What subwoofer setups do you guys have?

The range of variability in audiophilia makes this a very subjective question but it's fun to explore the options.

I wonder if the type of music you prefer matters. ?? Jazz, EDM, jam bands, classic rock, pop country, classical, opera, Buddhist chanting, etc, etc. LOL.

I installed the little $99 Sound Ordinance 8" powered subwoofer under the rear fold-n-tumble seat. It's a pretty easy, clean, and out of the way install and not too much of a space hog. The head unit is some Alpine $99 bargain bin base model that works fine with Bluetooth and pushes the four cheap aftermarket speakers enough to hear my tunes clearly in any environment.

Another consideration, since you state that you're running a soft top, is the security issues with having lots of high dollar sound equipment in your TJ. I've had three shitty stereos stolen since ownership of my TJ (1999) and the ease of entry through vinyl and plastic has deterred me from installing anything too expensive. Granted, I've left my Jeep parked with the top off at many trailheads over the years but if someone wants in, they're going to get in whether the top is on or not. Just something to keep in mind. YMMV.
 
HaydukeLives! said:
I wonder if the type of music you prefer matters. ??
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Here's what I was told 15-20 years ago, smaller is for speed/precision, larger is for depth. Or as one guy put it, 10" or smaller for rock, 12" or bigger for rap.
 
Amps and crossover going under driver, sub behind passenger.

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two 12's MTX audio powered by a SKAR monoblock and an epicenter with custom made box....enough space for some recovery gear and a great BOOM while listening to any kind of music... I have as well two mids in the soundbar with two supertweeters, two 6x9s with custom made boxes in the rear part of the jeep and two polk audio 5.25 inches in the dash... I have enough noise and I'm happy with it.... all the amps are under the rear seat...

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Two 10" inch subwoofers in a down firing special TJ tan molded subwoofer box in the trunk by MTX Audio, 500 watts RMS, powered by an Alpine PDX-v9. The amp was about $600 dollars, ten years ago. I've had it about 10 years and I've never blown a speaker. Amp stays cool mounted under the steering wheel column. Believe me, there is no competition at any stoplight. It doesn't get much better and it really isn't too expensive. It just takes a little investment in great audio. My speakers are 4- CDT's 150 Watt RMS each, about $149 a pair, on sale, about three months ago, California made (ES-5EX1). Now, they're about $200 a pair. I paid about $350 for my loaded box about 10 years ago, and now it is about $700. I think they have reduced the subwoofer power now too. The subwoofer box lifts cleanly out of the Jeep, by just disconnecting two push connector wires. It weighs about 30 pounds.

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I have a Kicker 46CWTB82 8" vertical/horizontal tower and an Alpine amp (300 watts RMS). The amp was in the Jeep when I bought it with a 12" wedge sub. This one takes up a lot less room and gives me something to keep my small med kit from sliding around in the back. The amp is mounted to the Tuffy cargo cover (drilled and tapped 8x20 screws).

I have Kicker speakers in the sound bar and dash. The dash speakers are in the pods so they are fully enclosed. Both speaker locations have had poly fill put behind the speakers to help with the sound. They are driven by a 50w x 4 RMS amp mounted behind the radio.

With the hard top on this thing sounds great. With the doors off and going 65 mph, it still sounds great, just have to have the volume louder. I listen to country, rock, and old school rap on occasion. The sound is good enough that I don't like the stock Bose set up in my 2024 Silverado.

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HaydukeLives! said:
I wonder if the type of music you prefer matters. ?? Jazz, EDM, jam bands, classic rock, pop country, classical, opera, Buddhist chanting, etc, etc. LOL.
Click to expand...

I think you probably know this, so I'm not preaching at you.

All speaker size does is reproduce sounds in a given Hz range. If the musician creates a sound via drums, guitars, voice, synthesizer, et. al. the ideal is that your system reproduce that sound. Ideally you want the full spectrum of sounds reproduced that the artist intended (at least that is my opinion). Bigger speakers don't "make" bass, they reproduce the signal of the artist. If you don't have a bigger speaker the signal won't get reproduced.
 
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Oops, my bad. I've never blown a CDT speaker which I upgraded fro
ChasUGC said:
Two 10" inch subwoofers in a down firing special TJ tan molded subwoofer box in the trunk by MTX Audio, 500 watts RMS, powered by an Alpine PDX-v9. The amp was about $600 dollars, ten years ago. I've had it about 10 years and I've never blown a speaker. Amp stays cool mounted under the steering wheel column. Believe me, there is no competition at any stoplight. It doesn't get much better and it really isn't too expensive. It just takes a little investment in great audio. My speakers are 4- CDT's 150 Watt RMS each, about $149 a pair, on sale, about three months ago, California made (ES-5EX1). Now, they're about $200 a pair. I paid about $350 for my loaded box about 10 years ago, and now it is about $700. I think they have reduced the subwoofer power now too. The subwoofer box lifts cleanly out of the Jeep, by just disconnecting two push connector wires. It weighs about 30 pounds.
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ChasUGC said:
Two 10" inch subwoofers in a down firing special TJ tan molded subwoofer box in the trunk by MTX Audio, 500 watts RMS, powered by an Alpine PDX-v9. The amp was about $600 dollars, ten years ago. I've had it about 10 years and I've never blown a speaker. Amp stays cool mounted under the steering wheel column. Believe me, there is no competition at any stoplight. It doesn't get much better and it really isn't too expensive. It just takes a little investment in great audio. My speakers are 4- CDT's 150 Watt RMS each, about $149 a pair, on sale, about three months ago, California made (ES-5EX1). Now, they're about $200 a pair. I paid about $350 for my loaded box about 10 years ago, and now it is about $700. I think they have reduced the subwoofer power now too. The subwoofer box lifts cleanly out of the Jeep, by just disconnecting two push connector wires. It weighs about 30 pounds.

View attachment 505861
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Oops, my bad. I've never blown a CDT Speaker, which I upgraded from 130 watt RMS 5.25", to the latest version of 150 watt RMS 5.25 with built in crossover modules. Before this newest model, you had to solder in the included crossover modules. The reason I upgraded the speakers is because one day I decided to upgrade the 5.25" speaker covers(Which went bad, because they didn't fit, although they were supposedly 5.25 covers), anyway, when I removed the old ones, I noticed the speaker tweeter mount inside was broken. I didn't make an issue, but it was probably my installer of the amp many years ago. He has employees and his young son. So, I upgraded all four CDT speakers to the latest model for about $300, which isn't bad for 10 years of speaker usage.

My error was that I did blow out two sets of Infinity speakers. Although the gains were supposedly set properly, the 45-60 watt RMS Infinity Kappa's blew out in one week after the initial install. First the 4x6" went out, and then one day later, the 5.25" Infinity Kappas blew out. I barely cranked up the volume, when they quit. It happened one weekend day when I was cruising around listening to music while doing errands, about ten years ago. The store replaced them under warranty with the CDT's, and I also got rid of the cheaper AMP that was constantly overheating, and replaced it with the Alpine. I can crank up the volume now, so that it will blast out your ears at 10 to 20 feet from the Jeep, and I have never blown a CDT speaker, although, the tweeter mount was broken on one of them. I added a Clarion EQ into the extra 1/2 din space, which allows me to really tweak the Equalization. I only use single din Headunits to avoid cutting up my console, since the console covers are super expensive now. My past 40 year experience with Clarion Car EQ's is that they are the best. I am able to EQ out any distortion that I hear at certain frequencies on my 7 band Clarion EQ to keep my audio sound clean. Distortion is known to be main killer of speakers. As a result, I have never blown out any of my CDT's or my subwoofer speakers. About 45-50 watts is all I can stand with the top off, even on the highways, and 60-70 watts is enough to blast out anyone around me. Above that, I'm sure the system could handle, but it is unnecessary. The Alpine PDX-V9 is undoubtedly, the best amp, and it doesn't really cost too much. One just can't really "cheap out", if you want great audio. It is like putting in a cheap lift, and then suffering the consequences. I won't do that to my audio sound, or my Jeep. Save your money, and invest in the Alpine, and then get good speakers, and later a good subwoofer. Cheap is not the way. Peace.
 
JMT said:
I think you probably know this, so I'm not preaching at you.

All speaker size does is reproduce sounds in a given Hz range. If the musician creates a sound via drums, guitars, voice, synthesizer, et. al. the ideal is that your system reproduce that sound. Ideally you want the full spectrum of sounds reproduced that the artist intended (at least that is my opinion). Bigger speakers don't "make" bass, they reproduce the signal of the artist. If you don't have a bigger speaker the signal won't get reproduced.
Click to expand...

I basically agree. Bigger is not always better. Although larger speakers are known to handle more volume(RMS), it is not necessarily better. Plus, larger speakers normally have a wider frequency range response. So, putting in 6.5" speakers in the rear, will likely ruin the speaker balance and quadrophonic experience, because the sound is not balanced, nor is the frequency response. Most audio is recorded with zero balance, front and rear, left to right. So cutting the rear to compensate for smaller front speakers, will ruin the experience as it was originally created in the studio. Even Live music is reprocessed in the studio before it is released. Initially, I tried 4x6" upgraded speakers in the front, and 5.25" upgraded speakers in the rear. But, the sound wasn't the same coming from the front speakers, now matter what I did. The quality of the front sound, just didn't match the rear sound. The frequency range of the front didn't match the rears, so the front always sounded thinner. So, I got an adapter for 5.25" in the front and I used matching speakers all around. It would be similar if one puts 65." in the rear and 5.25" in the front. Even worse, if someone puts 4x6" speakers in the front and 6.5" speakers in the rear. With my 5.25" speakers all around, I then polyfilled the front to further balance the sound, bringing out the front speakers a little more, at zero balance, due to the front speakers being lower from your ears. This way I can hear the music as the original musicians intended it to be heard in the studio. Some people even go further and use FLAC instead of mp3 audio. I take it a little further in my audio recordings. I usually normalize my mp3 audio. to avoid peak distortion, and I will reprocess the sound to remove artifacts like clicks and pops in my favorite albums or tracks. I use Sound Forge or Cool Edit Pro for this purpose. A lot of reprocessing isn't really necessary as long as one properly ripped the CD audio. One can tell by looking at the waveform and seeing if the peaks are cutoff, or too low. Cutoff peaks mean the sound is distorted, and too low sound means there is too much background noise. One can also use Dolby noise deduction for acoustic recordings, but one has to be careful so that the sound is natural and not whistling from too much noise reduction. Over saturation is normally prevalent in Hip Hop music, that can cause speakers to blow out. I like to keep my frequency responses clean in all my music, but especially hip hop music that likes heavy subwoofer bass.
 
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JMT said:
I thought about doing that setup. I decided not to because if I decided to remove the rear seat I was removing the speakers with it!
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Again, I agree. I don't like the idea of having a subwoofer under my seat. I can imagine that it would be really uncomfortable for back seat riders. In a Home entertainment system, and in the studio, an engineer doesn't have a subwoofer under his seat. I've never seen a home audio entertainment system with the subwoofer under the couch either. The subwoofer is normally the farthest away. It is the feel, or the rumble that carries, more than the sound. If one doesn't have back seat riders, it might be fine, but it is probably still best to have it further away, like in the trunk. I also understand the constraints of trying to design good audio in a small area, like in a Jeep.
 
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ChasUGC said:
I basically agree. Bigger is not always better. Although larger speakers are known to handle more volume(RMS), it is not necessarily better. Plus, larger speakers normally have a wider frequency range response. So, putting in 6.5" speakers in the rear, will likely ruin the speaker balance and quadrophonic experience, because the sound is not balanced, nor is the frequency response. Most audio is recorded with zero balance, front and rear, left to right. So cutting the rear to compensate for smaller front speakers, will ruin the experience as it was originally created in the studio. Even Live music is reprocessed in the studio before it is released. Initially, I tried 4x6" upgraded speakers in the front, and 5.25" upgraded speakers in the rear. But, the sound wasn't the same coming from the front speakers, now matter what I did. The quality of the front sound, just didn't match the rear sound. The frequency range of the front didn't match the rears, so the front always sounded thinner. So, I got an adapter for 5.25" in the front and I used matching speakers all around. It would be similar if one puts 65." in the rear and 5.25" in the front. Even worse, if someone puts 4x6" speakers in the front and 6.5" speakers in the rear. With my 5.25" speakers all around, I then polyfilled the front to further balance the sound, bringing out the front speakers a little more, at zero balance, due to the front speakers being lower from your ears. This way I can hear the music as the original musicians intended it to be heard in the studio. Some people even go further and use FLAC instead of mp3 audio. I take it a little further in my audio recordings. I usually normalize my mp3 audio. to avoid peak distortion, and I will reprocess the sound to remove artifacts like clicks and pops in my favorite albums or tracks. I use Sound Forge or Cool Edit Pro for this purpose. A lot of reprocessing isn't really necessary as long as one properly ripped the CD audio. One can tell by looking at the waveform and seeing if the peaks are cutoff, or too low. Cutoff peaks mean the sound is distorted, and too low sound means there is too much background noise. One can also use Dolby noise deduction for acoustic recordings, but one has to be careful so that the sound is natural and not whistling from too much noise reduction. Over saturation is normally prevalent in Hip Hop music, that can cause speakers to blow out. I like to keep my frequency responses clean in all my music, but especially hip hop music that likes heavy subwoofer bass.
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So, is one thing you're saying that it's better to run 5.25's in both front and rear TJ stock locations than to mix sizes?
 
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JMT said:
So, is one thing you're saying that it's better to run 5.25's in both front and rear TJ stock locations than to mix sizes?
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Exactly. The best upgrade in our Jeeps and the cheapest is just to add a 5.25" front speaker using an adapter. Then, a very cheap addition is to polyfill the front speaker until the sound balances with the rear for perfect quadrophonic sound. A cheap and very good upgrade. One can take it a step further by adding all four 5.25 inch speakers of the same brand, thereby removing any differences in frequency responses between the two front 5.25 and the two rear 5.25's, so that they are exactly the same. The sound will be amazing and perfectly quadrophonic, especially if the front is polyfilled. Now, one can add a little polyfill to the rear to increase the rear volume a little, and add more polyfill to the front to balance out the sound for slightly increased volume too, for even better sound. This way, less volume is lost inside the soundbar.
 
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