anyway....

the subject of UFB is a highly debated one for as long as car audio has been in existance.

I am on both sides of spectrum. I donot technically have subs mounted up front, but its soemthing I may or may not do b/c i know how well my car can work without it.

I have heard all the mentioned vehicles except Earl Zausmer BMW and like Winslow said- there is no comparision between a properly executed up front subwoofer system and one mounted in the rear.

But the differences are NOT audible IMO.
the differences are percieved not audible. It is thru tactile perception that you can start to localize subs in the rear which in turn can cause localization, but like i alraedy said it isnt an audible localization.

Listening (evaluation) is a visceral expereince IMO. all aspects of how we hear, percieve must be addressed in detail to achieve great results. there are No magical forumlas on how to build a truly amazing vehicle in terms of sound quality. Its trial and error and finding what works in YOUR vehicle.

now- one "problem" area that i and a few judges commented on about Scott Buwalda's vehicle is that the bass is very localized. the car is a tonal marvel and easily one of the best vehicles I have heard to date, BUT there are some instances where the bass should have been placed left or right center or left or right on the stage and the sub anchored it dead center in the dash with very very lil deviation.

IS/Was this a big deal?? No not in any way. DId it detract from having an overall great listening expereince?? No not in anyway.
But it was a technical aspect that was slightly screwed as a result of the driver placement.

Bottom line- There is no magical solution to achieving Sonic nirvana.
I can play my system with my 12s time delayed and then switch presets to just having my 8s on by themselves and there is very very lil differences overall.

it just takes time and experimentation to fidn what works. Just because it worked in one person's vehicle, doenst mean you'll have anywhere near similar results.

quote:

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Originally posted by KH:
I'm thinking about trying to get a sub up-front somewhere, I've got a few possibilities but wondering if there is an ideal position. First, I've got a Lexus ES300, on the off chance anyone's familiar with these.

My center console won't work, so that's out of the question. I might be able to fit an 8" where the factory HU and ashtray are, but I want lower and louder than I could get with an 8". My other option would be where the glovebox is, probably firing out towards the passengers legs. Will this position cause staging problems? Especially for the passenger? If it's moving much air, the passenger would probably be able to feel it on their legs. I might be able to work things around to fire down, but out would probably be much easier.

I got the crazy urge to try and get an IDMAX up front somewhere, if it's even possible, it wouldn't be easy; but that should be pretty sick if I could do it. I've got about .7 cubic feet just from taking the glovebox out, I'd have to see how much more I could get by moving things around, it'd be a tight fit if it'd fit at all.

Any opinions on that idea? Would it be worth it? Any better ideas? Encouraging words?

Anybody know the mounting depth on the MAX? What's the smallest sealed box it'll sound good in?

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What we found with the T-bird was that the dash sub needed to be crossed over at 80hz. Any higher and the stage collapsed inward. There also was a huge loss of depth with higher crossover points.
The interesting Item we found was that the single ten could not produce enough of the real low notes like 18hz to do the job correctly. What we wound up using was a bandpass between 80hz and 36hz. The rear subs played 36hz on down. Its takes a lot of cone area to produce all the low notes. Some competitors trade off having the correct amount of low bass for a more upfront effect.