Choosing Subwoofer

I'm stuck choosing between these subwoofers. I listen to hip-hop and want hard boomy bass.
My box will have .7 cubic feet of space per sub.
Would I be better going with the 10" sub with .65 recommend cubic feet or the 12" sub with 1.00 recommend cubic feet.
https://www.skaraudio.com/products/vd-10-inch-car-subwoofer
https://www.skaraudio.com/products/vd-12-inch-car-subwoofer
They are both the same sub, same watt rms. Obviously the 12" would be better if I had the space but since there's less space would the 10" hit harder?

 

First, what are you looking for besides “loud and boomy”? Are you wanting a little kick, or do you want to rattle fillings?

If you want simply “loud and boomy”, the 10” is the way to go. The airspace is about right for a VD series sub. The 12” will be choked in performance with almost .4cuft too small.

If you want to rattle fillings, I have 1 question. How much rear seat are you willing to lose? Only way to tear your face off is ported, and there’s no real room for a properly ported box behind the seats.

Personally, I have a Sundown Audio SD-4 12” sub in a .85cuft box behind the drivers side rear seat. The box is a little small for specs, but performance doesn’t suffer too much. My other option was an Alpine Type-S 12”. Box specs there would match up well with your space requirements.

In the end, whichever way you go, be realistic. You’re not going to pull “hair tricks” with a sealed 10” or 12”. But for better than factory, you have some good choices.

 

The biggest enclosure I’ll go with is behind the rear seats I’m willing to take out everything behind the seats. If you have any other prefab enclosure recommendations that’d help, maybe one with any more air space or a good ported box. I’m looking for something that’ll shake my mirror, basically just some hard hitting lows. After looking into the Alpine Type-S 12 that seems to be a pretty good fit.
https://www.xtrememobilesolutions.com/toyota/tacoma/toyota-tacoma-tac140 This is the box, I think it’ll fit… but you might have to double check me.

 

2 12” Alpines would be good, but if you want deeper lows, ported is the way to go. Try this box with the Alpine,
http://www.audioenhancers.com/vehiclespecific/tac140p.php

 

You think the 2 12” alpines would be better than one ported overall though? Also any recommendations on an amp to pair with them?

 

2 12" subs would thump, no doubt. But even 1 12" ported would get those "nasty" lows you're looking for. Ported, on average, dig deeper than sealed, just because of box characteristics. You should develop more cabin pressure (ie. boomy bass) with ported. Sealed leans more towards SQ for details. @soundman98 @MGMDesertTaco Correct me if I'm wrong.

*edit* Remember too, with 2 subs, you need double the amplifier power. That means more amperage, which means bigger battery, which MIGHT mean bigger alternator. This is a rabbit hole, once you start, you just keep falling. I go back to my original statement, "be realistic in your goals".

 

Would I really need to upgrade the battery with a kicker cxa 1200.1 amp, that’s what I’d probably go with

 

Well, the stock alt is, I think 120A on the 3rd gen. (Probably wrong). Anyways, the only amp draw indicator I could find is on Crutchfield, which says “4ga and a 150A fuse recommended.” That’s a lot of juice, and personally, I would rin 1/0ga to the amp. A replacement battery would be a good idea, an AGM not a lead-acid.

 

ported won't dig deeper, they tend to have a hard stop at the port tuning frequency. they will play louder due to using both 'sides' of the sub, and can use less power depending on the subs dampening factor. ported also requires about double the space. but a poorly dampened sub means that it will get 'floppy' at high levels.

sealed can dig deeper, generally has a gradual frequency response taper. it will be less loud because it's only using the 'front half' of the sub, and will use more power, as the air within the box restricts the cone movement. but also needs less space. because of the air restricting sub movement, they will inherently sound 'tighter', meaning they're ready for the next 'punch' faster than a ported setup because of the internal box air restricting cone movement(TLDR here-- for the more technical, 'restricting' really isn't the right term of the physics happening, but i'm trying to keep it simple ).

properly set up, a dual-sealed setup is going to be just as loud as a single-ported setup.

with the 'fit behind the seats' limitation, you can realistically fit either 1-10/12" ported, or 2-10/12" sealed.

given what i've read so far in terms of perceived experience level, i would recommend 2-12's in a sealed box because it's a lot easier to set up. it's just the subs, a box, and proper amplifier power. adding ports means proper tuning and testing, and proper amplifier sizing and setup. failure to setup the amp right, or get the port tuning correct raises much greater risk of damaging equipment.

 

the next question is going to be "where are you going to mount the amp?"

if the sub box takes up the entire back area behind the seats, you're pretty well restricted to mounting an amp under the front seats, which is going to narrow down compatible amps really quickly.

 

I was thinking I’d mount the amp below the rear seats in the storage cubby. With one ported sub I’d be going with this amp https://www.crutchfield.com/p_20646CX81T/Kicker-46CXA800-1T.html

I’m also on a budget as well and the total of the single ported is almost $250 cheaper, so when you say that 1 ported and 2 sealed are just as loud as each other wouldn’t it make sense to go the cheaper route?

I didn’t think about the tuning and didn’t know the “tuning frequency” of a ported box is basically the bottom limit. I just thought that was the frequency it played best at.

This is the sub + box, would this not be a good combo? https://www.crutchfield.com/p_500SW12D4/Alpine-S-W12D4.html
https://www.xtrememobilesolutions.com/toyota/tacoma?product_id=226
The box is tuned all the way up at 37hz and the sub goes down to 24hz. I’m looking for the nasty low bass.

 

if the box is tuned at 37 hz(i don't see this listed anywhere), and is 1.4cu ft, that would work fine.

 

It’s listed on the main website that it’s 37hz. You said that the tuning frequency is where it limits. Will it still hit lower than 37hz all the way down to the sub limit?

 

your -3db point is 32hz. it's as good as you can do with the predetermined limit of fitting behind the seats. anything to hit lower needs a larger box/larger port, which means less seat space.



i also modeled a few other options, nothing really different over the alpine, the box size is the limiting factor.

 

I currently have the JBL factory upgrade, since you need to keep the factory amp to retain the factory head unit, I’ve heard some say I’d need to get a LOC like the Lc2i and some have told me that I’d be able to just connect an amp like the cxa800.1 like I linked. Is it true I can use an amp like this without an LOC?

 

According to the manual, yes, the amp accepts both low and high level inputs. You need an RCA male to speaker wire adapter.

$8 CESS-064-1f Speaker Cables to RCA Plugs Adapter, 2-Channel, 14 AWG Speaker Wire, RCA Male to Speaker Termination Leads, High-Level Signal (1 Foot)

https://www.amazon.com/CESS-064-Spe...8464075&sprefix=rca+to+speaker,aps,148&sr=8-1

 

it's odd that it doesn't include those.

 

Would it still be worth to also buy the lc2i, with the bass restoration feature and would it process the sound better than the kicker amp?

 

That I don't know. Is the LC2i the one with the "Epicenter" setup? If so, I'd go with that, because I'm a closet basshead.

 

I’m not sure what you mean by that, this is what I’m talking about https://www.crutchfield.com/p_161LC2IPRO/AudioControl-LC2i-PRO.html I am very unintelligent when it comes to the electrical part of sub systems.