[par4tom]

Before I go any further, let's talk briefly about sub woofers. In small cab enclosures like our old trucks, subwoofers much larger than 10" in space are going to result in muddy, overhung base.

Granted...I get the whole thing with you younger guys liking to brag about having 4 12-inch subs behind your seats and blasting everyone out of the neighborhood. However, the problem with large subwoofers is that the require large amount of enclosure space in order to achieve acceptable results.

If you notice in my truck, I only have 2 (very good quality CDT Audio Subs) that are 8" each. I went this route because I could: a) Get them to fit behind my seat; b) get a big enough sealed-enclosure (in this case I built a .375 cubic foot enclosure for each sub) for accurate reproduction; and c) (which is probably the most important one), I was able to get them down and way from directly behind the seat so that all of the vibration from the subs wasn't pounding directly into my back, and ruining my first objective which is...you guessed it...create the illusion that all the sound was coming from in front of me and over the top of the dash.

Rule of thumb on subs - if you want to just be loud and proud, go with any size sub you want and how ever many you can fit. If you are looking for smoothness, bump, and accuracy, stay with a 10" or 8" sub. A pair is more then enough.

Trust me, I can get more sound out of a well designed pair of 8's then a lot of you guys can get out a pair of 10's or 12' in enclosures that are too small. I won't delve into the efficiency aspect of subwoofers, but will add that a lot of you are getting cleaned out by stereo shops that don't know what they are doing and paying too much money for poor results. Here are few photos of my own build...

Notice how far down and to the side each one of the subs is located. I moved them as far away from the back of my seat as possible.