reverse mounted subs

Screamin eagle · 04-19-2004, 10:58 PM

Does anyone have their subs mounted reverse in the box? I was curious about doing this, although I never have. Some of the new subs have really good looking baskets and I would like to show them off. When mounting on a normal q-logic box can you just go through one of the screw holes? I don't think silicon would seal enough under that type of pressure. Maybe gold posts on the front of the box?? What do you guys think???

sound_xtreme · 04-20-2004, 06:39 PM

it wont be as loud.

04-20-2004, 07:25 PM

Yes there is a big dif. in the sound that is produced.......

Screamin eagle · 04-20-2004, 10:10 PM

Well that sucks! I couldn't have my speakers any less loud. I just thought it looked cool and never knew anyone who tried it.

NoSweat83 · 04-20-2004, 10:45 PM

Actually you can do it in the right enclosure with the right speakers. You will have to have a box built to spec. But don’t forget to compensate for the magnets not in your box. My question to you is what driver are you planning to use? If you find the specs of your driver I have the program to build the box. I have a pic of my old setup that is like that, but it would let me attach it. I can e-mail you if you are interested.

04-21-2004, 12:45 AM

This actually brings up a question that I've had in the past (sorry to thread jack man...) but when you reverse mount a sub, should you swap the polarity of the signal? I know that I've seen many cars with subs mounted both ways, and the only way that it would make sense to me, from a wave definition, is if the polarity for the reverse sub would be reversed. Otherwise you'd have cancelling waves. I tried to tell one of my buddies that in the past, and he wouldn't believe me. Anyone know for a fact?

Screamin eagle · 04-21-2004, 09:16 AM

I don't think the polarity would matter, I've got an option to reverse the signal on my head unit and I can't tell the difference either way. I haven't decided for sure on what to replace my current subs with. I've got kicker comps now but I think I'm going to get soundstream davinci 12's......

04-21-2004, 11:29 AM

See... my thougts on it were like this...
If you have two subs, one mounted "traditionally", and the other mounted reversely, both running at the same power, and both at the same polarity... when one would be forcing air out, the other would be sucking air in, and thus the waves would cancel out. If you reversed the polarity on one of the two, they would both be pushing air in the same direction at the same time, and thus giving you the true power output.

Screamin eagle · 04-21-2004, 01:30 PM

Maybe if you run one normal and one reverse I can see what ou are saying. But with both reverse, it wouldn't be any different than 2 normally mounted subs. I'm going to look into it further. Now I'm curious.

sound_xtreme · 04-21-2004, 03:01 PM

polarity matters always. all your speakers/subs should always have the same polarity. also, whoever said it can be done, technically it cant. even with the right sub/enclosure. there is always more cone area when mounting a sub the correct way, which obviously means more air moving, which should be louder. now you're gonna say, "there is just the same amount reverse mounted because the hole in the back", yes but it's still bunnyed up because that hole is a lot smaller than the area of cone moving. could get a lot more technical with it but, blah, who wants to explain that poop.

mikegett · 04-21-2004, 03:45 PM

NoSweat83 was correct that you can produce just as good of results with a reverse enclosure. It does require a specific enclosure and newer subs do help. One of the main reasons that the newer subs tend to be better is that this sort of a enclosure puts more strain on the woofer itself. If you have one sub reversed and the other normal then the woofers will be firing with different volumes of air. The polarity will need to be swapped on one sub to keep the woofers in phase with another. In this case the reversed woofer is helping the normal woofer. Other wise the cones will be fighting against one another. In a case that both subs are reversed then the polarity should be the same on both. The subs will quite literaly be slamming against one another in this sort of a application. This set up will result in a need for more wattage than the first. In both situations find a sub with the highest db to ensure a the best efficiency. I have not used the programs for finding the volume of the enclosue but I would suggest that you have a professional configure it for you. You can do some serious damage to the cones if not done properly. Good luck and give us some pics if you decide to do it.

NoSweat83 · 04-21-2004, 07:10 PM

Screamin eagle when I had this enclosure I only ran one audiobhan 1208x. This 61 pound driver ran in less than a cubic foot with a slot port that was somthing like 28 inchs of port and was tuned @ 30 hertz. I pulled off a 148.6 with this speaker. It is too bad that audiobahn doesnt produce it anymore. But if you are serious on this I would look at the audiobahn line. They make great drives espically for the money. Also are you wanting spl or sound quality for your car?

sound_xtreme · 04-21-2004, 07:50 PM

technically, yea, it could be louder. but not if the enclosures are built correctly. i did the reverse mount when i had a triple box because the center was smaller than the outers(actually it was too small for the sub to begin with after displacement), but if i had built the center chamber larger it would have been louder mounted correctly.

Screamin eagle · 04-21-2004, 08:44 PM

I really want SPL but I also want it to look cool, that's why I want to go with the reverse style. I've never done it and I have always thought it looked really cool. I love soundstream and I want to go with the Davinci's. I've had audiobahn before and I'm not a fan. I'm not going to bash them because alot of people on here seem to like them.

04-21-2004, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sound_xtreme@Apr 21 2004, 07:01 PM
polarity matters always. all your speakers/subs should always have the same polarity. also, whoever said it can be done, technically it cant.

In conventional home stereos this might be true, but in car audio there are so many standing waves and reflections that it's not uncommon for your tweeters to sound better out of phase. Phase can also be dependant on the order of crossover you use.

NoSweat83 · 04-21-2004, 09:54 PM

This is the old setup.

bnight04 · 04-21-2004, 10:26 PM

real nice man

bnight04 · 04-21-2004, 10:28 PM

About how much did all of that cost you to buy and install?

04-21-2004, 10:40 PM

Nice and clean. I'd condidered that sort of set up before when I couldn't get the depth I was looking for out of the spare tire well. That looks like a pretty narrow port for any sort of good response. What frequency were you hitting those db's at?

NoSweat83 · 04-22-2004, 12:30 AM

It had to be some where around 40 hertz. That thing would just unload on ya. The best part was opening the trunk and there was only one driver and my opti drive 500.2 running it for the bottom end. The install was around 300. The equipment is what does it. Ive probably got 5000 wraped up in audio but I wouldnt trade it for anything. Here is where the subs are now.