Looking for some un-biased opinions

I am a Fabricator and Technician for AI Design, the driving force behind high end automotive performance upgrades and interior options. We are about to put into production an OE styled subwoofer enclosure that will fit all 996's, with the exception of late model cabs with the OE Bose subwoofer enclosure. We are looking for positive or negative feedback regarding the appearance of this piece. I figured the best place to reach some of the most knowledgable and experienced Porsche owners was to start here at the Rennlist. Any input on this would be great. A quick written description may help a little more.--- Mimicked off the OE Bose subwoofer box, mounts with 1, 10mm bolt in a factory location. All enclosures are wrapped in genuine Porsche color matched material and outfitted with one JL Audio 8" subwoofer and a black steel mesh grill.

I would definitely consider one of these for my (black interior) C4S - it would look great (kind of like you could see that something was there, but it's not too obvious what it is). For me though, the unit looks a little bit too intrusive on the colour (color?!) scheme in the pictures. Is there any way of matching the grill colour to the carpet? Like I say though, with a black interior, it would look awesome. Regards Deeps

Porsche are to be driven, love the sound of the motor as we go through the gears..... Hi-fidelity sound systems are best reserved for a nice quiet home enviroment where on can enjoy the full sound reproduction experience. With ambient noise levels in a Porsche (or LS430) being on the order of 70DB and more, the only way to "enjoy" sound reproduction is turn it up to the "feel" level (isn't that what your woofer is for??) and that's 'way outside anything close to the hi-fidlity sound reproduction envelope!

As far as color matching goes, the sky is the limit. Actually these units could be color matched in a variety of ways, from painting to match or carbon fiber. Our unit is actually smaller than the OE version, and ours is equipped with a subwoofer that is 2/3's larger! And WWEST, I agree that a Porsche is a great and exhilirating driving machine with or without a sound system, BUT, not all Porsche owners want or care about the same thing. The biggest complaint that WE get from our clients having performance work done, is the lack of low-end sound in the car. And actually our unit is not for "ground Pounding bass", it is really there to fill a lot of the holes and vallyes that the OE system is missing.

you specialize in adding more weight to our cars???

Couple of questions: What do you mean the factory location? Your sub is in the front by the passenger's feet. The factory sub in my car ('03 C4S) is in the back behind the seats. What is the volume of the enclosure? Where do you recommend installing the amplifier?

Why is the speaker cone exposed? Would that not attract debris that would rattle on the cone? Also exposing the cone with only a wire mesh in the footwell area invites damage from a well placed kick. What is the shape of the acoustic enclosure, and how does it compare to the Bose enclosure. lastly what is the EQ curve that your have chosen for this speaker? Where are your resonance traps tuned to?

VOVE-The weight of our enclosure is drastically less than that of the OE enclosure with a smaller sub. FISHMAN-For 2004, Porsche has changed and added there sub to the front console of the car. It mounts directly to the passenger side console, and currently is available for the Turbo Cab as a great OE sub solution. We decided, since the OE piece works so well with the interior, why not try to improve on it slightly by giving it a "real" subwoofer and shrink it down as much as possible to accomodate the airespace. The airspace internally is .47 cubic feet and I think the best place for an amplifier really is in the bonnet, unless you can fit it under your passenger front seat, but that all depends on the amplifier that you are using... ORIENT EXPRESS-We had to fire the speaker out the side simply for depth and intrusion into the foot well area. Most definetly, a well placed kick would damage the metal grill, but why would you be kicking it? As far as debris on the cone and causing resonance, doesn't that have to do with the level that you keep your car clean? The enclosure is sealed and will play a much broader range than the Bose ported enclosure, and at a much greater volume if wanted. We found that the OE 5x7" subwoofer fails at a relatively low volume level, which can damage the speaker prematurally. The EQ curve is flat, it does have a spike between 70-77Hz, but that is the nature of the sealed enclosure beast with an 8" woofer. A resonance trap is only necessary when your doing a square cube-like enclosure where rear wave can cause interior cancellation. Our enclosure is a full fiberglass piece with the same interior cotours on the back side.

Don: Bad answers. A well designed product takes into consideration worst case scenarios such as inadvertent damage and the environment in which the product will be used. In this design the the issues are that the mechanical design is susceptible to speaker damage because of where it is placed, and sonic distortion due to debris accumulation. Interiors get dirty, stuff gets spilled, and footwells get kicked, no matter how well a car gets cared for. So I would suggest that the enclosure design be modified to address these issues, and the simplest way to do that is to just get rid of the grill and the hole entirely. Take a look at other designs that place a speaker at foot level either in the door or footwell. I don't know that I have ever seen a footwell speaker exposed, and door speakers are protected with a heavy cover that has fabric on the inner surface to prevent debris from entering. Now once these issues are corrected, then the question is how does it sound.

It would be a great option for us cab owners who have nowhere to put a sub. My sub sits in a box behind the seat and serves as the highly visible and only indication that I have a high $$ system hiding in my car. I'm assuming the speaker grill can be hidden. As far as durability - I've owed a number of Jeeps and boats with high end systems and only a grill to protect the speakers from anything and everthing. Those speakers held up just fine in an environment that no P-car owner would ever want to subject their interiors to (dog hair, french fries, mud, rain etc.)

I'm not an audiophile but it looks nice.

"biggest complaint" "Lack of low end sound"..... If you mean "low end" as in volume, then yes, the 70DB "white noise" will pretty dramatically wipe out any sound reproduction below that threshold. But if you mean lack of low end sound reproduction frequency content then it becomes pretty obvious that you're not a very good sound technician. If you take a sprectrum analyzer to the Boston Pops and measure the wideband sound levels through several musical numbers and then do the same thing in almost any upscale OEM car system, in a quiet garage with the windows up, you will discover that these systems can very faithfully reproduce the original content across the sound spectrum. All you're doing by adding extra "boost" at the low frequencies is DISTORTING the original content, mostly to overcome the effects of the high level of ambient noise on human hearing. Personally I find that my 78 Targa with a good Kenwood CD player and mosfet 4 channel amp with 4 6" speakers does an excellent job of sound reproduction top off and at 90MPH+ with the entire sound spectrum boosted to a HIGH listening level but with no distortion. The factory sound system in my 01 C4 also does an excellent job but I haven't yet found a can opener for the top.

How much? How far does this extrude into the footwell? I cannot tell from the angle of the images.

1) Prefer to listen to the car. 2) With the new MOST bus, an iPod or Sat Radio means: a), a modulator - a sub is a waste. b), a complete replacement of the audio system - the installer will greatly influence (as in make) the decision on the sub. 3) No way would I want a sub by my legs and feet. Been there with just high quality woofers and the constant vibration on my leg was irritating to say the least.

wwest, no offense man, but it sounds like you're grinding a general "anti-aftermarket audio" axe against Don. I think the "I want to listen to the car" argumetns are great, but they're not germaine to the point. If you hate subwoofers or aftermarket audio in general, you wouldn't be the target audience... I agree with Orient Express. I would prefer to see something like this with more protection for the speaker given the location. The footwells can get rough and you dont always have total control of the passenger side. Otherwise, it looks clean and the location seems decent enough. The more important issue would be sound obviously...

"it becomes pretty obvious that you are not a very good sound technician" I would appreciate it if you would simply cirtique the overall looks and styling of the enclosure and not try to make me look foolish. Trust me sir, I am not going to get into a pissing match with you over who knows more about musical reproduction in an automotive environment. Obviosly you've got a really good grasp on "high-end" listening due to your audiophile system which consists of a Kenwood CD Player, 4 channel amplifier, and your 4x6 speakers!!! You should stop now..... To everyone else, thank you very much for you feedback and your questions, I will try to sum it up with pricing and footwell intrusion in a little while.

I agree with rexracerX. Us cab owners have a hard time finding a slot for a sub. I very nearly put a Phase Linear Aliante 8" sub in the back wall between the roll bars. But had second thoughts for a few reasons (e.g. safety). I would be most interested in this though and would like more info. Some questions: 1) I am in the UK. Is this something that can be shipped and fitted DIY? 2) What are the dimensions of the sub and the freq spec, power, model etc. 3) With this enclosure, does it take away leg room. Remember we drive on the right here in the UK and this tends to slightly effect the leg room. 4) How safe is it? PAG have done a lot to make that area of the cabin crush proof in a crash. 5) The pictures show what looks like Graphite Grey interior (same as mine). But I don't like the black grill. Can you get matching grills to colour? 6) Can you fit two subs, one each side? 7) How much? 8) When? TIA

May I suggest that there is TONS of space under the passenger seat as a place to put a woofer... That's where the one is in my 01 RX300. But then I suspect that wouldn't work for most "audiophiles" who want to add a woofer to their system since it is so hidden and out of sight it cannot be fully appreciated by passers-by.

But some of us want the use of the back seats.

Oh I just realised you said passenger seat. Under my passenger seat is the car's computer. No room there.

this solution for bass in a 996 is just that, a solution. It is apparent to all owners of 996's that the space inside the car is valuable to say the least. I wasn't starting this thread to cause a problem, rather, I started this thread to get some feedback, good or bad. IDeally I would rather have done the enclosure so the sub is hidden. In order for that to happen, the enclosure would have to be much larger and more intrusive into the foot well, making it simply undesireable. This box sounds great, it fits the scheme of the car and is inexpensive in comparison to the OE enclosure it was derived from. Installation is a breeze, you simply remove the forward carpeted portion of the console on the passenger side, release the velcro binding that holds the seam together, pull down the carpet to reveal a pre-existing 10mm bolt and bracket, make a "X" insition in the carpet, drop in the enclosure and run the new, longer 10mm bolt through the precut hole and your finished. We currently are offering this enclosure for the passenger side only. The price finished with the sub, grill, wrapped in the matching Porsche material is $750.00 each. A discounted price can be done for larger quantity purchases. We will even modify and re-bind your OE floormats in Leather trimming to accomodate the enclosure free os charge. The modification will be necessary for the front passenger side and simply re-bind the driver side to match. We have done about 4 of these setups in the last few weeks, and everyone raves over it....

Which of us is really "ROW"?? In any case if you have a right hand driver the empty space is under the driver's seat!

My sub box is in the back shelf and I can take it out for auto x and mountain drives...It goes across the back and you cannot see it with the seats up or even thru the tinted rear window...Best option I think....My amps are in the front well with a cutom cover to match the interior and still allow me to put stuff up front...I have pics if you would like to see... Robert

Don, in general I think you've done a good job with the sub. I'm no audiophile and I don't pretend to play one on the internet, I just wanted a little more punch from the stereo. The factory "hi-fi" system in my 99 coupe was pretty lacking in bass. I ended up doing the same thing Robert did and had a rear shelf box built and carpeted. It's completely invisible in looking at the car and gave it a little more oooomph. I wouldn't really want to give up the footwell floor-room but it's hard to know without seeing in person. I realize you want to create something that could go in any car (coupe or cab) but I just prefer a stealthy rear deck mount.

Don: That's a pretty good solution to the bass problem. My company does product design for many companies in the mobile electronics industries, so I know many of the issues you face. It looks like it could be a JL stealthbox. I would assume the grill is a pretty heavy gauge steel to keep it looking fairly good. You might want to consider painting it to match the standard porsche interior colors. That's my main objection visually to it - the grill stands out a little too much - although not a problem in a black interior. Possibly perforated carpet, or a color matched fabric covering the grill? That might help it blend in a little better, and keep out dust. (which isn't that big of a problem). Perforated carpeting would affect the sound a fair amount, but it would probably be almost invisible. Good luck! Myk

Don, If you could post a pic that compares your sub to the bose sub, I think that may help to drive the point home that you're just improving on the OE stuff. I tend to agree with deeps, if you could make it look 'invisible' that would probably be better, either color to match grill, or even carpet it in (since its a sub)...

the color matching of the grill is a great idea in paint or ideally wrapped in acoustically transparent material. That is something we will definetly be offering as an option.

Don, Your sub and enclosure look very nice. However, that beauty will get kicked to shreds sitting that low in the passenger footwell...

Don...how much space does it take up? How wide is it?

how far does it stick out into the footwell, past the origional panel?

The Porsche Carpet is VERY durable, and the grill is 16 gauge pressed steel. I do believe it would take a serioius very well placed kick to really do some damage. As for footwell space that is taken up, at its deepest point it is 5 inches off the console at the bottom dead center in the middle of the sub. I got a price from Porsche on the OE console subwoofer, $1400.00 with a 5x7" woofer. Just some info......

I had to throw this in: "unbiased opinion" is an oxymoron!

I'm afraid that I have to disagree, although Oscar Wilde was clearly of the same view: "One can only give an unbiased opinion about things that do not interest one, which is no doubt the reason an unbiased opinion is always valueless. The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing."

ps sorry, that was completely off-topic - donaudio, i still like the look of the equipment!

Don, I actually looked into having something like this fabricated for me locally or making it myself (haven't done anything yet). Your box looks like it is placed into the existing Bose subwoofer space in my C2 cab. I am presently torn between just updating the muddy bass by replacing the factory subwoofer and adding a dedicated amp for the sub - verses - just chucking the entire Bose system. Do you have any experience with how this sounds with the remaining Bose system in a cab? I really like the way your box looks - it's actually a very elegant solution. What is it made from - I'm assuming it's layered fiberglass? Nice Job! Tonger

Don....you would have a sure sale from me if you would just answer....HOW MUCH ROOM DOES IT TAKE? Is it the same width as the Bose Sub? More? Less? Exact width? I am going to do this or the 2 subs behind the front seats in it's own box....

Our enclosure is the exact same size as the Bose console enclosure. The reason this whole thing came about was really based on several complaints from our clients. After researching this problem with the bass, and trying to run an outboard amplifier to the OE sub, the only option was to scrap that box and duplicate it out of fiberglass. The solution for the rear seat floor enclosures is good, BUT, Those seats are now un-usable? right? The last Porsche cab we did was an 04' with the Bose system. We removed all the speakers, replaced with Focal, left the Oe radio and amplifier, ran the outputs from the amp to our new JL audio amplifier, Souds AWESOME!!! Here is a picture or two of the empty enclosure in the car with someone else in the car