Speed & Sound: Plugged In – Subwoofer Enclosure Build
Text and Photos by Dave MacKinnon
(www.osmlabs.com)
While building a subwoofer enclosure might seem as simple as cutting a few pieces of wood and screwing or nailing them together, in actuality there are a lot of different considerations that must be evaluated to achieve a desirable result. I teamed up with industry veteran Matt Gordash at his new shop, Defined Designs in Concord, Ontario, to help walk us through the steps of how to construct a quality subwoofer enclosure.
I invested some additional time into this build by first taking an MTX Thunder Square TS5512-44 12-inch dual 4-ohm subwoofer (provided courtesy of Norm Ross at Mitek Canada) and breaking it in overnight with a 10V, 21Hz sine wave from my bench amp. This softens the suspension and ensures the woofer will sound good as soon as we bring it to life. In that I wanted a guarantee that this enclosure would perform, I also took my own set of Thiele-Small parameters with my Woofer Tester 2. Thiele-Small specifications are measurements that allow for woofer performance simulation using specific software or mathematical formulae. I designed an enclosure with a two cubic-foot net internal volume that was tuned to 33Hz. Based on my calculations, this should provide a nice balance of deep bass and good booming capabilities.
My final step was to design the enclosure from the width, height and depth of rear seatback measurements Matt provided to me. Designing the enclosure in AutoCad let me ensure I had the exact net air volume I wanted. A spreadsheet I made up a few years back let me subtract the volume of the subwoofer and the volume of the vent from my measurements to ensure I had everything calculated perfectly. You will also see that we built a square vent. This is because I wanted more vent area than a three-inch diameter round vent would allow, but we didn’t have the mounting depth for a four-inch round vent. This 3×3-inch square vent split the difference nicely.
So, why not choose an off-the-shelf enclosure? A custom-built enclosure can be constructed to maximize the available space in your trunk – giving you much more room for your hockey gear, beer or whatever. A custom-built enclosure can also be tuned to match your musical preferences – loud and boomy or deep and rumbly. Finally, most custom-built enclosures are made of better quality wood, so they perform better. They may cost more – but it’s well worth it. Think of it like a purpose-built race engine as compared to the factory offering. Both work, but you get what you pay for.
Follow along as Matt builds a great looking, great sounding subwoofer enclosure.
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