[Mystical_Ice]

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Ok I have an 85 Fleetwood D'Elegance and in my trunk my "spare sits in the back, so I have no choice but to sit my subs (when I get them) up close to the front.


My question is....

Should I get a "sealed" box and I want some hard thumpin bass, but I want clarity as well. I was thinking about getting 2 "12's". For those with the big caddy's what would be a good set-up, in my case?

Thanks

Yeah, the first car i started working on the system on was my 1980 fleetwood. however, learn from my experience and errors :

1) Don't buy subwoofers at best buy. Not only do they only stock a few names, but the prices are too high. to buy your equipment, either do it online, or go to your local family-owned car audio store. stay away from the big names (Best Buy, Circuit City, Car Toys, Tweeter, etc.)

2a) Our cadillacs trunks are sealed like tanks. between the trunk and the cab is about an inch of insulation, steel, and then the back seat, etc. if you just put subs in the trunk, you're hardly going to hear (or feel) anything in the cab, just vibrations from the quarter panels and the lid of the trunk and the license plate rattling.

2b) Consider dynamatting the shit out of your trunk. particularly the lid, and the sides... those are what suffer the most.

3) Don't worry about blowing your speakers just running them off the head unit. i did that on my 1980 for close to two years without incident. then i started driving it daily more often, and i got sick of the sound, so i replaced the stock paper-cone speakers with aftermarket. even if for a while you just run your speakers (aftermarket) off the headunit, you'll still notice a drastic change in sound, they get louder and MUCH clearer. adding an amp at a later stage will help even more, depending on which speakers you get.

You're going to have a hard time getting quality bass in the cab without some work... what i considered doing (i might still do it in the future) is put two 8" subs in the back deck (where the 6x9s are at the moment), that way you can still have your spare, etc. thing is, while you'll have amazing clarity, you're not going to be able to hit loud and deep like you want too. right now i have two 15s in the trunk, in seperate boxes, because i wanted to keep my spare. (i'm selling the 15s if you're interested. i'm going for clarity now, and while my 15s are pretty good compared to other 15s as far as clarity goes, it's still too much distorted bass for me, and i'm not going to build a better box. i want to start over)

The spare really screws things up, because it's in the worst possible place. And removing it gives you more room, but where the spare sits, the trunk "slopes" up, so you'd have to custom design the box, not just sit a square one.

what everyone has told you is right. don't get a 10" sub and put it in the trunk, you'll hear absolutely nothing. 12"+ (i recommend 15s) would be perfect. you may want to consider cutting a hole behind your back seat too. one of my friends has an 1987 fleetwood, and he has two 12s in the trunk (Pioneer). they hit hard, but one day he cut out about two square feet of metal from behind the back seat (a hole that leads right into the trunk) and the subs hit HAARRRDDDD! so depending on your setup, you may want to consider doing that. no one would know from the outside, unless if you put the back armrest down, then you'll just see a gaping hole

 

[Mystical_Ice]

There is a couple of common misconceptions

are*

Subwoofer size by itself does not make any difference in the amount of sound you can hear.
Explain me how a difference in diameter can make a difference in dB.
And don't say is a matter of personal taste. This is physics and audio basics.

well obviously there's exceptions. if he wants to go ahead and a 10" W7, or other high-end: high-power-handling sub(s) in, then yeah *shrugs* but for the most part, for the cars we have, and for the majority of subs out there, i'd recommend something 12" or higher.

 

[Mystical_Ice]

There is no need to go high-end. There are plenty of high power handling 10s for every budget. As a matter of fact, the maker of the subs in your pictures offers an 8" that handles as much power as a 12" from the same brand, and it is not one their expensive models.

ahh but you assumed that when i said "high-end" i meant "high-priced", but you'll notice after "high-end" i put a colon, and specified: high-power-handling. i never implied that only high priced subwoofers are high power handling.

also, i'm not sure what you mean when you say the maker of my subs offers an 8" that handles as much power as a 12" from the same brand. i assume you're talking RMS...(and i'm pretty sure you are, because later in your above post you mentioned a "160W" and "120W" sub, which is their RMS wattage) in which case there's no 8" and 12" sub of the same brand in their lineup that shares the same rated RMS wattage.

 

[Mystical_Ice]

yeah, but that's also not quite a "beginner" topic... that should be covered a little later in the "FAQ" i think.

the specific wattage is 125W RMS for the 8W3 V2 and 150W RMS for the 15W0

yeah but those are completely different models of subs (even though they're made by the same manufacturer: JL Audio)... you can't really compare them
Practically every subwoofer model (from all manufacturers) the bigger the cone size (i.e. 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 24, etc.) the more power handling... simply because more power's needed to move the sub. like cars: a smaller car doesn't require a very big engine to move it, while a big car needs a bigger engine.

for once we seem to agree on something

 

[Mystical_Ice]

Of course you can compare them. Both share the same principles and purposes.

they're two completely different models of subs, with completely different designs... and meant for different purposes. so you really can't compare them by saying that an 8" of one model has ALMOST as much power handling as the 15" of another model...

However, it is not because of size itself, it is because of the frecuencies they are intended for.

the reason a bigger subwoofer usually has higher power-handling than a smaller sub is not because of the frequency it's designed for... it's because the larger the sub, the more power it requires to move. however (as you mentioned), it IS designed to hit lower frequencies (the larger subs i mean) but lower frequencies aren't what makes it require more power. moving the sub requires more power ,since it's big

 

[Mystical_Ice]

That is the same as saying 2 subs from 2 different brands made with different technology and design can't be compared. In this case, other than the number of voice coils and increased power handling, there are not drastical differences between the W0 and the W3 series.

They share the same purpose: bass reproduction. They have different applications, based on the frecuencies they were designed for.

The only reason to mention them was to point that a small and a huge sub can handle the same amount of power, and nothing else.

but i thought what you were saying originally was that JL Audio has a model (of sub) where the 8" has the same power handling as the 12"

and yes, a small sub and a large sub can handle the same amount of power, but never the small sub and the large sub of the same line, for instance the W3... sure there exist 8s and 15s of different models with the same RMS, but never, EVER of the same line...

Let me put it this way: There are 15s rated at 125W RMS, there are 8s rated at 125W RMS. That means that both diameters require 125W RMS to fully accomplish their purpose.
but you will never find the same MODEL subwoofer (with the same technology, etc.) with the 8" and the 15" with the same power handling... or at least i have never seen one... sure with different models the power handling changes, but as a whole, if you take the 8" and the 15" of the line of subs, be it the L7, W0, W3V2, whatever model it is, the 8" will always handle less power than the 15"... what are we arguing about? we both agree on the same thing


However, an 8" will not be able to reproduce the same frecuencies the 15" does.
right. that's been established...

Lower frecuencies move greater volumes of air. That is what requires the power, not the size for itself. Size makes possible to move those amounts of air in a better way.
it's all the same thing!
Large Sub = Lower Frequencies = Larger Cone = More Power to move the cone.
you see? they're all connected. but the reason a large sub requires more power is because it's got a large cone. just like a large lightbulb requires more power than a small lightbulb, and a large car requires a larger engine to move than a small car. we agree on this, we're just mentioning different aspects

If size was the determinant factor for power handing, there would be no point in making an 8" rated at 50 RMS and another rated at 125, or a 15 rated at 150 and another rated at 1000.
but they're different models... you can't expect the same from the W0 range as you would from RE's XXX range... they're using different technology, etc. so OBVIOUSLY not every 8" sub in the world's going to have the exact same power handling

More RMS will only make a sub to reproduce the same frecuencies louder than another of the same size with less power handling, assuming they are similar in all other aspects.
what are we arguing about?