[&The TC& @HTown]

I've been toying with the idea of eventually custom mounting some 8's under the seats. Anyone else thought about this. I know clearance will be an issue, but I think that would make for a great system, along with my 10s in the hatch. Ideas...comments?

 

[eddiemoney]

Just buy better tens, you are wasting your money with 8's under the seats because they will have to be sooo shallow. If you feel really adventourous put your fiberglassing hat on and build some custom door panels that hold 8" mid bass speakers

 

[raamaudio]

We build 10" underseat sub systems for Subaru's as a side line of our main business of sound deadening products. It was a very tough design phase but we fitted an Arc Audio sub that has very high SQ and 15mm xmax

Since we own a tC that we also plan to race we have looked very indepth at an underseat sub systemfor these cars but just not enough room for any sub with enough output to make it worth the effort. None of the super shallow mount subs are loud enough and loud is what sells, loud and SQ is the best of both worlds.

On top of that, the best place for a sub in a hatchback is the rear of the car, the gain in SPL is tremendous. We may work out a drop into the tire well setup, best with the subs we like so far would be three 8's to get enough displacement to get loud and play low enough, Problem is the subs list for $169 each. We can factor in our OEM price to buy the subs and help keep the cost in line but still using three subs would drive the price of the units up a fair amount.

I am talking to a few companies about building us a custom sub line with low enough profiles and high enough excursion, great sound quality so that we can offer underseat or other location units that drop in and do the job well, not much luck so far.

Rick

 

[&The TC& @HTown]

thanks for the input, I already have two audiobahn 10s in a custom sealed enclosure in the trunk, totally satisfied. But I've always been a fan of underseat subs. I know audiobahns pro compression piston sub (I think) is really shallow, but $$$$. oh well, no biggie.

 

[TBova]

Subs under the seats, even in a good enclosure wont provide the nice SQ as a well mounted one in the trunk will. Low frequency waves need some distance to expand, either bouncing off the hatch and back into the cabin, etc. I had 2 Rockford HE2 DVCs in my last car, and up close with the trunk open they werent super loud, but inside with it shut and the seats down, it sucked the air out of my chest. Or if i had it facing the garage (maybe 20 feet back) the walls rattled like crazy.

 

[raamaudio]

Sorry buddy, you are talking about two different issues

SQ and SPL are not directly related to each other depending on where the sub is positioned, there can be pronounced effects but no iron clad rule applies to all installs in all cars.

SPL(Sound Pressure Level) will deffinately be louder in the rear in almost all cases.

SQ(Sound Quality) can easily be better mounted up front under a seat, in the doors, under the dash, in the floor, wherever chosen and the reason why is coupling it with the front sound stage more directly and not being filtered through a back seat, etc.

On a hatch it is somewhere in the middle, bass coupled to the airspace the passengers are in is a bonus(sq) as well as the increase from being in the back(spl)

There are many more facets to this story, type of enclosure, crossover slope, phase, quality of the sub, quality of the enclosure, quality of the amp even.

Rick