MSilk

iTrader: (1)

I agree with doch try a test box, but really what it comes down to is your preference. If you want them facing the cabin do that, if you want them facing back give er'.
For my FD I am planning on building a small Fiberglass box where the back seats are and placing a sub there, if I get that far with it.

I am not trying to be an *** or anything, but the theory that the bass will bounce off of glass or metal is incorrect. The length of a bass wave varies with frequency (of course) but one thing to keep in mind is that even a higher bass note, lets say 100Hz. 100Hz is still a rather long wave (depending on where you live, humidity, elevation ect ect) the wave can vary from approx 10 - 12 feet long (now that is from one peek to another so ONE oscillation). A wave with that kind of frequency and power will pass through glass, now there will be some reflection (which is a whole nother story of waves canceling each other or amplifying each other)

If you wanted the loudest bass up front your best bet would be to put the subs right at the very back facing forward, or about 5 - 5.5 feet away from you (5 - 5.5 being half of the wave). BUT! there are other factors to think about the first being your well being, it does not take long to permanently damage your hearing with a powerful sound system, that ringing you get in your ears after a good loud song is your ears telling ya your pushing your luck (ears don't understand how much better a song can be at loud levels LOL) Another factor is the dreaded RATTLES! you have to weed them out as they appear.

Damn I went off again and made a short post a long post

Your best thing is going to be experiment with your system, but make sure that you do what you want with YOUR car, if you want the subs facing down, up, sideways, one inverted one not, a combination of any of those lol,
Just have fun with it.

Mike

dohckiller808

in such a small cab i look at more of the 1/4 wave length to reach the lower freq. the wave will somewhat bounce off surfaces. we use that theory in building walled subs. where the front wave and rear wave meets at the mic. i dont think youll need to go that crazy for a daily though.

usma_2006

iTrader: (3)

I think MSilk has the right idea. Some people take this stuff WAY too seriously. Half the people who have chimed in telling you to do it one way or the other because of "such and such property of sound waves" wouldn't be able to tell the difference between subs facing the rear or the front in a blind sound test... and there's no reason to solicit input from anybody whose only experience has been with a ... ****, it hurts to even say this ... bazooka tube.

With a car this small ... check.
Well-built sub and amp that are properly matched ... check.
Not for a competition ... check.

With those factors in mind, the placement is pretty moot. If I were you, I'd just do what I thought looked better and was more convenient for me, i.e. easy to remove for track vs. hard to remove for anti-theft, maximizing storage space, etc.

Looking forward to seeing what you go with. Be sure to post up some pics after the install is done!

dohckiller808

being a sound freak as i am. in a blind test i could tell you which way they face, tuning, blah blah blah... being a forum and what not... you asked, we tell...

ALPSTA

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for all the advice guys. I think I decided who'll do the install and the custom subwoofer box for me. These guys have recently won 2nd place in EMMA SQ Advanced 7CH category.

Although it'd look much cooler and it'd be much less likely to get damaged from the loose stuff in the trunk when facing inside, I think I'll go with sub facing the trunk.

After I told him what I had in mind and how far I wanted to go with the system the audio guy explained why I should face the sub towards the trunk in the RX7. He told me if I had plans to upgrade in the future to an active set up with processors etc. then he said face it inside but if you are planning to keep it as passive set up then face it towards the trunk.

The reason for this is because we should be listening to the components in the front and the sub should only be complementing not overtaking and because the system is not advanced with feautres or adjustments like time response and this and that (he went all technical at this stage), the sub will be interfering as we want to listen to the components and it'll be ruining the sound coming from the components. I hope this all makes sense cause he explained all this to me in Turkish and with lots of technical vocabulary. Basically he says I'll get better and cleaner sound if the sub is facing the trunk.

What I might do is face the sub to the trunk and have a custom plexiglass made and make the 2 Alpine amps visible in the rear seat spot. I'm not sure at the moment as this will attract thieves but I think it'd look cool.

Another thing is I was going to mimic an active set-up by running my components with a 4 channel amp as per previous Audio shops recommendation but the new shop did not recommend this.

Usma: Still waiting for the sub, after then install I'll update you guys pics.