W7 ?'s

For those of you who have played with the placement of these subs, what seemed to work best for you? Foe example, fire straight out, towards to bow or fire into the side of the wall. I am specifically looking for info for placement under the drivers side dash.

I ended up putting it the storage on the left, it shook the dash like crazy. I have it in the JL W7 box. It is firing toward the stern. It is so loud and no rattling.

um if you can definately go ported with the w7
sealed w7's require much more power than recommended
ported with recommended power will be much louder and cleaner.

i originally had sealed and changed to a ported box and got much louder in my truck and it is just a single 10 and it sounds like 2 10's or louder

Hummmmm. I have fired W7's in almost every direction and I cant say one directions sounds better than the other. Ill give you some examples.
Forward Fire W-7

I would say this box/sub provides a wide range of bass tones because its providing tones that are being created from the bass being bounced around quite a bit before it gets back to you. I guess the cavern effect gives a deeper fuller tone. It also provides quite a bit of bass in the front of the boat because thats where its pointed. The down sides to pointing a sub away from you is just that. Some not all of the Downsides #1 you cant scoot the box all the way forward because you have to acount for the 3 inches of movemet the sub has. #2 The sound your hearing is a reflection of what the sub is pushing into. So if the wall your bouncing it into is a bad surface acoustically then the sound comming off it is not gonna be so good keep in mind that the dash has lots of things (gauges)that rattle and a well powerd W7 is gonna make things shake and move quite a bit.

A Side Fire W7

This has all the upsides of the forward mounted sub but dosent seem to rattle the dash as much. It also seems to give the driver a bit of bass with also filling the boat with bass from the vent. The smooth front of the box makes a large window if your gonna do a display box.
Forward Fire W7

This direction works well. Many subs dont like to fire into open air. It seems they need the Air spring of a wall or somthing to bounce off of to keep them in control. I was told by the guys @ JL that the W7 was designed to fire into open air. Weather it works best this way is still up in the air. I do think you loose somthing shooting it into open air because it dosent have anything to bounce off of. But if your sitting in fornt of one it sure sounds and feels good. I personally think the forward fireing W-7 sounds the best. I think the side fireing W-7 produces the most bass.
This box produces lots of bass you feel in your chest. its in harolds boat in it sits right behind the drivers seet pointed right at the passenger. BOOOM this thing sounds good

This box sits in his passenger compartment. It dosent give the punch in your chest feel the open air box gives but it produces lots of bass.

Over all if you can do 2 W-7's one to fire into somthing and one to fire at ya. Here are some more examples. One at you and One into somthing.



If your intrested in these systems contact
Clay @ www.soundillusionsaudio.com He has more experiance with W7's and boats than any one I know.

so bling-it, your basically the man with all these different, rediculous systems you have done. I'm jelous

grant have you guys used any 13w7? What type of power do you typically supply to 1 or 2 w7s?

Eric: I have done a few W7 systems. Most of the pic's above are from Clay @ Sound Illusions.
Nate: I havent messed with a 13. Clay has done a few. As Far as power it depends. You can power a W-7 with as little as 1000 watts and as much as 1800. Depends on what your trying to do. Example if your looking to do a SQ system 1000 will work just fine but if you wanna make a W7 bounce your gonna need 1600-1800 watts.

Wow! Those are some nice looking setups! I have had 2 JL W6's and they were loud. I was told that 1 W7 is equal and better than 2 W6's. Is that true? How much does a single W7 and sufficient amp normally cost? Besides the custom box. Thanks Josh

Josh: your question. Is one 12 W7 better than 2 12 W6's. Easy answer No. IMO it all depends 2 12's set up and powerd right are gonna sound pretty good. W6's sound real nice some people like them better than W7's because they are cheeper lighter and require less air space and power. But I dont think you can 1 is better than 2 or vice versa. In a car I could see that working out but in a boat IMO Ill take 2 over 1.
Here is a Pic of my brothers Infinty Q56 with a W7. Clay did this system and it sounds awesome

Sealed box's sound better in my opinion, I've had many ported boxes in the past and the sound is much looser and not as clean in my opinion, Sealed boxes with a little bit more volume sound better with a little deeper bass.

You guys have some ridiculous setups. I wish I had the chance to listen to them. Not too many boats in my area with that much in their stereos.

i would consider other subs....tc sounds (inventor of the high excursion subs) and the image dynamics id max(eric has a new one coming out in 07 that will be a killer)..

the jl w7's are good high excursion subs, but the 2 mentioned above are much, much better in terms of sound quality, durability, overall parameters (box design, efficency, and serviceability)

Hey Grant thanks for the posts my brother, just chimed into this thread.

Colin: I agree with you. I have found that sealed W7's sound better than ported. The notion that you gain another 3 db or somthing is not true at leat I have not found it to be true.
Colin, is that your boat with the W7's? if so how would you describe the differance between the sound between the 2 subs you have your boat.
The one on the passenger side pointing at the driver does it sound diffrent because its shoothing into the aera where the driver sits

Its not my boat, but a good freinds. Another thing i forgot to mention about sealed box's is they are much safer in salt water, that xstar is a ss series. The one infront of the driver is a 13.5 and the one in the walkthrough is a 12. The sound difference is mainly due to the size difference so its hard to tell. Yea the 13.5 shoots the bass right in the cabin, the 12 is real loud too and you can clearly hear it all in the bow. The tower speakers are pretty loud too.

I built/had built a couple differnt boxes for a w-6 and did notice a differnce in output in sealed vs ported. Ported was noticable louder, but couldn't tell you by how much.

I'm a big fan of sealed boxes. Nice pics above too.

SICK pictures. Does anyone have plans or specs for building a box for a 13 W7 under the dash of an '05 VLX? I wish there was a Sound Illusions near Orlando.

Clay: What size W7 is that in the QX56? What kind of adapter (speaker to Rca) did you use to keep the stock head unit? That must sound ridiculous. I have a QX also and was tossing around the idea of putting a system into it. Nice job on that center console. Do you have any more pics of the install?

Clay: I found the pics on your site. Damn!!!

I really like the W7 install in that infiniti. Very nice work.

Johny: My brothers Q56 is running a 10 W7. The Plexy LED ring was made by Kris @ Wake Specialty.
Clay took the stock rear center consoul and re-made it to look like a stock consoul. It has LED cup holders and the orignal arm rest. When you look inside the Q56 you dont even know there is a system in it. It bangs real nice. Its all Zapco with the symba link. There is No rca's in Brad's Q56 its all balanced symba link lines

I meant to post this yesterday but my networks been down...

That is down right nasty. Look at those things... GOOD LORD!!!

Johnny- I used a piece from PAC to convert from Speaker wire to RCAs, and then an RCA to Symbalink adapter from Zapco. The Pac peice was really nice cause it was all plug and play, no cutting stock wires for the signal. One complaint though was that the supplied Amp turn-on lead wasnt even strong enough to turn on the the relay that I used for the amps. I had to grab power from another lead behind the deck.

Does anyone have plans or specs for building a ported box for a 13 W7 front or side firing under the dash of an '05 VLX?

JL doesn't recommend porting the 13W7.

JL doesn't recommend porting the 13W7.

Dont knwow where you got that from but heres the manual for the 13W7 with there reccomendations for boxes. 1 ported, 1 sealed.

http://mobile.jlaudio.com/pdfs/594.pdf

(Message edited by jv210 on December 12, 2006)

Yea I dont see why you shouldnt port a 13W7 but a 12W7 is fine? I would think if you shouldnt port a 13W7 they wouldnt have it in the JL manual.


Johnny: To answer your question I would say No. I dont think anyone is going to have the spec's for a box for your VLX. Each boat is diffrent somtimes even with the same modle year and modle. Some boat have a heater and thats in the way so you have to make the box diffrent or move the heater or both.

Johnny are you stuck on a ported box and what Amp are you going to power it with???

Thanks for the Reply Grant.

I have a JL 1000/1. I thought a ported box like the side fire picture above would be my best option for the type of sound and look I'm looking for.

I wish you guys could build me a box and ship it, but I understand every boat is different. Surprisingly I haven’t been able to find a stereo shop in Orlando that deals mainly with boats.

I’ve built some boxes before but never ported.
Do you have any recommendations or rough estimates/measurements on how large the box/port should be and placed?

Thanks for your help, and sick pictures!

pull the specs from the JL website and do the math.

Take some pic's and take some measurments, Clay has a 06 VLX so he could build you a box if you gave him the correct information.

#1 I would not run a Ported box
#2 I would not run that 1000/1 on a 13 W7

Clay built a box for a 13 W7 a few months ago. It went in a 24/7 in the passsenger side. A 13 W7 at the drivers feet will knock pretty hard. They key is the right power and a solid box.
I would try and point the sub directly at you, Or side fire it into the Hull and make a trim peice that lets it vent like in the 9th pic I posted but on the drivers side. Get ahold of Clay if you wanna build a box. 650 533 4960

Johnny- I did put a 13W7 in a 23 LSV allittle bit ago, the volume was 1.875 cubic ft, it was a side firing box, and was pretty big. A ported box is going to require 2.375 cubic ft. for that sub. If you are going to port the box I would fire the driver into the cabin.

Vented 13 in a 23LSV, it's a tight fit but works out well.