Sealed box or subwoofer box is a type of subwoofer system that we mostly see in a vehicle audio system. The benefit of using a sealed box subwoofer is to have an accurate bass or clear bass. But one thing you might notice already, a sealed box is not louder like ported and vented enclosures. In a vehicle you can keep more than one or two subwoofers, so everyone wants accurate and loud bass both at a time.
So here we are providing you the methods on how to make a sealed box louder. There are many ways, but we’ll discuss the most effective and long lasting ways. So stay tuned here.
Contents
How to Decide If You Need A Sealed Box for A Car?
There are several factors that determine what you need for your car: a sealed box or ported box. But the most important one is to know your musical genre. If you tend to listen to lower frequency beats, then a ported one is for you. Because it always plays lower nodes better than sealed boxes. But to have an accurate and custom made ported box that provides top notch bass, it will take a lot of space in your vehicle.
On the other hand, even a small sealed box can provide accurate sound and save space, but all you need is just to make it louder. So that’s why most of the people use sealed boxes and look for the answer how to make it louder.
How to Make A Sealed Box Louder: Ways to Making A Sealed Box Louder
There are some methods that can help you to make the sealed box subwoofer louder than before. Also few methods are about repairing and finding out any kinda damages but we also cover methods that do work for a brand new sealed box.
Filling The Enclosure with Polyfill
Polyfill in a subwoofer box may sound weird, but it is one of the most effective ways to make your sealed box sound louder. Mostly we use polyfill for making pillows, dolls, duvets and other softer things.
Hope you already know the bass sound vibrates the sealed box. Therefore, filling the sealed box with polyfill effectively reduces the vibrations in the enclosure, thus the sound gets clearer and more accurate. It’s a great example of how to make a sealed box louder without doing much of the sound engineering.
Also, if you seal the box full of polypills, it will absorb the sound waves and cause less distortion. Also it prevents the air leakage around the edge of the box and helps to provide the maximum volume.
Just don’t put too much polyfill like you are forcing them inside the sealed box.
Finding The Most Effective Location
Like speakers, even subwoofers must have an optimal position away from the car’s wall or seats. But you can place it under the seat to have thumping bass and paling in the trunk will provide you with the thundering bass throughout the vehicle.
If you place the sealed box pointing toward directly in front, it is better to set the sealed box behind the seats. And if you place the sealed box directly downwards, the under seat position will be worth it. But we must figure out the best location and optimal direction of sound. So play a song or music that you listen normally, and keep the volume the same for the sealed box and from the front head unit and then try different locations and directions.
Tuning A Sealed Box
The sealed box subwoofers are popular for vehicles but they mostly can’t provide the lower frequency bass like a ported box subwoofer. That’s why tuning is necessary. Tuning is necessary for frequent bass response. It means tuning will make your sealed box respond to response on more punchy bass.
Furthermore a good tuning protects the sealed box working on an optimal frequency range and limits the overdriving of frequencies. All of these make the bass clearer and louder. You can understand the overall tuning process by going through how to tune a sealed subwoofer box.
Here we are only discussing the EQ settings.
Adjusting The Equalizer
You can use EQ in two different ways, the adaptive EQ makes a certain frequency band louder and the reductive one makes the certain frequency bands less volume. So for a sealed box subwoofer, you can use reductive EQ to make midrange and upper frequencies less audible so that the lower frequencies will sound louder and clearer. Well, EQ adjustment doesn’t make the sealed box noticeably louder, but still every subwoofer owner should do this adjustment.
Using A Good Amplifier
Amplifier is the most effective way to make your sealed box louder. To have the best quality bass output, you must match some specifications for both the amplifier and sealed box. You must match the ohms rating for both the sealed box and amplifier, and the power wattage the sealed box can handle.
For the sealed subwoofer box, we recommend a mono amplifier, but if you have a 2 channel or 4 channel amplifier and there are available channels, you can use them for subwoofer measuring the remaining ohm of the and wattage of the amplifier.
Porting The Sealed Box
Porting your sealed box may not make your sealed box sound so much louder, but it will provide much more accurate and clear bass that ultimately makes the bass sound louder. For porting the sealed box, you’ll require good quality PVC pipe and some other carpentry skills. To know about the more details about porting, visit how to port a sealed sub box.
Other Things to Notice
So far we’ve discussed things or changes that may provide louder sound to your sealed box. But you must give a close look to the sealed box to check if there are any leaks for air space and seal them. Also the sealed box screws may get loosened, try to tighten them using a screwdriver and use the appropriate size of box for the subwoofer, because there is enough space inside because air inside the sealed box plays a vital role.
FAQ
1. Does a sealed box sound louder?
– Generally, sealed box speakers or subwoofers are not as loud as the ported enclosures. But sealed boxes provide an accurate and clearer experience of bass like kick drum and other specific bass that really sounds impressive. But you can make it louder and tune it to play much lower frequencies like 30 Hz, 32 Hz, 34Hz etc by tuning it properly.
2. Does a bigger sealed box mean louder?
– Yeah, a bigger sealed box sounds louder but it doesn’t mean you will use a small subwoofer on a huge sealed box. Too much big sealed box may create distortion and other issues like playing more higher frequencies etc. The best subwoofer for a sealed box always maintains the average ratio of subwoofer and sealed box size.
Conclusions
Sealed box enclosures definitely worth it for a vehicle, yet you must ensure proper positioning, well direction of firing and good tuning. We always recommend you to have an amplifier, because it makes the bass and speaker sound louder than usual and a lot clearer. So it is better if you use a mono amplifier for the sealed box.
