I will be doing a build through the winter, but the only problem I am having right now is choosing what sub I want. I will be going with an 8" sub because despite the size, the sound is very clean. I am looking at either 1 x JL 8W7 or two of the new Alpine Type R 8" subs (SWR-823D). I have had Alpine before and they sounded great, plus I can get 2 8" type R's for the same price as one 8W7 but the 8W7 is crazy looking. Anyone have any experience with these subs? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

10w7 at least if you are going single sub, not to squash your excitement but I don't believe that 8" driver alone will give you sufficient response. I don't know what you are running up front but if it is anything other than stock I would be really surprised if you were impressed by the single 8. That being said it would be very easy to power, looking at JL's recommendation its perfectly happy with 125 watts, and 250 is in the yellow pushing into the danger zone but that sub could take twice that.

But take this with a grain of salt, I'm the kind of guy who likes 8" subs in the kick panels in my front stage for mid-bass, nevermind the 12's in the hatch on 1500 watts.

You throw a 10w7 in there with a 500/1 and you will smile

 

Does anyone have a single, or dual 8"s in there car right now? I have been through dual 12's, then dual 10's, in my other car with 1200W and it is very loud.This is my first hatch so I thought a powerful 8" or dual 8's in a ported box would be sufficient. And yes, all other components, plus deck are being changed out. I am am looking for quality sound, and don't need it to blow out the windows so im not looking for another 2000W system. To make things simple I am going to be going with a 5ch amp which will put 300W RMS to the sub and 75W to each component.

 

I have Type R comonents on the front and 3ways in the rear with 2 Type R 8s in the back under the strut tower beam. It sounds pretty good with the 1500 watt amp i have powering the whole setup. I am satisfied with it although i get a little more distortion than i would like since i listen to alot of rap and stuff with alota bass, i would probably prefer a couple or one 10 or a single 12 next time around...

 

Dont get me wrong tho! it does sound great...you just wont be rattling your teath out of your mouth lol

 

Anyone heard an 8W7? Every review I read says its a beast, but I live in a small town where it would be next to imposible to find someone with one. Thanks Junkster for the input. Those are the exact components I have going in the car, but hearing that the subs start to distort is pushing me away from the type R 8's because I do tend to listen to alot of Rap. I am trying to keep things as light as possible too, and that is what I love about the smaller subs. Small subs, small box, lighter setup. The 2 10's with 2 caps, and 2 amps in my other car weigh a ton and I want to avoid that.

 

My single 10w3v2 with a little less than 200 watts did well in my ported ~1.25 cube enclosure. (~1.1 after woofer and port displacement)

IMO;

Two 8's in proper enclosure > one 8 in proper enclosure.

One 8 in proper enclosure > two 8's in too-small enclosure



If your intended mounting location allows enough airspace for two 8's, two would generally be better (louder) than one.

If you are cramped for airspace, trading some overall output from two 8's for the extended low end of a single 8' with better "breathing room" would be my preference.

If you give me the approximate airspace you can use for your enclosure I could run the two vs one theory through some software to give you a ballpark expectation of the difference between the two. (assuming I can find the T/S numbers on your alpine subs -I've seen the W7 numbers on JL's website.)

Also, is that the XD 700/5 you are considering for power?

 

the fact you are looking for quality sound is why we say do not use an 8" driver. If you wanted loud, 8's can easily be manipulated to be loud.. you are going to have about the same airspace and cost as a 10w7, but have NONE of the low frequency extension necessary for good quality percussive sound, not necc just loud sound.

I had a single 10w7 for years in my 2m then went to 2.. was overkill.. the single sub was absolutley fantastic. Zenclosures makes a simple box for it very cheap, and the woofer can be had for 389 new on ebay. 100 bucks for your box, done.

You will not be happy with an 8. If you are dead set, do NOT use Alpine 8s.. they are ok subs.. nowhere near the quality or performance of the w7.
Keep in mind if you are wanting to run 8s due to space, do not mount drivers near you in the passenger compartment.. you need to have your woofers far away or at least rear firing.

Pathlength still makes a difference. I could get into theoretical acoutstic math all day, but functional application results show this to give far less localization, mechanical noise from woofer, and far better low frequency extension..

this being the case, you have no need to reduce size to 8" in the 350z.

I ended up going with a spare tire box, and you can fit anything you want in there.

If you want to save space, use a JL 13" flat sub and be done w it my friend. Far better response than what you are going to ask 8s of any nature to perform for you.

 

Thanks again for all the input, looks like I may rethink the whole 8" option. Looking at the 10W7 it is only something like 10lb more then the 8, and I am sure I can find a way to make that back (Go on a diet). I did some more searching around on the forum and see that some people are running 8's but there is nothing about how they like them. Someone has 2 8W7s and says they are amazing, but again 2 subs + bigger box = More weight. And as for the amp, it will either be the JL XD700/5, or the Alpine MRX-V60 (Both have about the same specs). bmccann101: how much power were you throwing into the single W7?

 

i decided on this enclusre after my ideas of weight shaving got me into a falt 13 and the SRQ cubby box.. no bueno. at .66 ft, the box is too small, very unlinear sound, and the plastic dances in the car w that sub.

I located THIS on ebay and had it custom built for a 13, center, and reduced the airspace perfectly to .88 ft cu. It fires up, is the farthest back, and the lowest CG of any sub option.



The box itself is EXTREMELY well built and can be cut for 2 12s or 2 10s, or a single 13 etc. Its a full flase floor, and weighs about 30bs.. sounds heavy, but its pretty light. removes easily as well. This with the flat sub reduced my weight quite a bit.
The box i ran before was 2 10w7s and was also high CG ( center of gravoty) made the car drive like hell.

 

I really like the false floor box, and I would imagine it wouldn't way to much more then the spare that used to be there. Do you have more pictures of the box? And are you using the jl 13" woofer?

 

hello i built a false floor to replace stock one. i used the JL 13-tw5 it sounds great. i picked the flat JL 13 over others because it fit my box air volume the best. i looked at all the others and in my opinion the woofer needs to match the volume of your box. the tw5 is designed so you can have a large subwoofer in a small box, but it kicks butt. go to the JL audio website it has all the info you need to pick the right sub for your box. it would be a mistake to stuff two 10" woofers into a box that is too small. the sub floor is the same design that you can get on ebay, all the corners fold in so you can get it into the car. the other good stuff is a pioneer DEX-P99RS headunit, focal speakers front and back. i put in door pods in and custom mounted the tweeter. also thats a mcintosh 4 channel amp and i have a JL XD600 for the sub. the sub amp is tucked in the storage box behind passenger seat. the pioneer is their flagship model, copper chassis, L & R 31 band equalizer, highend 24 bit dac, auto time alignment and EQ. the auto alignment and EQ was worth the price alone. also in the picture of the headunit below it is a radar unit and a seperate laser jammer. those are hardwired in for a nice clean unstall. forget to mention that i gutted the interior and installed sound deadiner in the whole car. sorry for the long post i didnt realize i did so much lol.

 

a couple more pics. pioneer cd changer, kinetik battery. the red 2 gauge goes right to the alternator the blue goes to the main fuse. i also have ground wires all over the place. and i just did the stillen lip/ splitter today, sweet.