[skater]

I picked up a sub, box, and amp combo off Craigslist for a pretty decent price today. It has poly fill in the box, but I'm wondering if I should remove it.

The amp is a Pioneer GM-3000T, which can do 100 watts continuous at 4 ohms.

The sub is a JL 12W1V2-4, which according to this page, looks like it needs about 200 watts continuous to work well (though the minimum is 60 watts, so the amp capable of driving this sub).

I discovered some of the screws were stripped out in the wood, so I pulled the sub out of the box in order to fill the holes and replace the screws, and there is cotton stuffed in the box. The box is a standard 12" single sub box - not sure of the volume but it's at least 1 cu ft. The specs for the sub call for 1.25 cu ft. In short, I'm pretty sure the filling is unnecessary and actually counter-productive for this setup. Does that sound right?

After reading the specs, anyone want to guess how much I paid? :biggrin:

(One downside - the guy was a smoker, so I'm Febreezing the heck out of it...)

 

[c0alition]

I'm guessing about $150.. and if i can remember correctly.. the stuffing in side "emulates" a bigger box(I don't know why.. it's just what i heard when i worked at audio shop) It also keeps box from vibrating.. and give's it a smoother tone. Instead of getting hard wood echo inside the box.. all the distortion is dissipated.. but then again.. i got fired from that job haha.. so i may be wrong.

edit: the cotton is probably polyfill..

 

[skater]

I know why it's in there. I'm wondering if I should take it out.

How does $60 sound for the setup?

 

[Goldie]

I am far from knowing much about what I am doing, BUT I am about to fabricate up some enclosures for my subs and was just reading the the little booklet that came with the subs. it had instructions for sealed and ported boxes in two size recommendations each (or a min and a max).
For my particular subs, for a sealed box, the min was 1 cubic foot of air and the larger was 1.75 if I recall correctly. they recommended 1/2 filled with poly fill for both sizes. since it sounds like your box is smaller than it should be, you should have some in there.
the ported had 1.25 - 2 cubic feet without poly fill (not cotton).
I also in the past had heard some stuffing should be used to get the results of a larger enclosure - so was kinda surprised that they suggest to use it on both of the sealed sized enclosures. Also was surprised the min - max sizes were not drastically different.

since you have the box open, and the guy was a stinky smoker, I would replace it with some new stuffing. Also, go around all the interior seams & sub opening and add a bead of silicone (got that advise from the little booklet or internets too )

 

[skater]

Well, I pulled the old poly out, figuring even if I did decide I want it, I'd buy fresh stuff later. It was pretty dusty and dirty anyway. The thing that worries me about the poly fill is that it seems like there has to be SOME down side to the poly fill thing...there are always trade-offs.

I installed the sub in the Impala today (no poly fill). It works but it doesn't hit as hard as the sub in the Cougar, which isn't surprising considering the Cougar has an amp that does about 200 watts RMS while the new amp only does 100 watts RMS.

I'll save up to replace the amp in a couple months. At that point I'll decide whether I want the poly-fill back in or not.

 

[ice992]

polyfill is widely debated, some love it some hate it, but the fact is it reduces resonance, which produces cleaner bass, and it makes the box "larger" by slowing down the sound waves and reducing resonance it makes a speaker box act 20-25% larger than its actual size, which is handy if you are using a premade box which is on the smaller side of whatever your sub calls for... use 1lb per cubic ft... hope that helps some...

*edit* walmart sells it for like $5 per 8 or 10lb bag i forget the exact size

 

[skater]

That helps a lot, actually. Thanks!

Edit: I put the old poly-fill back in this morning (it didn't smell bad, and it was just a little dusty, and I'm lazy - after spending several hours yesterday installing the sub in the car, I'm not really eager to spend hours more on it right now), and I'm much happier with the sound. Still wish it hit a little harder, but that's an amp issue, not a sub issue. Thanks.

 

[megail]

on a side note;
if the screws were stripped did you replace them with t-nuts and some nicer bolts or did you just screw in more screws? the t-nuts will help when removing the sub from the enclosure and will not strip out.

 

[skater]

I used Minwax's filler, which claims to be able to hold screws and nails, and I bought new screws for it. They seemed to be holding pretty well in the box. One of the original screws had in fact been replaced with a larger one, and even that one is holding fine. Of course I was careful not to overtorque them, and I even did the cross-tightening thing like you'd do with lug nuts.