I'm Going deep on this one....regarding SUBS

Since most sound staging is derived from front speakers, has anyone considered or tried using infinite baffle/free air 6.5 inch subs/drivers in the rear doors as locations for subwoofers? I think two nice 6.5 drivers with an amp would sound better than the round paper in a plastic box that is behind the rear seat. I saw that JL Audio makes a 6.5 inch sub driver and that's what got me thinking. Any thoughts from the gallery????????

Any thoughts from the gallery????????

Interesting....... it just may work, if done right. I have surround sound in my RL and I hate the location of the rear speakers. A little too close to the front seats for my liking. I like the idea. I wonder if having the drivers facing each other like in the doors would cause problems. Then again, a lot of things that shouldn't work actually work like a charm. I used to think subs firing up into the underside of the rear seats of the Ridgeline would not work, but some have had success with it.

Go for it and let us know how it turns out. Also, please give us more detail when you get a chance.

hmmmm... subs in doors... hmmmm... :cool:

LOts and Lots and lots of dynamat (sound deadener) (is deadener a word?) is all I can think of ??????

I don't want to simply be negative, but I don't think you'll be happy with the results. Here are my reasons:

1. very few woofers perform well in free air. Without a closed box or tuned volume behind the driver they have to rely on their suspension. So drivers designed specifically for free air have very stiff suspensions. You can see this in a driver's specs by a high Qts, say greater than 0.5. If you don't use a driver like this their power handling is low. A door is free air even if it looks like a container because it is not even close to being sealed.
2. dynamat damps vibration but it doesn't make a panel stiffer. Putting a true woofer on the door panel will shake the door like crazy unless you reinforce the door panel. The door will contribute a lot of sound on its own.
3. I looked at the specs of JL 6W0 drivers, the only 6 inch woofer I saw on their site. It is an impressive 6 inch driver. But it wasn't designed for free air. It was designed for small boxes. You could build a box for it and somehow attach it to the doors, but that's one of those show car kind of fabrications. If you wanted to use it anyway the magnet if 4.5 inches in diameter and you will have to cut metal.
4. That driver is only rated for 75W and is VERY inefficient (81 db). It will not play loud. At 75W it will play only 101 Db. Two of them will play 104 Db.

That driver will perform well in a .13 cu ft. box, which is very small. Two of them require twice as much space, which is smaller than the factory sub.

Just my two cents.

I've seen some pretty good door enclosures in my day. Lots of work involved, but they're sweet when done right. I don't know of too many people who are actually good at it or should I say, know what they are doing.

I'll see if I can dig up some pics from my collection of weird and wonderful stuff.