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Replacing factory 8" sub with 4x 6.5" woofers (Drunk idea)
I bought a Kia Soul with the Infinity audio system in it. It is not great. Surprisingly the door speakers are actually quite nice. The Tweeters in the dash are not bad. But the sub is crap.
The sub is a 7 or 8" paper driver with dual 2 ohm coils. Plastic frame, paper cone, QTS=.95, SPL=86 db, VAS=11.4 L, FS=51hz, SD=200cm2.
The output of the sub is very low.
I looked for a high efficiency dual 2 ohm Sub and found nothing. Then I wondered if I installed 4 x 4ohm woofers in the empty spare tire area if that would be better. (I really don't want to add an amp right now.) This would get the spl up. But would it sound like crap?
Anyone ever tried this before?
Comments
Modeling 4 of the SB16PFC25-4 in a 1.9CF box tuned to 36hz shows an 8 db gain through the pass band of 30hz-100hz. Not sure how much room I have in the empty spare tire area....
Edit: The Dayton GF180-4 models about the same. (though it may have excursion issues at 30hz) for only $25 each when buying 4...
OEM Sub is the low blue line.
From your modeling, anything is better than the OE sub. There could be compromises made in the amp driving that sub, you might not get the overall gain expected. Do you have any options to try before commiting to buying?
That may not work as expected - there is likely some EQ happening on the factory end, additionally a lot of factory systems these days deliberately turn bass down as volume goes up in an effort to prevent over-excursion of the drivers.
https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton-Audio-UM8-22-8-Ultimax-DVC-Subwoofer-2-Ohms-Per-Coil-295-508?quantity=1
For not much more money would get you a waaaay better sub and room to grow by adding an amp later. A small ported setup would probably "feel" louder as it can dig deeper. Though, Like JR is saying.. actual results may be hindered by any factory response shaping/highpassing.
I would love to know what the factory EQ is doing in this system. It doesn't seem to be much, LOL. The tweeters have a 1st order passive XO. The mids sound like they are running fullrange. It is an 8 channel amp with 2 channels dedicated to the sub. This leaves 6 channels for 7 speakers...
The center speaker is probably bridged off LF and RF channels. That would sum it mono.
That is the only speaker that I have not pulled out. I think I read that it is a 100mm DVC fullrange. I looked up the pin out and only see 6 channels.
There's gotta be some OEM amp DSP in that setup and you'd be limiting the potential of a sub upgrade using the OEM amp. I'd replace the driver (for now) and get a budget sub amp at some point. I guarantee you'll hear a beneficial difference.
Only issue with that I see is how would you provide signal to the amp? I doubt the factory head unit has a pre-out. Using the speaker level outputs runs into the same OEM dsp issue. In my experience it is one of those slippery slopes that turns into tossing the factory head unit.
I've been down that path several times. One time I upgraded just the speakers in the car. They sounded horrible because they were better able to reproduce the garbage that the factory head unit was supplying them. Better aftermarket HU fixed that and turned the speakers back into the upgrade they were supposed to be. Moral of the story: Sometimes it is a step backwards unless you take the entire system into account.
I do wonder how much processing is going on in this system. I honestly doesn't seem like much. The doors are full range and the tweeters are run passively off the same channel. This car loaded was $25K list... Seems like they would not have put much into the audio...
I doubt I've ever had a vehicle that had any built in DSP. Even our current vehicles are over 10 years old. However I would not be surprised that as time goes by they will find it much cheaper to burn in a factory response to the head unit and spend less on the rest of the hardware.
The DSR1 has worked fantastic in the three vehicles i have used it in, retaining the stock head unit. I’ve been able to pick one up under $300 each time.
My 2008 Altima is DSP'd to death. YMMV. The AudioControl LC2i is absolutely awesome. I've used them maybe six times with zero issues.
AudioControl LC2i 2 Channel Line Out Converter
https://a.co/d/0QTXUOt