Audio question - one chamber vs two?

S

samger2

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Blacklick, Ohio
I have two subs that I want to eventually build a really nice box for...still in the planning phases...probably next spring sometime. In the interim I'd like to just get a cheap box so I can have a little bit of filler since I have zero bass in my system at this point.

My previous box was not seperated into two chambers, just one large box with 2 holes cut.

Like I said, I was gonna put a cheapy temporary box in, but the one I was going to use is one large box with seperate chambers...so of course each sub wired seperately.

What's the difference in sound quality between wiring each seperately vs running the two speakers in parallel inside the same large space?

Mods...please move if I've posted in the wrong section.
 
Depends on what subs and amp you're running. Honestly, you're not going to notice a difference if you're running a couple hundred watt amp and some lower powered subs.

If you end up with cheap subs then I'd certainly seperate them as cheap subs won't synchronize properly and cancel more sound than they make.

If you're running (example) 2 Memphis MOJO M3 15s and a Memphis MOJO 2000D then there are a lot more factors involved.

The subs and amp mentioned above are what I ran in the last SPL contest (159db, WOOT!) I was in. (A long time ago) I built a box spec'd exactly for those subs.

It's been a while since I've fooled with it. I'm sure there's someone on here more up to date with it than I am.

Moral of the story, I'd seperate them for simplicity.
 
x2 ^^^ Back in high school I built a few boxes, got the BEST sound out of a dual chamber double slot vented box. Had the two vents in the middle with the dividing piece of wood down the middle of the vent.

Ran 2 MTX thunder 9500's with MTX 1.5k class D bridged and parallel wired (to run something like 2 OHMS, cant recall), dropped the rear window in my Blazer, started saying "huh" alot, then got rid of it lol
 
Definately go with two chambers on any sub. Just step up to an old school cerwin vega stroker 18 like I had for awhile in my jeep if you want to go way loud and low, but the box is almost 7 cubic feet and you need a REAL amp to push it, not the junk they make today.
 
By the way, if you didnt know what a double slot vented box is here is a picture, mine was setup the same way (obviously not for Kicker Solo's) but I built it to exact specs for the Thunder 9500... Took up almost the entire cargo area of my 99 Blazer.

box.jpg


This is a picture of what the inside should look like, this one is a little more complicated as far as the way the vent is laid out, some boxes just have the vent go back then run down the back and stop however many inches from the side depending on how you want it tuned.

box2.jpg


also I should add, for the best sound you want the vent the same width throughout it as seen above
 
samger2 said:
so of course each sub wired seperately.

What's the difference in sound quality between wiring each seperately vs running the two speakers in parallel inside the same large space?

Mods...please move if I've posted in the wrong section.
Click to expand...

I just noticed this question, so ill digress on this as well. If you are running a dual voice coil sub you can still wire them each to eachother then bridge to amplifier (if it can handle the load, which without a very decent amp I doubt it can)

take two 1 foot sections of a decent gauge wire... 12ga or a little bigger, wire the sub negative to negative, then positive to positive, then a lead to the amp off of one side (the positive and negative from the same voice coil)


this will lower the ohms 1/2 from each sub and allow you to still get max power to each speaker since they are in seperate sides of the box now and cant be wired together to achieve the same thing

and to answer the sound quality question, if you built the box correctly it should sound 100 times better than a dual sub single chamber box wired in parallel
 
Last edited:
Ever wonder where the term boom box came from. Well if you have a box that is too small for your speaker, you will get a non flat response with a boom at certain frequencies. Designing speaker boxes is not a trivial undertaking if you want good sound reproduction. The problem now is that people don't want realistic, they want BASS, so there are a lot of people turning out speaker cabinets that don't know squat about the design of a good speaker system.
 
I don't have a ton to say about it, but my understanding was that for a sealed or a vented box, to build the internal volume as close as possible to the size recommended for the driver / speaker. And that 2 boxes set next to each other gains about 3 db over 2 independent cabinets by themselves.

EDIT: FWIW, I have one of these in the back and LOVE it. http://www.decware.com/newsite/dbk10.htm
 
SolarBell said:
I don't have a ton to say about it, but my understanding was that for a sealed or a vented box, to build the internal volume as close as possible to the size recommended for the driver / speaker. And that 2 boxes set next to each other gains about 3 db over 2 independent cabinets by themselves.

EDIT: FWIW, I have one of these in the back and LOVE it. http://www.decware.com/newsite/dbk10.htm
Click to expand...
Since 3 db is twice the power, you are correct, that is as long as they are phased correctly.
 
Your subs should have came with a sheet that tells you how many cubic inches your box needs to be for each sub for a sealed box, and also the volume for a ported box with the dimensions of the port(s).

If you want something cheep to get you by until you design your dream box, I'd recommend building a sealed box. Its simple and you can put one together for not much more than the cost of a sheet of mdf.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I'll look at my subs and amp tonight and see what the ratings are. I'm wanting to build a nice box next year...for now I'm thinking of just going cheap to get a little extra sound.
 
Oh yeah...I remember back in the day Rockford was it. My buddy had a sunfire first year they came out in 1997...he would shake the building with all the rockford he had in the back of that thing.
 
I still run an old Rockford P500.1... Of any amp I've had its been the most reliable and best sounding. Mated to a 12 in a custom sealed box built around the passenger side wheel well. Have big boom and still fit my golf clubs across the back :)

amp.jpg
 
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