If you have a subwoofer you need an enclosure. When it comes to selecting the correct type, you will need to make an accurate decision. There is the easiest and cheapest option which is to go out to any car audio shop and pick up a cheap prefab subwoofer enclosure off the shelf. You will probably think that this will be perfect. As it saves you time and money if compared to building a custom made one yourself. You will find out 4 main reasons why i decided to build my own custom subwoofer enclosure over a prefab anyday.
There is a reason why they are cheap! I only used a prefab box as a temporary install from walmart to see what the experiences are like with them.
1) Wrong spec for your subwoofer. Each subwoofer has its own factory box requirements in the manual for optimal performance. If your a noob to the car audio scene, you probably think that you just get a box that is a rectangular shape and put it in jobs done. Technically it doesn't work like that. You will need to have the correct cubic volume inside and if its ported the correct length and diameter of the aero tube. A best prefab box is just a shape with a hole in it nothing else serves no purpose!
2) Cheap Build Quality. The wood that is used is not usually proper MDF. Its the cheapest money can buy and is usually some cheap chipboard covered in black vinyl carpet. Due to this you can't actually tell the quality of the product beforehand. Its cheaply made as well as brittle and gets damaged easily and provides poor sound quality. Also they are usually not glued and screwed. They are just stapled together using a nail gun. These can come out of place if you got a high powered sub which is not good.
3) Cheap speaker wire. It is usually the cheapest money can buy, there is hardly any proper copper wire inside. More plastic insulation than anything. Last time i came across one with 16 gauge wire inside ridiculous for a 1000 watts rms! So you have to remove this and replace it with the correct wire thickness for your setup, which is going to add up to your overall cost.
4) Cheap terminals. They have really small speaker wire holes on the metal posts where you put the wire in that you can't even fit a thick wire into. I had to drill holes in mine to make them wider just to fit in 12 gauge wire. They also melt under higher powered applications and start to crack after a while. There is lots of air leaks all around as well, so your loosing valuable spl right there.
Dont get me wrong, some of them are built pretty good if they are reasonable priced, but most of them tend to be exactly how as described above. I bought three different ones from different shops and they all had the similarities mentioned above not good.
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