I ordered an underseat sub (term "sub" is used loosely).

[Ocelot]

I liked the 3-year warranty offered on the little Crutchfield/Sound Ordnance B-8PTD unit, and ordered in one (I was a bit hesitant as I wasn't sure it would fit). It arrived and I test fitted it yesterday. I'll have to modify my rear tux-mat floor mat a bit to allow it to settle in, but with the floor mat out of the picture, I can even fit one under my drivers seat and have full fore-aft and height adjustment. Since these fit so well, a second one was ordered to go under the other seat.

My plan is to use the front-left/rear-left signal to provide both inputs on the driver's side and the front-right/rear-right signal to provide both inputs on the passenger side. This should give me reasonable consistency in output regardless of fader position (rear bass management differences will have a negligible effect).

Does anyone see any problems with my plan?

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[Phy]

The signal from the rears isn't as good as the fronts, so idk how that would affect your sub. Also never heard how a right/right wiring affects it.

 

[Ocelot]

The signal from the rears isn't as good as the fronts, so idk how that would affect your sub. Also never heard how a right/right wiring affects it.

The driver in the B8-ptd is a dual voice-coil item, so I suspect both inputs are isolated all the way through. The input impedance of speaker level inputs on this amp would be high enough that there's be no significant burden placed on the OEM HU if I simply parallel the front channels at the sub and only use the front output from the HU, but this would have more of a noticeable effect with respect to fader position than using a "slightly" different signal from the front into one channel compared to the signal from the rear channel. This is why I'd like to try both left channels on one and both right on the other.

 

[shoegazer]

General thoughts:

Make sure the thing actually fits under the passenger seat. I recall it being a bit different under there.

I understand the symmetry/balance concern. But my gut feeling is that you will not be able to localize the lower frequencies enough to make a difference. You'll likely 'feel' and 'hear' it more from underneath your listening position. But I doubt you'll confuse the sources/positions of the higher frequency program material. If you do; you can just roll off the crossover until you don't, I believe.

I agree that the rear speaker program is just shit. I connected a known, great-sounding pair of bookshelf speakers to the rears and auditioned them separately. It was just awful. It was like a really cheap boombox playing an AM radio. And it was certainly devoid of bass.

Lastly... that thing may be able to be mounted somewhere other than under the seat. Get creative if ya' dare. You may come up with something new.

Good luck.

 

[Ocelot]

General thoughts:

Make sure the thing actually fits under the passenger seat. I recall it being a bit different under there.

I understand the symmetry/balance concern. But my gut feeling is that you will not be able to localize the lower frequencies enough to make a difference. You'll likely 'feel' and 'hear' it more from underneath your listening position. But I doubt you'll confuse the sources/positions of the higher frequency program material. If you do; you can just roll off the crossover until you don't, I believe.

I agree that the rear speaker program is just shit. I connected a known, great-sounding pair of bookshelf speakers to the rears and auditioned them separately. It was just awful. It was like a really cheap boombox playing an AM radio. And it was certainly devoid of bass.

Lastly... that thing may be able to be mounted somewhere other than under the seat. Get creative if ya' dare. You may come up with something new.

Good luck.

Thanks, it’s not so much a localization of the sound issue, I realize bass is omnidirectional. It’s just I don’t want the volume dropping as I fade from front to rear through center.
I tried fitting the one I have under each seat, I was mostly concerned about the drivers seat as I’m tall(ish) and need to keep the seat as low as possible to clear the sunroof. There is definitely room under the passenger side for it.

 

[Ocelot]

They second subwoofer came in, so I booked the installation for tomorrow, they put my concerns to rest regarding the fader and will use a mic to measure the output on the front channels vs the rear (they know what to expect, that the front will have more bass than the rear, but he says they always check anyway). They said it's not necessary to use front and rear from each side

I'm looking forward to this

 

[Ocelot]

So a quick recap, the output is impressive with two of them, I’m not totally impressed though. I think some EQ is needed, they have a definite honk that needs to be tamed. I measured some pink noise and it looks like it's really hot around 80 - 90 hz, definitely confirms the irritating honk.

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