1970 Series 2 OTS - Subwoofer

[ndinsdale]

Hi all, hope you can help.

Ive just restored a series 2 OTS. Ive purchased a radio from https://www.classiccarstereo.co.uk. Very happy & connected 2 x 6.5" coax Morel speakers in radio cage (fitted like a glove). Im now just missing base. Has anyone put a subwoofer in & where did they put it?

P.S please don't respond with "just listen to the engine" :)

[Heuer]

You will never get a decent sound with speakers installed in the radio console and definitely no bass. The rear of the cones are acting against each other, in effect cancelling each other out. High frequencies will suffer less but low frequencies require long throw of the cones and your opposing speakers act like shock absorbers.

Suggest you move the speakers to the footwells and add tweeters at the base of the windscreen. Jaguar went to the trouble of making cutouts for speakers so you may as well use them. More info in these threads:
viewtopic.php?p=3196#p3196
viewtopic.php?p=25092#p25092

You must use acoustic wadding behind the footwell speakers to get maximum base and no resonance. And no, you will not improve things by adding wadding to the console. Adding a sub woofer will cause even more trouble unless you adept at selecting the correct crossover frequencies and you will most likely need a more powerful amp to drive it. One alternative is to fit MX5 seats as some of them have speakers in the headrest and a woofer in the seat base. They are incredibly comfortable and offer safety from a rear shunt.



Full installation details in the Upgrades Forum.

[ndinsdale]

Hi & thanks for the below. Ive just sent £££££ on restoring the series 2 OTS, so will not be putting MX5 seats in it

the 6.5 Morel coax speaker are spot on & almost as good as my monitor audio I have in the lounge at home. Im just missing base. Hence a 8"sub.I tested one in a box beind the seats & the sound quality was perfect. I just wanted to hide it :). you mentioned the holes by the rear wheel arches, do you know the gap/space they are?

Cheers

[Heuer]

Front:


Rear (LWB cars only):


I suggest you fit 4" long throw woofers in the front footwells and hook them up to your main system e.g. http://loudspeakerfreaks.com/Product.as ... ct_ID=7051

The sound will be very good but improved on by fitting a couple of tweeters under the dash top. Angus Moss has such a system in his OTS and it sounds superb.

Put the 6.5" speakers on eBay. If you think they sound "almost as good as my Monitor Audio I have in the lounge" when console mounted then maybe you are wasting money on hi-fi

Hi & thanks for the below. Ive just sent £££££ on restoring the series 2 OTS, so will not be putting MX5 seats in it

Why not, a lot of us do. They can be swapped in/out in 15 minutes with no modification to the car. This is my S1 for example:

[288gto]

Hi ndinsdale,

Sorry don’t know your name but anyway this is what I did in my S2 OTS.
They are in addition to the front speakers and although small handle bass very well. They were recommended by a local car audio company who do a lot of upgrades on factory fitted stuff.
They are JL AUDIO 4” ones and were quite reasonable at about £100 for the pair.
I intend to put a circle of perforations on the trim panel that fits over them so they are discrete.

It might not be what you want but an option and doesn’t involve cutting metalwork to make them fit.





Simon

[ndinsdale]

Hi, maybe I forgot to say I have a focal amp running the system as well, so a sub is all I need.

not sure you would get the base range from 2 or 4 mid range speakers & tweeter's

thanks for all you help & equally showing me how to destroy a beautiful car with some nasty seats :)

[ralphr1780]

Maybe something like this?


Here is the link on JL:
https://forums.jag-lovers.com/t/best-lo ... ers/366940

[ndinsdale]

spot on Ralph. Thats what im looking for :)

is there anymore info on how to do that or who did it?

[Heuer]

thanks for all you help & equally showing me how to destroy a beautiful car with some nasty seats :)

Each to his own but as you can see many owners would disagree with you:






It is such a popular conversion Fosseway even offer a fitting kit: http://www.fossewayperformance.co.uk/e- ... apter-kit/

But back on topic - the MX5 'Tombstone' seats have the sub woofer in the base of the seat, so you may want to consider locating it under one or both seats. However your current setup is flawed and no amount of sticking plaster is going to give you a satisfactory result or beat the laws of acoustics. Bite the bullet and do the job properly with footwell speakers and tweeters. Drop in and see Angus at Moss Jaguar, I am sure he will give you a quick demo of what you can achieve with a well thought out installation. The photo Ralph posted is going to involve you permanently modifying the rear bulkhead and the sound will still be poor because of the resonance in the boot space. You will need to put an acoustic chamber around the speakers which will take most of the boot space.

You could fit one by making a box housing to fit behind the seats but you will lose precious cargo space.

Another E-Type 'game of consequences' I think

[ndinsdale]

I appreciate your feedback & no matter how many pics you show me of mx5 seats i couldn't do that to a beautiful car. you cant polish a turd

you are right though, that would be a lot of modification. Not sure where your base is coming from but you need a sub woofer no matter where you put the mid range, tweeters etc

& please don't get me started on Fossway

[Heuer]

How much bass are you looking for? The Morel woofer I linked to has a frequency range of 45-3000 hz, your current speakers are likely to have a frequency response of 55-20000 khz. Anything below 100hz in a car is difficult to achieve and in an E-Type almost impossible due to limitations in suitable mounts and space not to mention the hostile environment. A sub-woofer is not required for anything other than a home theatre setup or high end hi-fi and 20hz in an E-Type will cause rattles that were not there before.

Go back to basics, consider the compromises and give some thought to how bad your current driver configuration is (even Jaguar only mounted one speaker in the console). Once you have a logically designed and installed system you can then hear if you need to go super low.

[mark10337]

I find it doesn't work so bad above the passenger footwell. The rear bulkhead in an OTS is a no no due to the wind turbulence.

[69E4.2FI]

There is lots of room for mids in the footwell and I found a great place for tweeters.




And you can squeeze in a double din




Box for the subs 2x 8 Inch and 2 x 6 inch mids with charging ports





Amp in the back




Camera in the front



Don't forget some soft lighting will driving at night