TheSamba.com :: View topic - Anyone ever installed subs in thier late model standard bug

Mon Jan 07, 2008 8:31 pm

I am 17 and have recently bought a 1974 beetle and was wondering if anyone had experience with the sound quality you get from having Subwoofers in your car. Thanks :)

Mon Jan 07, 2008 8:47 pm

I've got 2 10's in my 69, sound good. If you can, point them towards the rear of the car/roof the sound is nice as it rolls across.

Mon Jan 07, 2008 8:55 pm

my brother in law kinda went to the extreme. it sounds good but you soon find out if you have any loose metal. right now he has them in a speaker board box but we are going to build a fiberglass box for the four 12s. we are running two batteries. we talked about going with bigger alternator if we upgrade to bigger amps.

Tue Jan 08, 2008 4:56 am

Bass is omni directional so it really doesnt matter which way there facing as long as the enclosure is the right size
beetles have a small cabin it really doesnt take much to fill
unless u plan on blasting the ricer in the honda next to u at the lights one 10 or at most a 12" is all u need
bigger isnt better with subs, u get alot tighter better bass out of smaller subs eg its better to have 2 10s than 1 15
ive got 2 10s in mine but i built it more for sound offs
it cant really be turned up more than about 50% when ur in the car unless u dont value ur hearing as at full tilt its been measured at 132.6dB
its not hard to hit 120dB with a fairly basic install
bare in mind a jumbo jet taking off at 100' is 140dB

Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:23 am

I had a single 10" sub in an isobaric enclosure w/ a pair of 6x9's and a pair of 5 1/4" and it sounded great. It was also small enough that it didn't tax the stock electical system much, either.

Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:35 am

I have 2 12's in my 69. It is WAY too much, but hey I had them laying around. I agree with the other post. "bigger isn't allways better when it comes to subs"

Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:26 am

Rowroy wrote: I had a single 10" sub in an isobaric enclosure w/ a pair of 6x9's and a pair of 5 1/4" and it sounded great. It was also small enough that it didn't tax the stock electical system much, either.

An isobarik set up uses 2 subs...Here is the definition:

(isobarik, compound loading) - a method of using two drivers working in tandem in order to achieve a smaller box size for a given design. Theoretically, the Vas of the complete system will be half that of a single driver, which results in a net box size that's also reduced by half. ...

Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:03 am

i have 2 12'' in mine and OMG what did you say? i just love the look on the ricers face when i pull next to the3m hahahaha

Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:12 pm

lowmitsu wrote: Rowroy wrote: I had a single 10" sub in an isobaric enclosure w/ a pair of 6x9's and a pair of 5 1/4" and it sounded great. It was also small enough that it didn't tax the stock electical system much, either.

An isobarik set up uses 2 subs...Here is the definition:

(isobarik, compound loading) - a method of using two drivers working in tandem in order to achieve a smaller box size for a given design. Theoretically, the Vas of the complete system will be half that of a single driver, which results in a net box size that's also reduced by half. ...

I meant 4th order band pass. It's been a while . . . grew out of that stuff long ago.

Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:07 pm

i have 1 jl audio 10" and alpine 400watt amp in my vert and it sounds damn good, it hits like crazy with my ported box

Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:26 pm

i had a pair of orion dvc 12's back in 98. they was to much for a bug. you couldn't hear anything but air rushing past your ears.

right now i have a pair of polk 10s. i haven't installed them yet tho still deciding on what kind of box to use. might use a 3 chamber 4th order bandpass if i can design it to fit with the backseat up. if not i might end up using one of them in the bug and sale the other

this is old plans i made for sub boxes you can use them to get an idea of what you want to do. they all should fit behind the backseat with it up

polk mm2084dvc
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/_raven/bug/sub%20box/sub-box1-FISH.jpg

kicker S8L5 triple 8 solobaric
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/_raven/bug/sub%20box/sub-box3-FISH.jpg

kicker comp cvr 10 this is kind of a generic box that can be used for other subs also.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/_raven/bug/sub%20box/sub-box2-FISH.jpg

Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:52 pm

thanks for all of your help you guys. I think I have decided to go with two 10 inch jbl speakers with a 400 watt amp. Does this sound like a good idea. Thanks again for all of your help.

Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:08 pm

consider how much money you have? You want a good amp as if you dont you could blow a voice coil. that is what most shops refer to as clean watts. I havent heard of jvl before but I kinda just forgot about car sterio because i am broke. Alpine is a nice choice you can buy a type r 10 on ebay for like 50$ shipped brand new, jbl is a good company to and they make shallow subs that dont take up much room and doesnt require alot of volume, also they are under 100$. Now if you want loud go ported, If you want tight, fast beat go sealed.

I am sure you know most of this but, i had to refresh my own Memory, good luck.

Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:56 pm

My 1974 standard /sliding rag will be gettng 2 10in. Crossfires bridged to 1400 watts of Crunch amp..Overkill I know.This set up in my old civic could shake your intestines loose...Not really, but it pounded....

Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:58 pm

Thu Jan 10, 2008 1:16 pm

Take out the back seat, because nobody can fit back there anyway, and then you can do whatever you like. My 73 used to have 4 8" orions isoberic, 4 10" orions isoberic, 2 blaupunkt 6x9's for mids and highs, 6" cones in the doors and 2 liquid cooled Kicker tweeters at either end of the dash, and an orion 225 and 250 pushing it all. All the seals in the entire car were replaced even the plastic beading in the fenders to eliminate rattles. The sound was unbelievably clear at whatever volume with no distotion, nothing but clean power holding steady at a 1/4 ohm.

However, after installing it, I had only listened to it 3 times before taking it directly to a soundoff and the windows were down or partially down, thus allowing more air flow or (outlaw). Beware, when you roll the windows up, those new seals work pretty damn good. So good that when they increased the volume and number of cycles, all the air movement/pressure ended up pushing my back window out of the car. The sound didn't shatter it, but the stinger out the back sure did. I won crowd favorite for such a crazy display.

Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:29 pm

ratspud wrote:
However, after installing it, I had only listened to it 3 times before taking it directly to a soundoff and the windows were down or partially down, thus allowing more air flow or (outlaw). Beware, when you roll the windows up, those new seals work pretty damn good. So good that when they increased the volume and number of cycles, all the air movement/pressure ended up pushing my back window out of the car. The sound didn't shatter it, but the stinger out the back sure did. I won crowd favorite for such a crazy display.
Any pics?How long ago?

Fri Jan 11, 2008 5:52 am

I am seriously kicking around an 8 or 10 mounted under the drivers side rear seat (69 vert body) with a series of holes punch across the brace that runs under the front of the seat - anybody ever do anything like that? I just want to ad a little thump.

Fri Jan 11, 2008 10:33 am

Not to show my age, but that was back in 1993 at the Jamil Temple car sound off in Columbia SC. Just got my 74 on new years and hope to have about the same set up, maybe a little less radical. To think about it, we also had a single 15" in it as well, Orion has or had some really good stuff back in the day. Don't know if the ears can take that kind of abuse anymore.

Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:00 am

I used to show my S10 at the Jamil Temple with the Whitlee shows back in 95& 96....