park all the time, as an example.  In those cases, a ported or bandpass box is superior.  In a car though, with all the doors closed and the windows closed or cracked open, a sealed box wins most of the time.

To answer your other question, measuring odd shapes is actually extremely easy.  As long as we're not talking about fiberglass shapes, everything breaks up into segments, and thus can be measured.  We have triangles basically.  Squares, rectangles, parallelograms, and other polygons can be broken up into triangles.  Cylinders and cones can be measured too, just using standard mathematics.  And going from 2D to 3D is as simple as multiplying by height.  l x w x h is a cube or box, and (lwh)/2 is the area of a triangle (or pyramid in volume terms)  So, it is simple. 
http://www.science.co.il/Formula.asp


Fiberglass shapes are best measured with packing peanuts.  Take a box of X size with an amount of loose peanuts, pour in shape, and measure box after shape is poured.  Subtract and you have total volume of the fiberglass shape!  There are many other ways, but basically you just need something that isn't too messy that can take any form, and measure a known good form against what it takes to fill the fiberglass shape.
 
SRT82ECOBOOST said:
I think one of the best solutions for our vehicles if you have the PP or can live without your spare tire, is to build an irregular shaped box that will fit under the floor covering in the trunk. I think there is ample volume available in that area especially with the shallow mount subs that are available. The only question I have that if the floor covering can be left intact and still get good bass response in the car's cabin?

I'm afraid I don't understand the question.  When you speak of floor covering, what do you mean?

Bass frequencies travel through most objects like a knife through butter.  All we're doing is pushing around air with pressure variances, and all but the most sealed-up trunks will be a great candidate.  Sometimes, it is good to add an opening to the parcel shelf in the back, though.

But maybe I don't understand the question.

edit:  Ah, I re-read your question, and now I understand.  What you are asking is, does the flimsy hardboard covering the spare tire has above it affect bass, if the sub is in the spare tire well.  NO, it doesn't affect it.  If the covering was an inch thick, and completely smothering the opening, it might affect it a bit.  But there's nothing to worry about with a piece of lightweight hardboard.
 
I was referring to the thin floor covering that spans the spare tire well. If it was thought to be beneficial at all, I could see using a router to cut some small slits/opening in it. I am going to have to take some basic measurements of the spare tire well to see what volume is available. Not sure if it will work for me, since I was counting on storing my amps in that location.
 
SRT82ECOBOOST said:
I was referring to the thin floor covering that spans the spare tire well. If it was thought to be beneficial at all, I could see using a router to cut some small slits/opening in it. I am going to have to take some basic measurements of the spare tire well to see what volume is available. Not sure if it will work for me, since I was counting on storing my amps in that location.

No need to cut into that material, however the typical approach to building a false floor is to actually use more robust materials, and then build a grille into the top cover, and then you have something you can actually put some weight on.


Personally, I think you guys would really like a side-facing sub box like I showed pictured. 
 
SHOdded said:
As long as you have that hardboard properly secured and not bouncing like a trampoline :D

EXACTLY, talk about harmonic distortion!

When building false floors, it is good to use STRONG materials.  I visualize people actually using their trunks.
 
I really like the idea of the side box as well. I just do not have the time or expertise to pull of something like that. Lanson, it is too bad we could not get a Taurus in your hands and have you model a side enclosure to sell to the masses.
 
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