bass in the boat

I try to work on my boat myself as much as I can and this winter I want some bass. Not too much, I dont need to be the loudest guy on the lake. But when in the boat I want it to ROCK!. Anyway I am hoping I can put a box next to the battery under the passenger seat. My questions are: Will that sound good? Should it be a ported box? Im not the best at speaker knowledge...install is not a problem. I just need to be pointed in the right direction with the right material. Any help would be appreciated. My other thought is that a "built in" sub in front of the driver seat might sound the best..I dont know. Thanks!

the built in sub won't sound nearly as good but is super easy and looks good in the end... we did that with our boat, its an Alpine Type-R 15" and it sounds good, but just good. You can hear it fine, but it never really pounds.

If you can remove the kick panel for the drivers seat and replace it with a box of some sort that would be the best bet.... I'm sure lots more will chime in with pics and better help

saw this i would say only way to go look awesome and im sure it hits to.

that has McFly written all over it! I think I'm just gonna buy one of his demo boats next time; they are always bangin'....

I put in an aluma pro BP-8 8" sub and it sounds great. Fit well deep inside the drivers foot well in my moomba

LOL... that's mine.

I have had both a 10" L5 Kicker solobaric and a 12" solo Baric both in sealed boxes that were undersized about 25%. I used a mono 500 watt Rockford Fosgate T500 amp.

To be honest the 10" met my needs better but I don't push mine as hard as a lot of people do. I put them in the drivers foot well also. I had it professionally done not that one could't do it themselves.

Drivers foot well is the best bet if you're looking at a single sub set up. I have a JBL GTI 10" with a 1200 watt JBL amp pushing it and it bangs real well. I put a second 10 in the passenger side compartment but didn't much care for it. I may try something more this winter.

The drivers console balk-head is a popular spot for a sub. Here is a Tige 20V with the Wet Sounds WS-10FA. It can be used with or without a box and really sounds great, either way. Install is simple and clean, no loss of foot room in the front or storage on the backside.

Definitely under the drivers compartment is best if your only putting in 1 sub. Depending on the sub you might loose a little foot room. Here's what I got in mine.

jason w7??

those can poundddd

Jason is that ported or sealed box? What kind of boat? I got a w7, I need to get installed.

It's a 13 and in a sealed box. Malibu LSV

food for thought.

Alright, thanks for the help everyone. Seems like the proper way to do it is to put it in front of the drivers seat exposed. THANKS!!!

Jason what amp do you have running that 13? And how much power do you feed it?

I got an arc se2300

IMO you can't fit anywhere near enough subs under the steering wheel

I posted a thread asking almost this same thing. I have and 08 Avy with an kick plate that is part of the liner. It is hallow on the inside except for some foam for dampning.

Ben, did you cut through your kick plate or not? Has anyone put an WS sub in on the driver side on the newer Avy's?

colombian,

can you take some pictures of the kick panel and what is behind it?

You can cut out the kick panel and build the box for the space and build a new trim panel.

This is how we did mine. This was the first box. I have since re built it with a larger slot port but same concept.

Tim
Wet Sounds

Colombian, your WS XXX isn't designed to be free-air, it needs to be installed in an enclosure. So you can probably make it work by building your box in front of the factory kickpanel, as I did in my Supra... (see the pic above). Though some people have cut-out their kick plate all-together. I'd be worried about compromising the boat in some way by doing that...

Dang it, Tim and I were posting at the same time... but said different things, as Tim has a different opinion about cutting the kickpanel. It just depends how deep into it you are willing to go.

Cal makes a good point. The pic tige mike attached is the Wet Sounds XS-10FA. it is designed to be a free air install. Cut the hole in the panel and use the cavity as the enclosure.

The XS-12 and XS-XXX need an enclosure.

What we did was build the box that would fit. Cut the panel the sqaure of the box and slid the box in and then mounted the box. And built the trim panel around it and mounted it to the front.

The new one we built has a hole for the woofer that covers the screw holes. So it looks like the woofer is mounted from the back.

This way you do not have to cut the entire panel out. Just enough for the box to slide in.

It depends on the boat. As some panels are part of the boat and some are just a screwed on panel.

Tim
Wet Sounds

To go along with Cal and Tim, depending on the amount of room you have to access the back of the driver's balk-head wall, you can build an open box, with out the baffle side where the sub would mount, and attach the box to the back of the wall and front load the sub in the balk-head wall as normal. Here are a few pics of one getting a Kicker CVR12

[IMG]http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x101/chpthril/Picture451.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x101/chpthril/Picture445.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x101/chpthril/Picture452.jpg[/IMG]

Here's my 10" Polk Audio Sub by the driver's feet.. Not as fancy as some of these setups, but excellent sound for a really small space (about 1 cubic foot or so)..


(Message edited by adam1680 on December 10, 2008)

The kick plate is part of the boat's structural wall. See pics.

This pic you can see it on the right that it is part of the mold. they just fill it with some foam for damping.

This pic gives you the full size of it.

Here's the one I built. I use it as a step for people to get in and out of my San instead of stepping all over the seat. Sorry,no pics of it in the boat,but It sits behind the drivers seat where the wraparound seating fails to wrap around . There is an l.e.d inside so you can see the sub thru the lexan window. Not great,but way better than the stock enclosure.

Looks nice Mike!

So Tim or anybody, any ideas on the Centurion Pics?

Well that is different than mine and many of the others I have seen. More like the Nauti What do you have going on under the glove box?

You could mount the box/sub in there and then cut a hole in the side where the walk way is and vent it.

Here is a pic of a Nauti that Earmark did. They sell the routered panels as well. Or you can make one yourself.

Tim
Wet Sounds

On the driver side, I have the Perko switch and the battery cables coming up to it. I already have a 10" under there and it does not sound that good under the dash on that side.

The only other option is to build a box and put it in front of the kick plate while giving up some leg room. Not a big deal since I am mostly facing sidways anyway. I would have to put some kind of bars across the sub to keep those driving the boat from kicking it in. I have seen them and I want to think that JL makes them. Not 100% sure. It would look something like VLX Envy has. Any other ideas out there?

MikeS, nice job looks tight and is a great solution to Nautique not wrapping their seating around. I never got that either. So did you just tie the LED into the sub so it lights up when the sub hits?

I seriously read the title as

Since you're not concerned with being the loudest guy on the lake there are definitely some cheap and simple options for you. I too didn't care to have the loudest system on the water. Like you I just wanted some decent sounding bass that was loud "inside" the boat.

I decided to go the budget route and I can tell you that friends of mine who have expensive custom set ups all comment on how good my system sounds. For my sub I built an unported enclosure out of MDF. I put a 1000 watt Pyle sub in there that I bought from Millionbuy.com for $25. I bought a 1000 watt Lightning mono amp off of e-bay for $69. So basically my sub system cost me around $100 total. The sub is hidden behind the drivers kick plate wall and fires towards the side of the boat.

It doesn't come close to thumping the whole lake like a quality high priced system will, but it sounds damn good inside the boat and has been going strong for over two years.

Keith I did to thought I was on the wrong site

Sean I would consider MikeS' setup. A down firing sub will be ideal for what you want because it will be louder without having to buy expensive audio equipment. I always liked down firing subs. Gets the ground shaking. Good job Mike

Ya, I like Mikes idea. I think I could custom make a box to fit in front of my wrap around seat and behind the drivers seat...dont know if it could be that tall. I will have to bust out the measuring tape. Theres a bass in my boat HELP!!!...good stuff keith. Thanks for the help, great ideas!

hey vlx envy, I want to do the same exact thing in my LSV, is that a 12 or 15"

keith i thought the same thing too

Add another to the fish in the boat on initial read. You're seen those videos of those fish jumping in the boat as they go up river!! I thought you had a bigmouth bubba flopping on the floor!

I initially thought this thread was about fish,too!

Thanks for the props guys.I don't know jack about audio,but it was pretty easy to do. Rockford Fosgate has the formulas for calculating box volumes on their site.
I did not set the LED up to come on when the sub hits....didn't even cross my mind.
The nautique logo is actually hand cut into the wood on the front....it's not a sticker.I got a little carried away.