No where to put a Sub :(

Hey Guys, I'm new here. Just picked up my first boat ( Monterey 190 ) and getting ready to put in a new sound system. My problem is sub-woofer location. My only real option is in the back engine compartment, which has tons of room, with a 12" sub for enough airspace. I MAYBE could fit an 10" or 8" Sub under the drivers console and a small box, but then leg room could suffer. The engine compartment has 4 air escapes for ports, 2 going forward along the side and 2 heat exits in the rear. I'm curious if I will be able to hear it good being inside there ? All my friends have theirs out in the open and they rock, Ive never seen one in a compartment. THANKS !!!

Red circles are the air vents

Ive learned that a sub feeding the open air is much louder than one in behind a cushion ..

I would get a sub that doesn't require too much airspace and make a nice ported box for it. Cram it under the passenger area. They don't need the footspace lol. You didn't enclose picture but if its tight, just fiberglass a box in. to maximize space.

You could also glass in a custom shallow mount enclosure in one of the side panels close to the speaker mounting locations

You could build a custom glass box in the bow area at floor level. Make it look fatctory and put a sub there...

Just a couple ideas.

Good luck

Thanks for the reply, here is the best pic i have right now of the driver and passenger area. I'm thinking of maybe just going with a 10" and not a 12" to lower the amount of needed airspace. Engine compartment might get too hot, plus, there designed to keep the engine noise down, therefor a sub may not even be heard. Im installing a tower soon as well as swim deck. Right now Im stuck on the subwoofer.

Those compartments along side the engine are huge. That means the air space is highly compliant. The surface area of the ports is small which means very resistive. That means there is no impetus for the bass radiation to pass through the ports. Not to mention that the collective ports are no where near a 12" sub Sd (surface area). On top of that, all the ports are high versus down lower in the bathtub, so to speak. So the losses are gigantic. The woofer and amplifier will work themselves into the ground for no more than a ton of indiscriminate boat shakin', but very little musical bass makin'.
An 8" sub won't go as low as a 10" which won't go as low as a 12". But, for getting output, it's all about the most woofer surface area and the acoustic leverage as to how the woofer loads into the boat. In surface area, dual 8"s exceed one 10", and dual 8"s is about two/thirds of one 12".
An angled & down-firing woofer(s) in a sealed enclosure (sealed is likely all you'll have space for) that is tucked up as high as possible under either port or starboard helm console will give you excellent acoustic loading into the boat. You might be surprised what a couple of tight side-by-side 8" can do sharing a 0.7 cu.ft. total sealed enclosure if correctly positioned.
So start with the boat and calculate the maximum external displacement that will fit. Convert that to interior displacement and go with the maximum woofer that is optimized for that sealed space. 'Optimized' would mean a 'Qtc' (system 'Q' of the woofer IN the box) around 0.8 to 0.85. If strictly by the math, it turns out to be dual 8"s, a 10", or a 12", or whatever, then that is exactly what you run.

You might be able to utilize the floor space on the bench seat. You could make a box there for some subs or move the 6.5's to that area if there isn't much room in behind and place a shallow mount sub in the area the 6.5s used to be in.

Wow, great info there, thanks so much David. I only want to run 1 sub since Im powering the sub with a Rockford M1200-1D MARINE 1200W Mono amp. I think I'm going to shoot for under the driver seat, probably 10", since its always me sitting there and I wont kick the sub and mind less space. I'm guessing having the sub fire down to the floor is the way to go instead of me cutting a hole and using the front seat as a sealed box, I don't put anything in that compartment anyways. In other words, I use the front compartment as the box instead of building one in the foot space. It would be a long rectangular box filling the forward compartment and the sub cut out under the dash.

If you can get away with it, I'd put a 10" under the drivers dash to the far left against the wall. It wouldn't take up too much of your foot space. I have a friend with a Wakesetter that has, I believe a 8" or 10" sub in that location and you can barely notice it.

Turn your bow into a playpen by getting a filler cushion and having the sub enclosure in what used to be the walkthru area in the bow.

My bow was already a playpen so I just added a bedliner'd box and then added some snaps and put a cushion on it so it's a "subwoofer jump seat".

Here is the spot where I but my sub box:


And here's a pic of it with the cushion installed.


I would think you could easily convert your bow to a playpen and if you didn't use the entirety of the walkthrough area for a box, you could make it into additional storage.

Here's an example of one. I don't like the excecution, but it will give you some food for thought:


Another example:

That's where I put my 2nd w7 in my old boat

Definitely different, but it worked for us.

Forget my idea for under the dash. If you have the resources to make it a playpen, do that.

WOW, awesome installs, gives me some great ideas !!!

Are you guys using marine subs or just regular car subs ? I cant find any dual voice coil marine subs anywhere. I'm thinking of going with the Alpine Type-R 10" Sub.

I just have a regular sub. I figure if it dies, I'll get another one.

Originally Posted by gapple12

Are you guys using marine subs or just regular car subs ? I cant find any dual voice coil marine subs anywhere. I'm thinking of going with the Alpine Type-R 10" Sub.

DVC Marine subs aren't hard to find:

http://exileaudio.com/store/index.ph...c-12-600w.html

I have this one: http://exileaudio.com/store/index.ph...12-400w-1.html

http://www.wetsounds.com/pages/products/XS-XXX.html

I almost bought this one: http://www.polkaudio.com/products/mm1240dvc

Are those all marine subs ? I know the Wet Sounds stuff is, but the exile and polk dont look to be Marine. If Im going to drop $500 on a Sub, it damn well better last

The exile stuff is marine as well. Its great bang for buck!

Originally Posted by Greeko

The exile stuff is marine as well. Its great bang for buck!

Can you explain in detail?

Ok, Ive purchased all my equipment. Got the ROCKFORD FOSGATE M1200-1D MARINE 1200W Mono amp, Alpine Type R DVC 2 ohm 10" sub, and Polk Audio 6.5 2 way marine speakers all around. So, since my amp is 1 ohm stable and puts out 1200 watts at 1 ohm, i take it i can bridge the 2 ohm voice coils on the sub to bring it to 1 ohm for full power ? Just making sure I understand this right.

Amp I got
http://www.rockfordfosgate.com/produ...tails/m1200-1d

Sub I got
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-9o6qSam...-SWR-10D2.html

Yup! Run the coils in parallel as per page 4 in the manual and run that to the amp. That sub will make a lot of noise at that power.

Originally Posted by chpthril

Can you explain in detail?

From what I understood, their terminals and screws are all stainless, their boards are somewhat coated. They also test their components in a high moisture environment under load.

This is of course second hand info from exile. You can contact the directly for spec sheets and such.

Have u had a bad experience with exile ? I don't mind them for the money. I'm running a xi 2500.1 and found it for around $500