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Mark Cothren
08-06-2007, 9:37 AM
I'm going to help my son and his buddy build a speaker box for the buddy's truck to be behind the seat. Planning to use MDF for the box. Is there any reason why that is a bad idea? Also should be box be empty, lined with some type of material, or what?

TIA.................Mark

Matt Meiser
08-06-2007, 9:48 AM
Its been a while since I've done it (as in 11+ years) but MDF was the prefered material then because it is "dead". They usually got loosely stuffed with fiber fill (the material for stuffing pillows.)

There's a lot of science to them--interior volumes are supposed to be exact, ports, if you are going to have them, certain diameters and lengths, etc. Even 10 years ago there were a lot of good resources on the web for car audio.

Tony De Masi
08-06-2007, 9:53 AM
Mark,

You may want to reach out for Bill Wycko as I believe he owns an audio shop and does this for a living.

Tony

Ben Grunow
08-06-2007, 8:18 PM
most speakers come with specs for interior volume of the box and deoending on whether the speaker is ported or not (whether the box has a hole to allow air in and out). Follow the guide lines and it is easy.

I would use some PL 400 to really glue the box together though as any stray vibrations will really be heard (MDF is good for this job).

I suggest a non-ported box for subwoofers as the sound is much tighter which is what you want for accuracy when listening to anything but rap. If he likes rap then the non-ported subs are still good (better if you aks me) but will require much larger amps (and speakers must be designed to be non-ported) to make the same sound levels as ported speakers. This is because the non-ported speaker must compress the air in the box to move.

Ask him, he probably knows what he wants. If he doesnt like rap and big booming bass then seriously consider a non-ported sub. More $ but WAY better sound.

Hope that helps.

Pat Germain
08-06-2007, 11:22 PM
I've seen multiple books which include formulas for building speaker boxes. I was able to understand the formulas, so they must be pretty simple. I'm sure you find such things on the web as well.

Be sure your son's friend buys high quality amplifiers and speakers. Otherwise, the effort to build a nice box will be wasted.

Some other car audio fun facts:

- Most amplifiers are rated by "peak" watts which is meaningless. Root Mean Square (RMS) is the true output of an amp and what actually matters

- Most retail outlets push a bunch of overpriced hardware you don't need. Really, you don't need fancy, giant "Monster Wire" for a vehicle. The difference between using that stuff and using heavy duty lamp cord from the BORG is almost non-existent; certainly not discernable by the human ear

- You should probably go with at least 3/4 MDF to keep it from rattling. Lots of insulation material inside the box will also help

Michael Gibbons
08-08-2007, 7:12 PM
Years back ,I had a camaro and had a kick butt system installed but it was my duty to build the sub box. It was made out of particle board,sealed at the joints with silicone and stuffed with some insulation that I bought at Radio Shack:confused: Yes they really had stuff you could build things with. The audio store that installed the set-up said that was one of the best sounding systems he's heard in a while. I had 2 10" alpine subs run by a Harmon Kardon amp set in mono. It had nice tight bass. Not that overwhelming buzz of that obnoxoius tone they play in rap.