Does it make a difference if the subwoofers are facing front, top or rear in a Caravan or an SUV?

 

My advice would be to try it and see which way it sounds better to you, but to answer your question, many people will swear by having them face the rear, but the sound waves will be travelling a much shorter distance before they hit something that way (like the back hatch) so you may notice a large difference in SQ or even loudness.

Personally (05 Escape) I just find my license plate rattles more with them facing rearward, (2x12's 3.4cubes, sealed).

I've seen quite a few setups where the drivers are facing downwards even, similar to many HT subs.

John

 

Play around with it, sometimes having the subs all the way at the back against the gate facing up works great, Facing forward is very rarely to any advantage. in my friends caravan we had great results pulling the 3rd row seat and having the box against the back of the first row seat firing towards the hatch.

 

in a caravan i would say face them up only because thats how i have mine set, and John is rigght, the only thing i've really noticed is my plate shakes more, and to be honest i'm on the outside very rarely so it really doesn't make a difference, at first i just did it because i thought it looked nicer

 

to be on the safe side you should mount them on a rotating table and face the subs towards magnetic north at all times to keep the gods of winter happy

I am thinking subs up, ports rearward

 

^^^ Agreed subs up, ports back.

 

It depends how much passenger and/or cargo space you want to lose....

I had an Aerostar for a while and first I tried this box



that sounded pretty good for a couple of $35 drivers and some MDF, then I decided to put the 3rd row seat back in and take out the middle row. Voila....more room in between the seating rows than there is behind the 3rd row.....so I built this one



for some JL 10W0-8s.........that worked even better....

In both cases the sound was headed to the back and then up.....they both worked well.....

Sad to say but the van was eventually turned into beer cans by my local auto recyclers.......

As a result both boxes and all the drivers are now for sale......

HTH

 

subs up port back.

 

I have my subs facing upwards in a sealed box at the moment and that provided the best sound. The bass seemed muffled while facing the rear hatch and it also caused more rattle. With them facing upwards, I find it to be a much clearer bass.

 

in my 98 caravan I hate 8 12's inverted on the top of the box with the port firing forward (slot across the front bottom) and this seemed to work best. Tried alot of other boxes with dif. configurations but this seemed the best for music, 8 cheap 12's and 1400 watts 148.6 db on the termlab, legal. theres a pic of it for my avitar, later put a wall in the van but thats another story lol