Bobby Kinstle

FYI: The pioneer sub I linked to is on black Friday sale for $68 and free ground shipping:

BestBuy Closeout sale

I'm definitely ordering one today.

MerkurRS

Thank you for the tip!! I used a few reward points and ordered mine for $52 shipped for free. Keep us posted when you install yours, I would like to see how you did it. Are you going to Dynamat your parcel shelf too?

Bobby Kinstle

Yes I do plan to Dynamat the rear deck and even have some laying around for the project. My shipping ETA is 12/4 so I hope to do it next weekend. I'll post lots of pics.

dropshadow

Is this a plug & play replacement or is there new wiring involved? It looks like this subwoofer is down to $54 shipped on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1jr8NVv

I've been wanting a bit more bass in my car, but nothing huge, and don't want to sacrifice much trunk space. This might be the answer.

Tweakophyte

Any verdict on the Pioneer sub?

Bobby Kinstle

My Sub arrived last night and I hope to install it this weekend. I took a sound decibel meter in the car with a tone generator to record DB at various frequencies and below 50hz its pretty sad. I will do the same thing once the new sub is in and post the results here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...1E&usp=sharing

Notes:
The BOLD values are probably invalid because something rattled during the test.
I stopped testing at 70hz because it was obvious that the sound was coming from the front door speakers.
I couldn't get access to a pro grade SPL meter so I used an app on my phone that is supposedly calibrated for my phone. The results are probably not accurate, but should be good enough for a comparison.

Bobby Kinstle

Its pretty much drop in, though you might have to extend the factory speaker wires to reach the terminals on the new speaker. An amp will definitely get you more boom, but I'm just trying to fill out the bottom end. I'm too old for the boomin in system anymore.

Bobby Kinstle

I finished with the installation today. It went a bit differently that the previous examples with the JL subwoofers. Total install time was 2.5 hours.

The Good:
Bass is greatly improved. It's not tremendously "louder" but has excellent bass response down to 30 Hz, and also the bass attack is vastly tighter. No more rumbly bumbly boomy bass. I unwrapped the cable going to the sub about 6" and then it was able to reach the back side of the sub without an extension. That means having the terminals concealed on the back side where I won't bang into them. The Dynamat greatly reduced rattle from the rear deck. I showed my wife the old sub and she laughed while asking "Is that a joke?"

The Bad:
While it meshes nicely with the system, it isn't really what I'd call loud bass. You'll need an amp for that. I used to have the bass set to 4 and was unhappy, now I have the bass set to 2 and I'm pretty happy. You won't hear it next door. It might get louder when the new woofer breaks in. It was so tight that I could hardly move it with my hand. Tighter than the old Solobaric I had in my B5. I was hoping to see 20Hz, but really 28Hz was the lowest frequency with an acceptable tone. I can hear 20Hz but it barely registered on the SPL meter. It was more of a wobobobobobow sound than a bass tone.

The Ugly:
This subwoofer has six screw holes and none of them align with the factory screw holes. It also doesn't fit in the cutout (the other install had the same problem). I applied three layers of dynamat and the foam gasket that came with the subwoofer. That gave me a loose fit that tightened up perfectly when I screwed it down. I used the screws that came with the sub which required drilling a small pilot hole with a right angle drill and then screwed it down very snugly. I only used 4 of the six screws because I just couldn't get the drill in the back two holes. Despite that the sub is solidly mounted. I still need the cut off the screws that protrude into the trunk.

The Verdict:
Worth the effort, and I can always add an amp later if I want. The JL sub would be an easier install since it aligns with the three factory screw locations. It about doubles the perception of bass. The phone SPL meter turned out to be utter crap so unfortunately I couldn't get meaningful decibel values to compare with.

Finally here's a few pictures:

dropshadow

Thanks for the writeup. Please update us once the sub has been properly broken in. I'll keep this one on my radar.

Bobby Kinstle

To be honest, the sub will change so slowly during break in that I doubt I will be able to notice the difference. I set the bass a little high to see if it later becomes annoyingly high. Without a good SPL meter I won't be able to give any meaningful evaluation.

My general feeling is, if Audi built the system this way, I would not have messed with it. I remember the old adage, "No highs, no lows, must be Bose" and I though of a new one. B&O stands for Bass for Old people.

No offense to any old people that may be reading this.