what free air subs should i get to replace clarion

(rrbooker) · (rrbooker) **Join Date: Feb 2003** 07-17-2003, 6:31 PM

I have 2 clarion free air subs as you see in picture below. I have seen on ebay the new infinity subs "Infinity perfect 10.1d" subs are suitable for free air up to 175w. Are these good subs for free my panel? I have 1 4ch marine amp bridged to push just the subs. Is That ok, power wise?

jdr 07-17-2003, 7:13 PM

Ryan, I know this isn't a direct answer to your question, but have you concidered removing the kick panel, building a box that bolts to the back of the panel, then putting subs back into the original holes? I did this, sounded a lot better than the free air. Of course, I only have one sub in the kick panel.

(ryanbush11) · (ryanbush11) **Join Date: May 2003** 07-17-2003, 11:46 PM

yea, definatley build the box, it will sound so much better

(bob) · (bob) **Join Date: Feb 2001** 07-17-2003, 11:56 PM

Ryan, the infinity perfect subs require alot of power BUT the rated rms power is half if your running free air so...what is your amp pushing and what is their rated power (i only resaerched the 12" subs when i found this so i dont know on the 10's)

(magic) · (magic) **Join Date: Mar 2002** 07-18-2003, 5:35 AM

If you can fit them in, Adrie Shiva 12" subs are a great free air choice. They have dual 8ohm voice coils so you can run them as a 4ohm mono sub.

http://www.adireaudio.com/mobile_audio/drivers/shiva.htm

I personally have a Shiva running free air in front of the driver's feet on my boat. Its powered with an Xtant 300watt sub amp, does a very good job. I wanted a bit more, so I added an Ecplise Ti 12" in a sealed box with a 1000watt amp under my observer's seat. Just had to have more!

You'd be surprised how good a free air sub can sound. But..... like the post above, if you can box a sub it will sound better in a boat. More power is required (that is cheap these days) and a boats are poor sound enviornments anyways. You really want clean and loud output.

I've had a set of Infinity Perfects too. Thought that sounded really good but needed a lot of power to get loud. JLW6 I think are a better choice for small sealed boxes.

(gizel) · (gizel) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 07-18-2003, 10:15 AM

Ryan I have an 02 x-star and I pulled my free air Clarions, and Kick anel out and built a whole new Panel for 2 10's. I built a box for them and it makes all the difference in the world. I will post some picures of it. Don't do the free air thing, its not going to sound as good as one in a box.

(gizel) · (gizel) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 07-18-2003, 10:16 AM

Ryan I have an 02 x-star and I pulled my free air Clarions, and Kick panel out and built a whole new Panel for 2 10's. I built a box for them and it makes all the difference in the world. I will post some picures of it. Don't do the free air thing, its not going to sound as good as one in a box.

(rrbooker) · (rrbooker) **Join Date: Feb 2003** 07-19-2003, 2:38 AM

Stewart do you have any pictures yet! I still want it to look good. I was thinking of keeping the to clarions as is, and adding another sub, in box or tube under pasenger side. Thanks for the help!

(gizel) · (gizel) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 07-21-2003, 6:10 AM

Ryan I will post these tomorrow, Sorry I was out of town all weekend and forgot. I will also post some pictures of the amp racks and such that I redid under the Pasenger side. I thought about a box under there but after playing around with a premade one you dont get a lot of sound. The seat really kills it. Its pretty easy to make a new box. I used the Phoenix Gold 10's and they only require .5 cubic air so the boxes were very small. Since I just built a whole new Kick panel I can put it back to Factory very easy.

(big_poppa_pump)

Stewart, I am interested in how you did this as I am looking into doing the same thing.

Did you mount the sub to the original kickpanel and attach that to the sub box or did you attach the sub directly to the face of the box you built and then lined up the sub with the existing hole in the kickpanel.

Do tell.

(gizel) · (gizel) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 07-22-2003, 5:39 AM

Chaun I pulled the oroginal Kick panel out and made an one the Exact same size minus 1/2" for Carpet then I built the box so that I could fit the entire thing back in the factory spot. I had to take the drivers seat out to get it to fit but if you angle it the right way it will fit. Finally here are the pictures.

pics

(big_poppa_pump)

Thanks for posting the pics Stewart, you did a great job. I thought of replacing the kick panel last night after drawing up a few different box setups.

Looks like Mastercraft cleaned up a lot of wiring in your 2002 model. I was hoping to avoid moving the CD Changer, Perfect Pass, Speedo Hardware, and Hippo Controls to a new kick panel, but if I can find carpet to match then that may be the way to go.

(rrbooker) · (rrbooker) **Join Date: Feb 2003** 07-22-2003, 9:25 AM

I had thought about doing something similar when i first started. I thought i would have a problem getting the panel back in place with a box on the back. The set up looks really good, and i guess i'll give it a try. Thanks Again for the help!

(timmy) · (timmy) **Join Date: Jul 2001** 07-22-2003, 9:44 AM

(gizel) · (gizel) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 07-22-2003, 10:56 AM

Chaun, Mastercraft did not clean up the wireing, I did. I was tired of having a big mess under the dash so I moved things. Used some heavy duty Velcro and put the perfect pass on the inner wall and moved the computer behind the panel on the driver side. Also tired up all the wires. As an old car audio installer old habits die hard. Good luck working on the box. The fiberglass one that Tim built is very nice and I used to build those but I just did not want to deal with that. They sound so nice though.

Tim nice job, I was looking at your postings when you were building it that came out really nice, I bet it sounds great. For the carpeting I got matching carpet from and upholstry shop. The guys near me redo boats, Ask your dealer who they recomend and get it from them, makes all the difference.

(timmy) · (timmy) **Join Date: Jul 2001** 07-22-2003, 11:55 AM

I actually got carpet from the dealer from malibu, and it did not match. so now i have 3 yards of charcoal gray carpet instead of light grey. haha i want my box to match. my buddy is a mobile installer and he was going to try going through one of his connections.