free air or "pre fab" enclosure/sub set up
 

Hey guys, So the more I am looking at subs for my boat. I am find more and more that are "designed for" or "suitable" for free air application. So my question is.

Do I get a free air sub or one of the "pre-made" sealed set-ups from kicker or bazooka?? I always thought free aired subs were really odd cause enclosure are the normal thing in car application. but I see a lot of marine subs are designed to be free air.

For free air, where are you guys mounting?? does it have to be a mounting area with a enclosed area behind the sub. or can it be mounted to a paned that is just open on the other side.

The pre-made enclosures I am looking at are as follows:
http://www.kicker.com/skm10

http://www.bazooka.com/products/mari...-ohm-Tube-P108

Thanks for any input!!

problem with some of the pre-fab enclosure in a boat is they are not designed to be in a marine enviorment. The ones I have see dont' hold up well long term.

What kind of bass are you looking for? Do you want a lot of hard hitting bass or are you just wanting to fill in the lows that are currently missing? What's your budget?

Both of the enclosures I mentioned are both considered "marine", do they still not hold up??

I'm not looking for massive bass, I've got 4 db651 as in boats that are perfectly powered at 60 rms, I just want something to get the lows so I don't have to push them to produce a frequency they aren't design for. I would be driving this sub with a bridged 2 channel at 150 rms (the amp has a low pass filter).

I would like to stay around 150 for budget, another reason why the free air seems like a good option, I always understood it as a not good option in car audio... but is it more the norm in marine applications??

The Kicker one will for sure or they wouldn't grade it as marine. I would guess that the Bazooka one would too. Do you have a panel under the dash where you could just mount a 10" sub? If so, you could honestly just put a 10" or 12" sub in the panel and it will sound decent and that will save you quite a bit of money. My Tige came with a 10" Kicker Comp VR just mounted on the board and it at least gave you some lows. I wound up building an enclosure behind it to get more output.

thats what I was thinking to do^^ just make a "false" panel under helm console and mount the sub too it. Not many options in a d drive.

My concern was not having the rear of the free air sub in a enclosed area behind it, for example the storage compartment. It seems like it ideal to have a "enclosed" area behind a free air sub?

Build a box bro. You heard the one in my Moomba.. It was in the driver footwell - I bought a box for $20 on Craigslist, spent $5 on a can of truck bed liner and sprayed the entire exterior and then recarpeted it, used silicon to seal around the sub to keep it dry inside and then I built those spacers underneath that I was telling you about in case I ever dipped the nose.. I think i had $25 total into the box and mine was a 12" sub and it sounded great for the money I had into it (virtually nothing).. There was still plenty of room for my legs under there and you and your main driver are both 5'9" so legroom won't be an issue.

I like Jeff's idea. Heck, you can probably pick a decent 10" or 12" sub already in a box off of Craigslist and then do what Jeff said or even just leave it, even if it gets wet, it could still last a few years.

I wouldn't consider doing infinite baffle on a sub. I've heard them, and think it's a waste of power....but that's just my opinion.

The enclosure you use is more important than the sub. Nearly all of those pre-fab boxes are not made to the specifications of the woofer. I've used Ryan from Ram Designs for box plans. I just told him the space I had available, what woofer I wanted to use, and gave him $10. He gave me a spec sheet, cutlist, etc. I don't think paying a professional for an enclosure design would be necessary if you're going to use a sealed enclosure, though.

I'd look for a high efficiency sub. The infinity sub I linked below would do well with the power you have available. You can get them for around $60, and they have very high efficiency. (96db) (I'm assuming you'll have 300w bridged)