Just wanted to share with you guys a recent install I did. Over the years Ive had many different types of installs in my car, running different brands, types of enclosures and levels of power. The last install I had was a single 15 Fi SSD ported on a JL 1000/1 and I ran this for about a year or so. With my job I ended up getting a company truck that I drive to and from work now so for the most part my personal car just sits and is rarely driven. I ended up taking out the Fi set up, had it sitting in the closest over the summer and sold it to a friends cousin who was looking for a system and was willing to give me what I was asking. For a time I didnt have any bass in my car, which was ok for a while since I didnt drive it much, but of course I got to missing the lower frequencies in my music and thought of a solution. Over the summer I was carrying out trash and next to the dumpsters where I live I saw a sub in a homemade sealed enclosure sitting to be thrown away. I looked it over and it appeared okay so I carried it back to the house and checked it over. The coils read fine, didnt see any obvious damage, so I put it up in the closest where it sat for months. Ever since I swapped out the 300/2 I had for a 450/4 to run active, the 300/2 had been sitting in the closest as well collecting dust. The sub I had found was a dual 4 ohm 400 rms velfenhag, nothing impressive, but I knew that bridged the 300/2 would produce 300 rms up to 8 ohm and I could wire the sub in series to 8 ohm and show the sub enough power in the right enclosure. So I began to think of some ideas. I knew I didnt want to use up all of my trunk space like I had done before with the Fi install so going with the space I had ported was the way to go. With the sub seeing less than rated power, I went heavier on the net volume, as well as on the port area, to help the sub produce all the output it could and tuned to 32 Hz so low end response would be decent as well as being musical for whatever I played on it. The end solution was a 2 cubic foot net enclosure, with 30 square inches of port, tuned to 32 Hz. Were in the process of buying a house and I had some recent doctor bills so spending money on this really wasnt a goal at all. The sub was free, I already had an amp and I had some scrap wood left over from other builds but unfortunately not enough to build the enclosure. I was prepared to drop ~$50 on a sheet of wood but when I went to my local Lowes I lucked out. I knew I didnt need an entire sheet so when I found a sheet of oak that had damaged edges, I ended up getting it for $25. So total investment out of my pocket for this install was $25 and a couple hours of my time. Before building the enclosure I had hooked the sub up to the amp and had it playing to be sure it was in working order and didnt have any mechanical issues or noises. Knowing that it was ok I went ahead and planned out the build. I honestly wasnt expecting a whole lot out of this, I just wanted a little bass to fill the car and help cover that bandwidth of frequencies I was missing but boy was I wrong. Now obviously Im not going to win any competitions with this, but for what I wanted and for as little as was spent, this cheap little sub gets down pretty well. Even playing the song sometimes by Gucci with the 29 Hz tone, it plays it with authority, efficiently. In the end these are my favorite types of installs, the ones that surprise you and were with minimal budget. Low budget installs are probably my favorite to work with. Of course the big, expensive, over the top installs are awesome and fun, but dropping that sort of investment, you expect to get great outcomes. With low budget, youre sort of rolling the dice and its always a pleasant surprise when an install surpasses expectations. The moral of the story is, you dont always have to spend loads of cash to get good daily output. Obviously if you want to blow out your windshield or do hair tricks its going to take a larger budget, but if you just want some good daily bass in your ride to cover the frequencies youre missing out on, it may not cost as much as you think.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 12:50:24 +0000
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