Free air woofer recommendations

**bigburb** · 10-22-2010, 08:51 AM

Looking to add a 8 or 10 inch subwoofer to give some rear bass support in my 1999 Suburban. Going to put it in the cargo door I don't plan to build an enclosure for it, I've done a search and couldn't find much on free-air woofers so I guess its not that popular. Anyone got some good recommendations? Not looking for crazy bass, just support, so nothing too expensive.

**99chevy7.4L** · 10-22-2010, 09:12 PM

Most drivers will handle free air. But they may not go to as low of a frequency. You can find the free air response by the Fs in the specs. Hope that helps.

**oopsyoubrokeit** · 10-25-2010, 08:43 AM

It takes a very specific woofer to work Free-air, and they won't handle much power. So my next question is, do you really understand what free-air is? There isn't a method of putting one in a Suburban without an enclosure.

**TheOtherSide** · 10-26-2010, 07:59 AM

You can put a subwoofer anywhere without an enclosure. You just need something to hold the driver like a sheet of plywood/mdf. Look up info on infinite baffle because that is the more common name for free air.

**oopsyoubrokeit** · 10-26-2010, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by TheOtherSide

You can put a subwoofer anywhere without an enclosure. You just need something to hold the driver like a sheet of plywood/mdf. Look up info on infinite baffle because that is the more common name for free air.

Do you know WHY the baffle is there? It's to isolate the front and rear wave. How do you intend to do that in a Suburban? In a trunk car that can be done between the cabin and seat, there isn't such an option in an SUV.

**Drisco Z71** · 10-26-2010, 09:02 PM

Originally Posted by oopsyoubrokeit

Do you know WHY the baffle is there? It's to isolate the front and rear wave. How do you intend to do that in a Suburban? In a trunk car that can be done between the cabin and seat, there isn't such an option in an SUV.

exactly, you should really just look into building a box or buying one.

**MRMDFY** · 10-26-2010, 09:07 PM

Build an enclosure.

**bigburb** · 10-27-2010, 06:16 AM

My plan was to build a baffle into the rear cargo door and use plenty of sound deadening material.

**oopsyoubrokeit** · 10-28-2010, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by bigburb

My plan was to build a baffle into the rear cargo door and use plenty of sound deadening material.

That's an enclosure. I'm willing to bet it wont sound very good because of how poorly sealed it will be without a lot of effort, and no matter how much you deaden in, it will make noises. There is the panel, lock mechanism, etc. you have to consider there.

**bigburb** · 10-29-2010, 06:13 AM

Wow no-one seems to support this. Like I said I'm not going for booming base, just some extra support in the rear to compensate for the lousy 4x10 speakers. The base in the front is excellent. The left rear cargo door does not have any locking mechanisms inside of it, just a little wiring for the defroster, and the panel can be secured with screws. I'm not a newbie to customization (you should see my last suburban), but I've never dealt in the field of free-air woofers before, I just wanted a recommendation. Either way, I think I've decided to go with the pioneer flat subwoofer since I've only got 4" of space inside the door panel, and most 8" seems have 6" of depth.

**addiction2bass** · 10-29-2010, 06:43 AM

you can put it in the cargo door but i highly recomend you build a box for it.
heres what you can do, pull the trim panel off the door then bust out the saw and cut a opening in the doors inner skin large enough for you to build a box in for the sub of your choice/ how big you can build a box and still fit inside the door. and once the box is built to fit inside the door then simply make some straight metal brackets to run across the boxes face and go past your cuts ruffly 3-4inches to overlap and then screw the bracket to both the subbox and the doors bracing. just make it a decent thickness steel and several self drilling metal screws on the sheet metal so it holds strong! then once thats built and screwed into place then its just start cutting the trim panel for the sub to go thru. best way id recomend it is making a speaker ring outta some mdf and putting the trim panel back on the door covering up the box and after you measure to a ruff estimate where the box is behind the panel then put the speaker ring on the trim and trace it out and remove the trim panel to trim the opening for the sub. then once cut put the panel back on the door and then cut the opening for the sub to go into the box.
then its your choice to keep that same speaker ring and screw it to the box as well to space the subwoofer out further OR if its needed to space the subwoofer out so the magnet fits inside the box depending on the dept of the subwoofer!

and then its up to you if you want to just leave it as-is or to use a speaker grill over the top of the sub to protect it.

needless to say it can be done with alittle work and measuring! a enclosed subwoofer will sound the best for sure. so just remove the trim panels and start measuring to see how large of a box you can fit inside the door, or if ya want more bass doors ;) do both.

**oopsyoubrokeit** · 10-29-2010, 07:41 AM

Originally Posted by bigburb

Wow no-one seems to support this. Like I said I'm not going for booming base, just some extra support in the rear to compensate for the lousy 4x10 speakers. The base in the front is excellent. The left rear cargo door does not have any locking mechanisms inside of it, just a little wiring for the defroster, and the panel can be secured with screws. I'm not a newbie to customization (you should see my last suburban), but I've never dealt in the field of free-air woofers before, I just wanted a recommendation. Either way, I think I've decided to go with the pioneer flat subwoofer since I've only got 4" of space inside the door panel, and most 8" seems have 6" of depth.

Nobody supports it because it's a bad idea. You aren't gonna get booming bass regardless, but with how you're wanting to do it, it will sound terrible. 4x10's don't do bass, so you aren't compensating, that's a totally different bandwidth. If you're dead set on doing it in the door, put an enclosure IN the door as suggested above.

I can only think of a single 8 that has 6" of depth, a JL 8W7. Even a Sundown SA8 is 5.25" deep and that's irregularly deep for an 8. Know what's gonna happen if you put that Pioneer 8 in your door with no box? It'll bottom out probably around 75 watts and have almost no output with it's massive 1/8" of xmax. If you're gonna do it, do it right. I'd do a Stereo Integrity BM12. 0.5 cu. ft. box, 3.2" mounting depth, they sound excellent too. It will actually be bass, the Fs on the Pioneer 8 is in the 60's and the BM is in the 20's. I do them for $260 shipped, I dunno how much the Pioneer is, but the Pioneer seems like a waste of time to me.