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why does a car's subwoofer seem boomier than a hometheater's subwoofer?

And you have it in an enclosed space (either your car cab, or the trunk), so you get more reverberation. What is the frequency range for the car one vs. the home theater one?
 
My guesses is:

You are getting resonaces from the car structure (trunk, back seat, etc.)

That's the way they were designed (manufacturer's think that's what their consumers want).


 
i might add that the sub is an el cheapo one that my neighbor has in his car. i'm not sure if it's a single or dual sub.
 
Car subs are optomized for output in the mid-bass region (over 30hz) and this is the cause of boomy bass. It is often thought that true deep bass causes this, but that is not true.

 
I'll sum it up in one word... Acoustics. You actually need more space then a car to hear lower frequencies correctly (much longer wave form). A car doesn't offer enough space to hear all of the frequencies properly. So the bass is usually tuned to about 100-150 Hz to hear it in the car. 100-150 Hz is usually boomy (not thuding) bass.
 
Boomy is NOT a good characteristic of a subwoofer. Often cheap base speakers have resonances at about 40-60hz. This is often interpreted as more bass. What is the home theater sub you are comparing it to?
 
Originally posted by: houndawg
err..don't laugh..Z-5500's sub.
Click to expand...

Then that's not a home theater sub.

Take $230, subtract off $50 or so the receiver "pod". Divide by 6 and you roughly have the cost of each speaker.

aka $30.

Now they put more money into the sub than into the other speakers, but you can easily see you are comparing a very very cheap subwoofer.
 
Originally posted by: Excelsior
Car subs are optomized for output in the mid-bass region (over 30hz) and this is the cause of boomy bass. It is often thought that true deep bass causes this, but that is not true.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I think it's the sub-bass (below 25hz) that is the boom you speak of. The reason it's called sub is for sub-hearing (20hz). You feel more than hear. It's that ultra-low bass that travels much farther than normal audio waves. A (sub) bass wave takes 37 feet to mature explaining why it sounds so much louder in your living room than to the idiot sitting at the traffic light. I used to have a sub in my trunk and had a sub-sonic filter on the sub. This cut out all frequencies below 25hz. The sub was much tighter, less boomy, the tweaters and mids sounded much more natural, and the amps (and charging system) were much less stressed. You rarely heard the sub-bass outside the car, but you stuck your head thru the window and "wow". 🙂

Edit: my bad... I forgot about the ghetto band-pass boxes. They sound boomy and are cheap to purchase and power. A favorite of the rap generation.
 
Originally posted by: bigboxes
Originally posted by: Excelsior
Car subs are optomized for output in the mid-bass region (over 30hz) and this is the cause of boomy bass. It is often thought that true deep bass causes this, but that is not true.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I think it's the sub-bass (below 25hz) that is the boom you speak of. The reason it's called sub is for sub-hearing (20hz). You feel more than hear. It's that ultra-low bass that travels much farther than normal audio waves. A (sub) bass wave takes 37 feet to mature explaining why it sounds so much louder in your living room than to the idiot sitting at the traffic light. I used to have a sub in my trunk and had a sub-sonic filter on the sub. This cut out all frequencies below 25hz. The sub was much tighter, less boomy, the tweaters and mids sounded much more natural, and the amps (and charging system) were much less stressed. You rarely heard the sub-bass outside the car, but you stuck your head thru the window and "wow". 🙂

Edit: my bad... I forgot about the ghetto band-pass boxes. They sound boomy and are cheap to purchase and power. A favorite of the rap generation.
Click to expand...

No, its called a sub-woofer because it hits frequencies below what a woofer does.

Not many subs can hit even close to 20 Hz in the first place at a reasonable output. It's pretty rare in the automotive speaker buisness to see actual charts of the frequency response. Often times companies spec it at 20 Hz - 2000 Hz or something along those lines. However, with no constraints given this is worthless. For instance, you may be surprised at the actual drop off od even pretty large sub-woofers. here is a 12"

http://www.madisound.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?cart_id=3861094.17525&pid=2123

As you can see the driver has started to rolloff at about 100 Hz. This can be extended by using a tuned enclosure, but this is often done poorly and results in bass peaks at 40 Hz or so. This creates a "droning" bass that people that care about a flat repsonse hate.

I don't know what you mean by it takes 37 feet for a bass wave to "mature"....

In cars many people crank the bass and do not go for a balanced output.
 
Assuming the sub is in an enclosure that is properly tuned to not be boomy it's most likely the car itself. The listening area has huge impact on the sound, and certain cars / trunks are going to cause peaks in certain frequency ranges due to their shape and size. It's the same reason a sub is louder if you place it in a corner or why a horn loaded driver is much louder then a typical one.
 
Originally posted by: Amaroque
I'll sum it up in one word... Acoustics. You actually need more space then a car to hear lower frequencies correctly (much longer wave form).
Click to expand...
This is false.

 
Originally posted by: Howard
Originally posted by: Amaroque
I'll sum it up in one word... Acoustics. You actually need more space then a car to hear lower frequencies correctly (much longer wave form).
Click to expand...
This is false.
Click to expand...

Your statement that that is false is true 😛
 
Originally posted by: PurdueRy


No, its called a sub-woofer because it hits frequencies below what a woofer does.

Not many subs can hit even close to 20 Hz in the first place at a reasonable output. It's pretty rare in the automotive speaker buisness to see actual charts of the frequency response. Often times companies spec it at 20 Hz - 2000 Hz or something along those lines. However, with no constraints given this is worthless. For instance, you may be surprised at the actual drop off od even pretty large sub-woofers. here is a 12"

http://www.madisound.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?cart_id=3861094.17525&pid=2123

As you can see the driver has started to rolloff at about 100 Hz. This can be extended by using a tuned enclosure, but this is often done poorly and results in bass peaks at 40 Hz or so. This creates a "droning" bass that people that care about a flat repsonse hate.

I don't know what you mean by it takes 37 feet for a bass wave to "mature"....

In cars many people crank the bass and do not go for a balanced output.
Click to expand...


there are many car audio Subs that can hit 20hz and below with reasonable output given proper power and enclosure quality, material, size & tuning : adire tumult (home based but used commonly in cars), adire brahma, resonant engineering xxx, ascendant audio avalanche, jl w7, infinity perfects, image dynamics idmax just to name a few
 
Originally posted by: UncivilizedAMD
Originally posted by: PurdueRy


No, its called a sub-woofer because it hits frequencies below what a woofer does.

Not many subs can hit even close to 20 Hz in the first place at a reasonable output. It's pretty rare in the automotive speaker buisness to see actual charts of the frequency response. Often times companies spec it at 20 Hz - 2000 Hz or something along those lines. However, with no constraints given this is worthless. For instance, you may be surprised at the actual drop off od even pretty large sub-woofers. here is a 12"

http://www.madisound.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?cart_id=3861094.17525&pid=2123

As you can see the driver has started to rolloff at about 100 Hz. This can be extended by using a tuned enclosure, but this is often done poorly and results in bass peaks at 40 Hz or so. This creates a "droning" bass that people that care about a flat repsonse hate.

I don't know what you mean by it takes 37 feet for a bass wave to "mature"....

In cars many people crank the bass and do not go for a balanced output.
Click to expand...


there are many car audio Subs that can hit 20hz and below with reasonable output given proper power and enclosure quality, material, size & tuning : adire tumult (home based but used commonly in cars), adire brahma, resonant engineering xxx, ascendant audio avalanche, jl w7, infinity perfects, image dynamics idmax just to name a few
Click to expand...

I didn't say there wasn't, especially with proper tuning. I was stating that many(note:Cheaper) subs that state they can, actually cannot.
 
1. Cars have a natural FS where the whole car will "hum" making the output greater. Rappers and boomers exploit this, people who want sound quality will try and use an eq to produce a more flat response.

2. Car gain can be 12 db per octave below say 100 hertz and all the way down to 10 hertz. Great if you listen to pink floyd and want really loud 10 hertz bass.

 
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