Way to Enhance Factory Kicker Subwoofer

[Srt4SC]

interesting;
tks for the idea.
my car did not crank yesterday lol. yeah testing/playing w sub from maybe 6 till 930 other night killed the battery. ive tested/played for way more than that before but i guess w the su woofer pulls alot more draw on the battery. i should have known. guess i was hoping the battery would charge itself overnight cuz the stereo started cutting off the night b4.
put the charger on it. will hope to see if i made any progress later today.


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[nineball]

Quote: Originally Posted by ValleyRacer

There is another thing you can do to upgrade your bass performance. Really cost effective here too. Depending your knowledge of wiring and cables, make an upgrade to the wire going to the speaker terminals or speaker driver connection points.
If the existing speaker wire looks like dental floss (as I found in my 99 NEON recently) - get something fatter and splice it on with crimps and tape as needed.

in order for this to be at all successful you would have to replace every inch of the signalwire. splicing a larger gauge wire at the end of the run will accomplish absolutely nothing.

[Srt4SC]

added some polyfill and liked it better. just 4 screws. sounds quite a bit better w polyfill imo.


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[mathew]

Good to hear this is helping out a few people! Its very easy to pull the subwoofer out of the box all you need is a phillips head screwdriver and unscrew 4 screws!

[Srt4SC]

messed w this more sone yesterday. added more polyfill. could easily tell i added too much. took half of what i added out and thought it did pretty good. may need to take a little more out.



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[nineball]

you want no more than 1lb/sqft, and the stock enclosure is far less than 1cf.

[Srt4SC]

messed with some more yesterday and i think i finally made a breakthrough as far as how much polyfill to add.
tks for ur comment on the 1 lb per sq foot, but i just had to play it by ear until it sounded correct for me.
i think i took the speaker off about 5 more times yesterday testing in between.
the polyfill i am using is the one that is flat . its cuttable with scissors. ive seen other kind that is more like cotton candy fluffy. mine was like... maybe 5mm think roll.
i must have tried id say maybe 10 different amounts until i think i got it right. including other previous days.
started with what i thought it should be w a little on the less side. i just heard improvement my 1st time.
having the toggle switch helped me out. had to get the stereo settings dialed in. then the only thing i was changing was amount of polyfill..
basically just added and subtracted until i think i got it right.
i will say that once i added polyfill, my laying down some towels beside the subwoofer trick did not work for me anymore. i havent tried it again yet but im hopeful i wont need to.
that and how tight you tightened the 4 screws i think i notice a little
difference there too.
i seem to like tightening it just barely tight enough to where the assembly doesnt rattle. too tight and for some reason i dont like it.
tks again for your 1 lb per sq foot thing. i think im roughly in those parameters.



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[Foxbody]

Gonna mess with this concept tonight, see if I can tell the difference.

[Srt4SC]

it is hard to tell when sub is on off , but with my settings how i like i can tell. and having a toggle switch is almost needed.
r u trying in the srt4 factory kicker system? or sonething else?
i have my fader to the rear roughly -5 or R5. so my door speakers arent putting out that much. so that helps me to be able to hear it. plus also kicker systems from the factory tie into the front not rear speakers so i would not b able to do what i have if i had the kicker sub from the factory. but the 77kick01 sub upgrade ties into rear speaker so i can.
i have bass at roughly -1 and treble roughly -4. in testing i notice that slightly turning down the bass i was able to hear sub difference more effectively.
so w all that said unsure if you will notice anything.
the rear 6x9's still put out 80% of my bass. when i turn sub off it surprises me at how much bass comes from factory(standard not kicker upgrade) puts out. imo factory kicker 6x9 upgrade puts out a brighter performancy trebley sound that to me would even further prevent you from hearing sub.


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[SRT4kta]

ya this is a very good idea well thought out too

[SilverTurboRidin]

I enhanced mine by changing the amp. Put in a small 150w rms Sony. Just enough until my box was done

[dustbunny]

I just replaced the stock headunit with a JVC and sound a whole lot better.

[Srt4SC]

Quote: Originally Posted by SilverTurboRidin

I enhanced mine by changing the amp. Put in a small 150w rms Sony. Just enough until my box was done

was this hard to do? you changed the amp going to the factory sub?


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[Srt4SC]

Quote: Originally Posted by dustbunny

I just replaced the stock headunit with a JVC and sound a whole lot better.

i once had a alpine installed. my impression was that it did make it sound better in some ways but i could not get the bass to sound as good as i could w the factory head unit, and at this time i did not have a factory kicker sub.
i am itching to put the alpine back in though to see if the factory sub will still work and i think it should
and see if it does better than what i got now.

also i do not think the factory head unit is left and right stereo, but somehow a mono configuration. i this for some reason helped my bass response out from factory speakers BUT noticed in some songs that it did not have left and right differentiation.


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[nineball]

Quote: Originally Posted by Srt4SC

was this hard to do? you changed the amp going to the factory sub?


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be kinda stupid to amplify an already amplified signal

Quote: Originally Posted by Srt4SC

i once had a alpine installed. my impression was that it did make it sound better in some ways but i could not get the bass to sound as good as i could w the factory head unit, and at this time i did not have a factory kicker sub.
i am itching to put the alpine back in though to see if the factory sub will still work and i think it should
and see if it does better than what i got now.

also i do not think the factory head unit is left and right stereo, but somehow a mono configuration. i this for some reason helped my bass response out from factory speakers BUT noticed in some songs that it did not have left and right differentiation.


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the factory hu is not mono, it is stereo just like every other modern headunit. the reason for the difference is the eq curve specifically designed and built into the factory hu for the factory speakers. typically it looks like an upside down "U" boosting the highs and lows.