I am about to purcahse a box from bassforms.com for my 05 accord. Bassfroms makes 100% fiberglass boxes, I have never had a fiberglass box before but I have been told its by far the best material and it has minimal distortion. Does anyone have any info on bassforms products?

 

This sounds like a question for Finch13. He is (in my opinion) the current "go-to" guy for audio questions. I remember some other guys that used to get on here all the time that knew a ton about audio, but I haven't seen them on here in quite a while.

Correct me if I am wrong Finch

 

I'm flattered, but I consider t00fatt to be the audio guru... or falkore24... but he's *just* an engineer/full-time nerd.

My *opinion* is that the fiberglass needs to be thick enough to not distort, thicker fiberglass is heavier/costly for labor. Unless your building a show car or think a lot of people will be looking in your trunk and want something uber-custom, I'd just stick with a 3/4" MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) box.

Have you looked locally for someone to build you a box? A good box usually weighs between 60 and 100 pounds, depending on what's going in it. Keep in mind that the shipping will probably be outrageous.

Have you looked into making your own MDF box? I made mine, just a simple, sealed, 2-sub box designed around my subs and the final price was $35 and ~4 hours of my time.

I looked on Bassforms site... their quality looks good, but I got tagged with an $80 shipping charge on the box I would have gotten. Also, with "universal" type boxes, they generally do not seal well and create a nice tight fit around the subwoofer's cage.

Give us some more info on what you plan on putting in the box and we'll see if we can guide you somewhere.

 

I'm sad. All it takes is an afternoon or two to figure out how to use fiberglass. It's super easy if you prep correctly. I've made multiple fiberglass boxes and they're not too hard. My best ones to date were a fiberglass/mdf box in the back of an 84 lincoln mark VII that fit four tens across the back in a row just like this: O O O O Looked good, sounded good. Next was two twelves in the trunk cavities of a 96 mustang, one on each side. That system was insanely loud, that's chocked up to the Resonant Engineering Custom SE's with XXX internals!

If you're a noob to fiberglass, you can always carpet over the fiberglass, it does take some time and patience if you want it smooth and painted, more patience than anything because of the sanding, filling, sanding, filling, sanding, filling, sanding, priming, sanding, filling, sanding, priming.....etc. etc.

The important thing is, fiberglass is not as dense or rigid as mdf. It'd have to be at least 1/2" thick to get it to be the same density as 3/4" mdf, and even then the fiberglass has lost most of its appeal as its not that light when its that thick. Fiberglass helps you make custom boxes in those areas that normally wouldn't accomodate an mdf box. However, if you have a little patience and the right tools, you can make a pretty dang cool mdf box that will fit darn near anywhere you want it too.

Currently I have two 12's in a box that I made out of MDF and if you look at the side of it its shaped like an L so that it slides all the way to the back of my seats and the crotch of the L is where my rear strut bar sits. I then used conduit brackets to mount my box to my strut brace so you can't tug it out of the trunk. I then took black vinyl and covered it as opposed to carpet. No need for fiberglass at all because of the shape of my trunk. However, I want more trunk space and am thinking of putting my subs in a different part of the trunk so they take up less room.

NEVER enough time for all of the projects.

 

Your goal when building a box is to make the resonance frequency either below or above the range of bass your going to be playing. To make the resonance go down you add mass, hence the reason we use MDF. It is very dense and brings down the resonance frequency. Fiberglass is used to make a lighter box, that is much stiffer to bring the resonance frequency up. The less mass and the stiffer the higher the resonance frequency. The problem a lot of people have with glass boxes is, while they make them stiff they get denser as well, so the the resonance frequency doesn't go up or down. You have to be pretty good at glass work fort a box, it's not just bout it being built strong but the right ratio of resin, mat and so on. If the resonance frequency is in the range of say 30hz to 80hz the box will sing, which means the box resonates making an annoying sound. Not only does it sound bad but it loses sound output. So the main reason people build glass boxes is either for looks, nice gel coat and custom shape, or to make a much lighter box. I'm sorry if that didn't make sense, I'm uhh preparing before I go to physical therapy if you catch my drift...

EDIT: I too am flattered finch but I'm no guru. I just have a basic understanding of car audio, I do have my fair share of experience with electronics though.

 

^ hahahahah right on brotha. I had some amazing herbal tea this weekend for my therapy.

 

I remembered t00fatt, but I couldn't remember if I had seen him on here in a while (since the site problems have been repelling so many good members). I knew I had seen you on here a lot finch and I remembered you seemed to know your stuff when I had asked some general sub questions.

The really insane audio guru is MacLeod (he does competitions and stuff), but he hasn'tposted on here since early September

 

Yeah Macleod has a ton of experience with competition setups, he's heard easily 5 times the amount of setups I have. I'm fortunate enough to know a lot of rich people so I have heard their setups, but I have never been to any type of competition or car show. I'm not that interested in cars, just electronics. I wonder where the heck he's been...


EDIT: I was gone for a couple months, I had pretty bad surgery on my shoulder July 10th. I'm pretty much recovered now. Doctors says I'm 8 weeks ahead of schedule in the healing department, great to be young isn't it? Your the one that's been missing Jon!