This will require some thinking, but I'm going to make it work.

12 should be fine,
But I'm not sure you will hear any difference

 

Dampening factor is a good thing. You'll notice that higher end amps have higher dampening factors. It plays a role in controlling the cone of the woofer and resulting in that tight, punchy bass we all love so much.

Saying that a less than ideal wiring gauge will increase dampening factor is not correct, either. I think you mean to say it would decrease the dampening factor.

I use 12ga speaker wire for subs and 14 for pretty much everything else, just to be thorough. 12ga should be good enough for your system unless your speaker wire run is very long. I doubt it will yield any audible improvements, though.

 

t
You're right Shane, I meant decreasing the dampening factor. So, upping to 12ga. should improve the dampening, and theoretically, give me a little better sound, as I SHOULD get tighter bass. That's enough for me to pull the passenger seat, and re-wire the whole thing. Now to get some 12ga.

 

Okay, new year, new thoughts. Vented doesn't make sense for the small gains that I would get. Besides, it took me 3 hours to craft the side pieces, and if I didn't like it, well, I'm screwed. But I've been playing with WinISD, entered the T/S parameters for the subs, and it tells me that I would actually gain in the lower end, if I had a 2cu.ft. box, and ONE sub. Does that make sense, or did I screw something up? Because a 4x4 sheet of .75 MDF is cheap, and if I can gain something from dropping a sub, and putting 1200w to one sub, I'm willing to try it. shane, ItalynStalyn, manethon?

 

you may gain a deeper tone but as for output db you will lose... plus will your sub handle 1200w

 

Supposedly these subs can handle stupid power, with 3" VC's and huge magnets and venting. I'd probably turn the gain down on the amp, just to be safe though. But I don't want to lose db's. Deeper tone, well, EQ can fix that, so really, when it comes down to it, just stick with what I've got. Play with the EQ, and don't bother tearing the truck apart to gain access to the box, as it's part of the truck now. Thank god. That would suck. Thanks.

 

if they can handle the 1200 watts essentially if your putting 1200 to 2 subs as apposed to just 1 you will get louder performance the box size would be my concern though is it sealed or ported 2 cubic feet seems too big for one 12 if it is sealed and you will run into having too much airspace and actually burning up your sub

 

It's a sealed box right now, I toyed with making it vented, but decided against it, for ease of install. I'd rather not burn anything up, and keep my system the same, as I like what I'm getting, I just wish it would dig a little deeper. But that's the trade off from sealed to ported, right?

 

ya sealed typically a bit cleaner but ported deeper/louder. check your subs specs it should tell you a recommend sealed and ported volume

 

Sealed is 1cu.ft. and ported is 2.2. I have approx. 1.9cu.ft. in the box right now, so pretty close to spec, and I've put a little stuffing in it to help.

 

ya if you try to put 1 in a 2 cuft box without porting it, it will more then likely sound like shit and you run the risk of messing your box up but if you wanted to cut it in half you could probably put one of the storage bins back in

 

Single ported will be fine in that space. The challenge is mostly the port, and getting enough port area

 

What exactly are you trying to improve upon with the changes that you are considering?

Do remember that WinISD only offers general modeling. It's not absolutely accurate, especially when you're measuring the response from inside of a vehicle as opposed to a normal listening environment.

 

I'm really not sure what my end goal is. . I'd like some more "rumble" down low, but don't want to sacrifice current SPL levels. I guess, the best of both worlds.

 

add more filler to your box.... should help on the lower extension even more

 

Good advice on manethons part.

I usually line the walls of my sealed boxes with the 1" adhesive backed foam from Parts Express and then stuff it with some soft pillow stuffing from a fabric store. The poly fill from parts express sucks imo, so I avoid it.

I'm running a single 12 on about 300w in a basic sealed box and I'm very impressed with the response and volume. Can't wait to get my 3 10's in but that's a long ways out.

 

Hey richard, I'm looking at getting my custom Shok neo subs in the next couple months. If they do what i want them to do it should make for some damn nice ( but expensive ) super efficient subs.

As for the tritons, they sound really good sealed n ported so either way, they will do what you want them to do. They are imo one of the most musical, subs that can get loud and not destroy your wallet. Try the triton 12 ported, its very easy to experiment since come over to my new house and we can get it going I just got a batch in of 8 of those 2kw amps so I'm sure we can have all sorts of fun.

But yes, before we do that, lets play with some stuffing, run some low freq burp tests and get a TL or Magnum to see if anything changes on the meter vs ear

 

Just throwing my thoughts in here.

I have not had to stuff an enclosure with filler to compensate for the lack of airspace in many years now.. I do use felt to line the walls of an enclosure to help with standing waves.

I personally always build a box specifically suited to a subwoofer and its t/s parameters. The modeled response will always be anechoic meaning the response graph will show exactly what the box will do with those subs firing into open space.

Knowing the acoustics of your vehicle helps with your model. My xrunner has a peak around 44-46 hz. So when I model my boxes I look for a response that has the enclosure peaking around the 30hz range with a -3db drop in the 40s.

That being said the more airspace you can get for your subs is more effective than filler and you absolutely can gain output by switching from two subs in minimal airspace to one sub in maximum airspace.

 

Jad3d, while what you say is perfectly true, The space is perfectly fine for sealed applications with the shok tritons but he's looking for a tad bite more low freq response(his own preference) which only way to do is to have a bigger box or adding more power. His box is already at its limit for space so the only thing he has left to do is to add some filling.

AS for the 05+ dc tacoma's they tend to have their resonant freq around 48-55hz and if he had the ability to port id drop it right down to 28hz... ( what i did when i had my SS NW ) setup for running psyclone and bass race

 

Manethon, I agree a bigger box would be better. More power would require a bit more electrical support especially with regard to smaller boxes along with filler. I say this mainly based on efficiency of the enclosure. The harder the amplifier works the harder the electrical system gets taxed.

I was trying to, after my long wind, point out that a single sub in maximum airspace can gain output especially on the low end versus two subs in minimal airspace. Now I am talking about ported. Sealed enclosures generally I prefer to have them at their maximum airspace wherever possible even if it means losing sub quantity.

More power in a small sealed enclosure (especially with filler) would net a small gain but at the expense of more heat inside the enclosure. Add to this the filler is only effective up to a certain percentage of the enclosure.

Overall if you can throw more power at it and are aware that you may reveal or create more issues later on then I say go for it. If you can get an efficient box made to the situation that would be a good route as well.

So far I have seen some sound advice given here in this thread...I just wanted to add mine.