I've always wondered this, and will finally ask. Let's say you have a 5 inch speaker, and there is room to but a box underneath that speaker, just like a sub and its box. Does the size of the box for that 5 incher, would it matter to create better sound? What size box might you actually need for a 5inch speaker. I bet that last question is also likened to speaker creators as they probably would all have different box sizing.
All I am asking is, if you put a speaker in yur dash with a sealed box underneath wouldn't it sound deeper? What about the life of that speaker?
May have more questions based on replies.
Thanx all,
Ear-ick
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With a speaker of that size, you will increase the bass only slighty, but you will get a LOT better kick out of it. If you build a small box for that size of speaker, make sure it is sealed and do not use a paper-coned speaker. The speaker should be a poly-plastic or resin reinforced cone.
[This message has been edited by IMSA GT (edited 02-07-2014).]
A sealed speaker box will contain / absorb the "negative sound" coming from the backside of the speaker. This should make the speaker sound louder and clearer, compared to an open-air speaker (which is basically what the Fiero dash speakers are). Although, I'm not sure how much help that will be in a car, which is already acoustically "dirty" to begin with.
Also, if the box is sized correctly, it can amplify the sound, in a small frequency range. The size of the box needed to get the best sound will depend on the electrical characteristics of the speaker, and what part of the frequency range you want to boost. This is commonly done with subwoofer boxes, to boost the deep bass.
With a 5" speaker, I wouldn't worry too much about boosting the bass. But a small sealed box filled with stuffing should make the speaker sound better, as long as you don't make the box too small. And if you're going through the trouble to build speaker boxes, you may want to look into building crossovers too, unless your head unit does that already.
[This message has been edited by Blacktree (edited 02-08-2014).]
For what it's worth, the amount of enclosure volume needed for a given speaker has very little to do with the size of the speaker cone itself. Different speakers are designed to reproduce different frequency ranges. Cone and magnet size have some effect on what the frequency range of the speaker is, as does the construction of the speaker. A speaker that is designed for free air might not perform as efficiently, if it is put in an enclosure. And a speaker designed for an enclosure won't perform as efficiently when it is in free air.
Most component and 2-way or 3-way automotive speakers are designed for high air volume behind the cone, such as the volume of air inside the door or body of the car. To reproduce mid-range tones accurately, they need this large volume of air. Putting those speakers in an enclosure will result in possibly significant portions of mid-range frequencies in a sound, not getting reproduced by the speaker, and will result in the frequencies you do get out of the speaker, being pushed further toward either end of its response spectrum, depending on the volume of the enclosure. Subwoofers though are designed to produce low end tones, and so an appropriately sized enclosure is required for it to reproduce those tones accurately. The physical size of the enclosure is affected more for subwoofers, simply due to the size variance across them, though a larger subwoofer may require less volume to reproduce the same frequencies as a smaller subwoofer, due to the larger surface area of the cone.
I would generally avoid putting full range speakers inside an enclosure, for automotive use. They are generally designed to be more efficient in free air, and the frequency range they are meant to reproduce, requires a larger volume of air than you're probably going to give them if you put them in an enclosure.
To add to what Dobey said above, taking a random speaker and throwing it into an arbitrarily sized box will be a shot in the dark. Chances are it will end up sounding like crap. To do it right, you need a speaker designed for use in a sealed box, and the box needs to be the right size for that speaker. Or at least, it needs to be close to the right size. Sealed boxes aren't as finicky as ported boxes.
