Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Audio transmisson lines

I know they are big in home audio, but what about car audio?? Anybody ever experiment with them???

If you are referring to them as being very large, you are correct. They have a small but loyal following in home audio enthusiasts. I played around with a modeling program for the better part of a couple of weeks trying to come up with a managable size TL for a Lambda PB15 (for Luke) in his Focus. I gave up because the size was unweildly. With smaller drivers, they could work out, but a subwoofer TL would just be too big.

That being said, a friend of mine an I built a TL in an old blazer and the thing (at the time) was the loudest bass I had heard and it only used a pair of cheap Pyle Drivers. Replaced eventually by Kicker C-12s. It was huge, but it performed quite well.

Just curious Dave but what dimentions did you come up with for the "TL for a Lambda PB15 (for Luke) in his Focus?"

I think the smallest acceptable model was on the order of 10-12 cu ft.

10-12 cubic feet would be interesting...

my brother was showing me (very crudely) how they worked. He took a 6" woofer and just put a piece of sono tube in front of them, pretty impressive, then he showed me something called el pipe-o that thing was absolutely massive. I didnt know if people had actually tried installing them in cars or not. I have some older kicker 8" free airs wondering if those would be ideal?

dave, can you build me this TL setup for my contour using a 8" JL? I don't understand it but I guess it makes it really loud. I have no back seat, so it could go from back of trunk all the way into back seat area.

I think you would be better off with a ported box in most cases. With a TL, you tune the enclosure by making the "line" the a fraction of the tuning freq wavelength, typically 1/4 wavelength, then you stuff the enclosure until you get the desired response. The cross sectional area is ideally >= the Sd of the driver.

In short, stick with ported unless you want to do quite a bit of work. Still interested, let me know. BTW, Low Qts woofers generally work better than higher Qts woofers.

i know very very little about audio, so I'd probably be paying you or somebody else to build any enclosure I'd get. I have a 8" JL sub and an amp that runs about 160watts at 4ohms. I'm just wondering if there would be any way to get it to sound pretty good with some sorta special box design. Like that video with those 2 audiobahn 6 1/2"s pushed by about 200watts that sound better/louder than two 15"s because of the box.