I have a stealth type sub box and a 10" ARC audio sub. It sounds really good, but I wonder if I've decreased the air volume in the box too much. This might be a newbee question , but I have to ask to learn.

I believe the box has about .75 foot right now, just what the ARC people recommend for the 10" sub. I added extra wood inside to get it down from about 1 ft. But heres the issue, the sub requires me to have the gains and the Punch bass level turned up almost all the way. If i don't have the amp turned up so far , the sub won't hardly move or produce a decent amount of sound. The Amp is a RF old school punch 250a2, and puts out 250-340 watts. I wonder if the amp is down on power or the tight box is making it work extra hard to move the sub ? The amp gets pretty warm, but has never shut down on me. I have my system sounding really good right now, but I'm concerned about why the gains have to be sooo high. Do the low 2v inpt from my Alpine HU have anything to do with the gains needing to be set higher ?

I want tight bass for the rock music listen to, thats why the box was made smaller, to keep the bass tight. A smaller box requires a stronger amp right ? Maybe my amp isn't up to the task . ?

So, do you guys think I should remove some of the wood to allow more air ? Will it make my sub sound sloppy if I do ? It hits pretty hard as of right now, but requires alot of power to do so.

thanks Tim

 

if i read the info right on the site. it says that the rms power if the sub is 250w. What are the rms ratings for your amp?

 

Pretty much everything you said is true:

A smaller box can produce "tighter, punchy" bass. A smaller box can typically require/handel more power. Also, the 2V output from your HU is low which would require you to raise the gains a bit unless your older amp is rated for a 2v input as the maximum since this was more standard a few years ago.

I'd get the box set up to what ARC recommends for the sub. Keep your gains as low as possible to prevent clipping of the sub. If the box is too small, you are sacrificing low end frequency reproduction which gives the illusion of more bass. But what is really happening is that you are focusing the bass around a frequency that is limiting the range of the sub. In other words, you may only be reproducting frequencies down to 40 or 50 hz, so you are missing out on the lower frequencies in the 20-40 hz range. These frequencies are less "punchy", but by no means "sloppy" and are really required to get the most out of almost every type of music, including rock.

 

The size on ARC's web page says 0.65 ft .... I'm pretty close to that i bet with the box and sub together.

How do i know if the sub is clipping ?

I have the amp set at about 80 or 100 hz,,,, pretty sure it's about 80. I have the HU set to either 80 or 100hz too.

I'll pull a couple of the blocks out, that will only make about .1 to .12difference in the air space, and see if that helps.

So that way I'll have less weight and better sound ! hopefully

Tim