I have decided that it is now time to do something about the ugly sounding stereo in my car. Plans for a custom fiberglass encolsure for 2 12's is in the works and i think while i am in there i will make a new dash and center console.

I am planning to use the cavity for the rear 6x9's as part of my box with the subs sitting at a 45 in the back area pointing towards the opposite side of the car. Does anyone have any sugestions on what i need to do to ocmpensate for the loss of rear fill? I am currently running el cheapo deck which will be swapped for this upgrade and some Kenwood 6 1/2's in the door. I think that there are some speakers in the das hbut i havent pulled the dash yet to check. ANY advise will be considered as i am making my dash and center consol so i have no clearance or compatibility problems. Thank you.

 

Well senor...from the setup your describing it appears you appreciate bass....with little thought towards your mids and highs. It might help us to know what year your car is....that way those that have gone before you and done some actual installs might be able to offer more tailored advice and ideas.

 

you dont need rear fill. i totally ripped out my rear speakers and will never replace them. If you have enough power to your front speakers you'll have much better sound w/o rear fill...so dont worry about it

from the sound of it..he has a c4 (dash speakers and 6x9's)

 

im sorry my car is an 87. I just bought some 4x6 infinnity kappas and a fosgate amp for them and i am trying to find a set of infinty components for the door and a-pillars but i havent been to thrilled as of yet. the box i coming along nicely and i never knew how easy the fiberglass was. i have been taking pictures every few minutes but i can figure out how to post them. well more later i think my resin should be dry now..

 

Just thought i would give a bit of an update. Found out that the car was bose and was converted to non bose. I took out the door panel speakers and built a little enclosure angling the 5.25 infinniti components u pa little for better imaging. I cut holes in the stock dash speaker block outs and mounted some infinniti plate 4x6's wired those up to a little 299x4 amp from fosgate and i am still sanding on the sub box. The mids and highs sound soooooo clear. i could not believe how much different the car sounds. The previous owner had two ripped pioneer 5.25's in the door mounted all funky and not sealed. now i have a decent sounding front stage and hope that the subs sound as good. Hopefully two 12's at 1000w with a 1 ohm load wont kill the eardrums....

 

I have 2 10" subs in my 1980. They are plenty loud. Its almost too bassy . I ahve no rear fill, 2 x 10" in a fibreflass enclosure in the rear, 2 6.5" compontes in the kicks and the tweets in the dash. Sounds great.


Mike

 

I used to do car audio as a living and have designed up multiple national IASCA winning systems and 2 12" subs in a Vette on 1000w, especially with the horn loading effects on the rear glass, is not only complete overkill but will also completely overwhelm those front speakers unless you turn the output gain of the amp WAY down and than you are defeating the purpose of the sub set-up.
What made you choose the sub set-up you are going with?

BTW, I will put money down that once you finish the system the subs will sound better outside the car than they do inside the car. The lower the frequency you are trying to reproduce (sub-bass rather than mids and highs) the longer the soundwave is and the more distance it needs to develop before you actually hear it and the larger the driver (the subwoofer speaker) the more this comes into play. The interior of a vette is so small that the minimal distance needed on the low frequencies soundwaves is longer than the car is!
If you haven't finished the subbox yet and installed the speakers you may wish to recondier your choice of two 12" and go with a singe 10" in each rear speaker location. You can fiberglass in the area on each side and drop in a 10" in each location and it would end up being a much better, cleaner, more accurate sound. In fact, unless you main goal is to go "BOOM BOOM BOOM" down the street for the annoyance of everyone else in the vicinity an 8" in each rear location will give you PLENTY of bass and in the small confines of the interior of a C4 would end up sounding much better. But than it depends on your goal - if you want to enjoy a clean accurate sound INSIDE the car I'd go with a smaller size sub. If your goal is to go BOOM BOOM and have people 2 blocks away hear you comong and have them enjoy a deeper bass than you are actually going to get inside the car than stick with your set-up of two 12"

 

with barry. Two 10's or 8's will do you fine. When I had my camaro which is simular to a vette as far as audio, I had 2 12"s Polk Momos with 2 rockford fosgate 750s bridged one to each sub and it was loud but ALOT louder outside of the car (setting off car alarms like a MF) WAYYY back in 95 I had a different camaro and I put a DR. Crankinstien 10" sub with a radio shack amp and guess what...it sounded better. The bass was tighter and though it was not as powerful as the 12"s it sounded even. It just goes to show that you can get the sound your looking for with any brand of sub and amp. I am more partial to fosgate amps though

 

lol that is exactly what my dad said...i am not really going for much anyting in perticular. I had two 12's from my truck and the amp was from it as well so being on a budget and trying to get a stereo set up i went with what i had. I agree on that fact that it will be loud but when i ran that setup in my truck i had the sub control on the deck to -8 and the bass at -8 and the gain will be turned down. I think i will be alright. The only time that the radio will come on will be on my trip to cali from va and then back to florida....IN SIX DAYS. I have a friend who did some sound competitions "back in the day" and he is going to help me dial it all in and make it sound nice. I just hope that not having rear fill isnt going to affect the SQ. I have the plates in the front which by themselves are awesome and the compnents in the door sound awesome as well. But i think i need some tuning as they tend to blend in and sound as just a front channel at high volumes (freeway driving) oh well something else to keep me occupied until i takle the wiring harness..

 

rear fill is not needed in a car as small as a vette - it's not needed in most cars twice the size.

as for the front blending together that's because you are running door spears full range and dash speakers full range. I'd disconnect the dash speakers and just run the door component set. Make sure you have a crossover on them so they do not play anything under approx 120-80hz on down (you need to get the subs in and tune the system to set the best crossover points for the high-pass crossover on the fronts and the low-pass crossover point on the subs).
The way your front is set up now with both mids and highs coming from the doors and the dash is confusing and duffusing the front soundstage and your staging will never be correct.

Believe me, in audio, in almost all cases simplier is better.

Personally I'd only run the front componets speakers you have in the doors and only one of the subs you are utilizing, set the crossover points correctly and it will sound fine.

 

except in the rare case of someone doing a 5.1 system

 

No rear fill here and I don't miss it a bit.


Shan

 

sure, if you are setting up a home theater type system to watch movies in a car but for pure audio it's not need and all it does is end up pulling the soundstage towars the rear.

When designing and installing high-end systems, IF I determined a car was lacking rear fill (very rare) the most I'd ever put back there was a midbass speaker. Upper midrange and highs would kill the staging.

think of it like being at a live concert - the only sound coming from behind you was reverberations and echos bouncing off the rear walls of the statium or concert hall. It's not typical to have speakers behind the audience at concerts so if you were hearing a lot of sound behind you it almost always meant you were drinking too much, got confused, and had your back to the stage.

 

Sure, you can laugh but it's happened to me before....
Scott