Freelander gets a proper sub woofer.

This site contains affiliate links for which LandyZone may be compensated if you make a purchase.

Nodge68

Well-Known Member
Posts
32,325
Location
Near Newquay
I'v always felt the Freelander suffered from a rather below average sound system. I replaced the very poor 5 Watts per channel factory head unit when I first got the car. I chose a Sony Xplod MEX-BT2700 which has plenty of features including Blue Tooth connectivity, high power 52 watts per channel internal amp and a built in crossovers for the internal amp and the Sub Woofer pre -out connection. This was a huge improvement on the factory head unit.
I lived with this running the factory door speakers for some time but it always fell well short of punch compared to my wife's Bose Audio equipped VW Tiguan (the best part of the car in fact)
One of my hobbies is high end home audio so over the years i'v built many speaker systems
I decided I'd have a go at addressing the Freelander's average speaker system .
I did some testing of the factory speakers which although very cheaply made aren't to bad sonicily. I ran several test tones from 40Hz up to 20KHz while monitoring the sound pressure levels in various locations in the car, amazingly there was almost no fluctuation in the door speakers response from 60Hz right up to 15KHz !! The speakers could even reproduce 40Hz but this caused break up of the mid range at higher sound levels which is to be expected. So after all this testing I decided that the factory door speakers would do what I needed if I remove the lower frequencies from them.
The next bit was the interesting part for me. I decided a powerful sub woofer was the way to go. I looked at the factory in boot sub the premium audio systems use but decided it was cheap and nasty with a pathetic little drive unit. It is housed in a tuned ported enclosure which makes the most of the limited power it can take but the enclosure is plastic which is a very bad material to make a speaker out of .
So this ment build something along the boot sub idea but make it work properly.
This is what i'v come up with. It doesn't take up much actual boot space except the under floor cubby hole. I made a mock up to test the idea using an old 10" JBL sub driver , I chose this because it is designed to be installed into small sealed (infinite baffle) or ported systems.
I've used a new Clarion 10" sub in the finished install.
I chose to try the system with the sealed enclosure for the time being as it's better at taking high power levels even if it's frequency response is limited to around 40Hz.
So the pics show the various stages of construction starting with making the baffle up to the final Clarion sub install.
The amp i'm using is a cheap n cheerful SPLx 350 watt amp that has been wired as a single channel output. It will supply 190 watts RMS like this which is all that is necessary.
The amp is fitted inside the bottom of the cubby box so is effectively inside the speaker enclosure. The wiring is fed under the carpet emerging inside the enclosure.
I've set the sub crossover to 80Hz and also set the door speakers to only receive frequencies over 80Hz. This cuts any bass distortion in the door speakers to inaudible limits and also allows them to take a bit more power which helps the volume levels.
I'm happy with the sound of the system which is now miles better than anything the factory fitted. The car now shakes when the volume is cranked.
20130501_082643-1.jpg
20130504_120829.jpg
20130504_122353-1.jpg
20130504_120720.jpg
20130504_120653-1.jpg
20130505_135413-1.jpg
 
Last edited:
be careful sticking the amp in there, they have been known to fill with water or at least get very damp.
 
be careful sticking the amp in there, they have been known to fill with water or at least get very damp.

I'll monitor the cubby for dampness but up till now at least it's bone dry. Maybe I've the only Freelander made that doesn't have a built in fish tank? It's not the only Freelander i'v had that has dry cubby which is why I decided to make use of it.
 
Last edited:
mine is dry and it has the sub in off that Kardon Harman, in which is a fantastic system in and if you are worried about damp, get some of those little bags that you get in electrical stuff that extract the damp .just can not think what they are called
 
hiya

great looking job, may i ask is that marine ply please

i wish to replace my broken plastic boot cover and was wondering what thickness u used and where did u get the carpet from plse

many thks and hope u didnt mind me asking

gary
 
hiya

great looking job, may i ask is that marine ply please

i wish to replace my broken plastic boot cover and was wondering what thickness u used and where did u get the carpet from plse

many thks and hope u didnt mind me asking

gary

Ask what you like Gary ;)
I used 1/2" marine ply which I had kicking about, it's more than up to the job if used as a simple replacement cover. For my speaker I added a frame of 3 X 1/2" soft wood to the underside , the edge of which is visible in pic 4. This was used to make the ply more rigid and lift the ply up a bit so the speakers massive magnet assembly didn't hit the bottom of the cubby.
The carpet is a generic car speaker box covering, it's available on ebay, I used what I had which was grey, it's also available in black. I might get some in black just to improve the look, but for now i'm just going to enjoy running in the new sub.
 
Ask what you like Gary ;)
I used 1/2" marine ply which I had kicking about, it's more than up to the job if used as a simple replacement cover. For my speaker I added a frame of 3 X 1/2" soft wood to the underside , the edge of which is visible in pic 4. This was used to make the ply more rigid and lift the ply up a bit so the speakers massive magnet assembly didn't hit the bottom of the cubby.
The carpet is a generic car speaker box covering, it's available on ebay, I used what I had which was grey, it's also available in black. I might get some in black just to improve the look, but for now i'm just going to enjoy running in the new sub.

thks buddy, did u just buy it on a roll etc and may i ask have u possibly still got the ebay company link please

as its always nice to go to a company that someone else has used and seen what the quality of there products are please

thks again and think i will be removing my broken plastic boot cover and reusing the lock as it will be better than nothing

thks again for the great idea as im just going to use it as storage, but need to pin down the dam swimming pool first, lol

think the best thing wikl be to take the rear carpets and rear trim out including the back door trim and get some one to put a hose pipe on the door etc whilst i sit inside to see where this dam water is coming in from

sorry keep asking u questions but have u got any pics please of how u done the hinges please or did u use different ones



thks again

gary
 
Last edited:
thks buddy, did u just buy it on a roll etc and may i ask have u possibly still got the ebay company link please

as its always nice to go to a company that someone else has used and seen what the quality of there products are please

thks again and think i will be removing my broken plastic boot cover and reusing the lock as it will be better than nothing

thks again for the great idea as im just going to use it as storage, but need to pin down the dam swimming pool first, lol

think the best thing wikl be to take the rear carpets and rear trim out including the back door trim and get some one to put a hose pipe on the door etc whilst i sit inside to see where this dam water is coming in from

sorry keep asking u questions but have u got any pics please of how u done the hinges please or did u use different ones



thks again

gary

The trim cloth comes on various sizes and in a choice of grey or black. I'm sure these people supplied my last batch.
2M x 1.6M CAR SPEAKER SUBWOOFER BOX CARPET CLOTH BLACK | eBay
I didn't take a pic of the standard cover but it's secured by 10 self tapper type screws, 2 screws in each of the 3 hinges and 2 screws in each of the 2 lock catches. It should be easy to knock up a wooden cover.
Good luck with the water hunt ;)
 
lol ok :eek: how strong is that cover? did it come with the sub?

The cover comes separately. It's a standard disco speaker grill and is more than strong enough for my needs. If I do need to put something really heavy in the boot then it's 2 minute job to whip the whole lot out, but that would be un-necessary most of the time.
 
Looking at this again. Is it just a cover with a circle cut out or did you make an actual sealed box? I cant see how this would work properly if it isn't sealed properly?

I do like the look of it but in my experience of sub enclosure building it doesn't look to have enough cubic capacity and seems to leak air alround? As I said not picking faults, just curious as it does look fantastic.
 
Looking at this again. Is it just a cover with a circle cut out or did you make an actual sealed box? I cant see how this would work properly if it isn't sealed properly?

I do like the look of it but in my experience of sub enclosure building it doesn't look to have enough cubic capacity and seems to leak air alround? As I said not picking faults, just curious as it does look fantastic.

It is a basic sealed enclosure. It's sealed well enough for the job in hand. If the cone is pushed down it rises slowly. There is 18 liters of volume which is enough for the woofer I'v chosen to respond pretty well. Don't forget I'm using an amp that only drives the frequency I need. As it is now it's more than capable of shaking the car!
The plots below show the frequency response for a sealed 18L enclosure and a ported 18L enclosure tuned to 37Hz I'm thinking about changing to.
Screenshot_2013-06-24-13-21-35.png
Screenshot_2013-06-24-13-22-10.png
 
Last edited:
Back
Top