Thread: For those who have subs in your trunk, why do you face 'em towards the rear?

This has puzzled me so I ask those who have this setup. Why is it I see most people who put a box in their trunk face the woofers towards the rear of the car and not facing the rear seat?

Is it for the look?...like when you pop the trunk it's a check those bad boys out type thing? Or because looking at the back of a carpeted box if they were facing the other way is boring to look at? I cant see anyone answering that it is for sound quality so this is why I pose the question.

To me this seems more of a trend than anything. Is it a monkey see monkey do thing? What are your thoughts?

For those who run no grilles on the (rear facing) subs they must be accustomed to always braking and cornering very lightly or never putting anything loose whatsoever in the trunk.

I have had them face both ways and the quality hadn't changed. I keep mine rear facing so I can show whom ever "Hey I have 'x' what choo got?" That's how I feel about that lol

My understanding is so the bass waves don't impact the interior frequencies. If you change the phasing either on the deck or the amp, you can face them forward. Also, many subwoofer enclosures are meant to fire into and enclosed area such as a trunk. I think it's why they make bandpass enclosures. I could be wrong though. LOL

When I had my 12" I had it facing a couple different ways, didn't notice any difference. I never really had to worry about damaging it since it never really moved except one time when i took a corner too fast and the box ended up upside down facing the opposite way lol.

My last 3 set up's had sub(s) firing up... All where designed using a rta/cabin gain.. Had a 12 firing toward side fender, sounded awsome but at high volumes it didnt.??

That's a pretty cool link, just what I was looking for...some scientific information.

While I do believe the author has the best of intentions the data produced is a bit flawed.
This is by no means to debunk Eddie as I did read the comments lower on the page as well.
I'm guessing that was the 'expert' trying to school Eddie and wow, what a moronic d-bag talking out his azz!

I do not however dispute Eddie's readings and I do believe what he measured is truthful. You can't trump hard data.

What Eddie did was to not only change the orientation of the box but change the positioning too. This can make a huge difference.

For Example: In home systems a sub will sound different depending on where it is placed. Put it in the center of the room and it sounds like X. Put it against a wall and now you have x with a 3db boost. Put same sub in a corner and now bass is boosted by +6db. This is called 'corner loading' and the same is true even in a car environment.

If you notice in the Neon the rear facing one has the woofer facing the 3-way corner, when faced forward for testing it is essentially only placed against two corners the floor and side wall (the seat does not count)
Also too the dramatic 100 Hz dip is because the back seat is absorbing it due to the very close proximity. I dunno a big dip at 100 does not really concern me too much as I usually X-over somewhere in the 80hz range or lower.

The Tahoe same thing, box position changes. It moves a few feet back for the rear test closer to the tri corner and is more in the open for the second test. This is why we see a bigger difference in the graphs over the Neon.

Now we look at the last one the Bug. I can see that the graphs are not too far off from each other as we can see from the pictures the box is nearly in the same position and the graphs are very similar. However when looking at the graphs the rear is 7-8db higher @ 80hz! That's a definate audible difference. 1-2db most people couldn't tell the difference but 7-8 is huge. This is where a front or rear thing could make a difference in the right situation.

What I do know is that even if facing just one way only, if we move the box perhaps even an inch or so around that frequency response graph you see will be affected, alot if you happen to position the sub in what is called a peak or a null.
I be willing to bet that if Eddie tried a rear facing sub in the middle of the trunk vs. one still facing the rear but pushed to one side of the trunk I'd think he'd see different responses and an increase on the output of the latter.

Oh well, looking like it is a moot point for me as box position will be fixed.

Bass is omni directional so it doesn't really matter.

One thing i heard is that facing them away means you can't hear as much distortion... therefore making you buy new subs