Best Shallow Sub

Looking for input on the "best" shallow sub. Currently running a JL 8w7 but need to find something shallow to mount behind the rear seats of my '21 crewmax. Will build my own sealed box for mounting. Future expansion includes DSP for all drivers.

After doing some research, it looks like a couple of the top contenders have gone under, namely the Illusion Audio Carbon line (C10/C12) and the Audiomobile Evo 2410. In a head to head I saw the Audiomobile Evo 2410 outperformed the JL Audio TW3, however the box size wasn't ideal for the JL.

In any case, for what's currently offered, I've narrowed it down to the JL Audio 10TW3, 12TW3, 13TW5, Stereo Integrity BM-11, and the Arc Audio A10, A12.Looking to hear from anyone who's tried one or more of these subs and has thoughts.

Overall goal is the best performer as far as accuracy/reproduction goes. I know the JL TW3's have held the crown for awhile, and for the price of one TW5 you can (almost) buy a pair of TW3's. The TW3's have around the same xmax as the BM-11, whereas the TW5 has considerably less xmax but more cone area, but from my lamens understanding xmax>cone area when it comes to reproduction. I'm open to running a pair however I don't feel I'd need the added output of a pair. Compiled the specs below even though I know specs are a mediocre indicator of sound. Any/all recommendations are welcome and appreciated.

Edit: Originally wrote that Audiomobile subs were not available as I’d read they were having issues and didn’t see them available from many places. Looks like they’re back now, not sure what was going on.

 

Been real happy with my 12tw3 in the tundra in a 12v solutions box behind the seat.

 

Missing Hertz MTS 250

 

I was just looking at them and they look pretty attractive. Idk how much truth there is to it but I read over on DIYMobileAudio the Hertz MPS subs are essentially a TW3 copycat due to JL's patent expiring. If true, I'd probably go JL if choosing between the two to support JL's R&D and it looks like the Hertz are only $50 cheaper at msrp for the 10" and equal in cost at the 12" size.

 

Hertz comes with grilles...theyre $360 at the moment https://www.crutchfield.com/S-8V7Kbw0ILQg/p_301MPS2504/Hertz-MPS-250-S4.html

 

I’ve got a pair of unused BM11’s I’d let got for less than retail if that where you are headed…

 

Added the Hertz MPS 250/300 to my table, the 250 looks like a better TW3 on paper, 100w more power handling, near equal sensitivity, response range, mounting depth, and box size with a lower resonant frequency and more xmax. The MPS 300 looks nearly identical across the board to the 12TW3.



The most intriguing spec on the table is in the Stereo Integrity BM-11 being able to play as low as 8 Hz which seems crazy, combined with it's relatively high sensitivity.

 

Stereo integrity makes solid products.
I am using their setup for my three way front stage.

Just a thought.
You are looking at subs that cost above average. The STEREO INTEGRITY BM11 alone is $499.

If you plan on keeping the tundra for a while
If you do not have rear passengers that often.
If you want to meet your musical expectations.
Get the Gatley seat brackets. That opens up a lot of different options.
I might would look at a pair of the dayton audio HO12 the fs on that sub is low
I had a pair of dayton 10,s in my sons camaro. They sound great and can get loud doing it.
In my opinion, the shallow mount sub can not complete with standard subwoofers. Bass takes cf space.

I finally have some time to get mine installed. I hope to have finished in the next 2 weeks.I am planning on running three dayton ultimax 10 inch

 

I also have a '21 CrewMax and run a JL 12W1v3 in a Ta*****es ported box. It's pushed with the JL JD500/1. I'm not trying to rattle other peoples windows at the red light, but this thing hits hard enough to trigger the impact detection on my dashcam on certain songs. The bass control knob is extremely helpful, as I listen to LOTS of different music.

 

Yeah for top of the line shallow subs it seems they cost quite a bit nowadays. I have passengers in the rear too often and am not too keen on the gately seat brackets due to their cost (rather just put that towards audio gear) and I'm not fond of the idea of adding a non-crash tested failure point with a car seat. From the reviews I've read of people going from full size to shallow subs I know it's not going to compare but it may be an improvement over my 8w7 in an undersized box. I'd love to keep the 8w7 but there's just not room for it anywhere.

Thanks for the input, I'm thinking a single shallow sub around ~500w will suit my needs. I'm in the same boat not looking to hear me down the street just want the best SQ bass I can get. Gone are the days of two Alpine Type R 12's always on and a JL 12w3 on a nuke switch lmao, even my single 8w7 currently can get pretty damn loud. I just reinstalled a JL 6w3 in my wife's car and even those little 6.5's can put out a tremendous amount of bass.

 

My experience over the years is specs mean little to nothing - How it sounds of course is Everything.

 

Yeah that's very true, and I think in the end the biggest thing is always install/box specs/tuning. Mechanically all the drivers are probably similar enough that a skilled tuner could make a $100 sub sound better than a $1000 sub. I need to get my rear passenger seat out and see what I can fit back on that side.

My current setup has my amp and crossovers on the drivers side and although I have plans to go active in the future with a Helix V series amp, I'll then be replacing the 5 channel with a mono in addition to the Helix which will essentially take the place of the crossovers. Plenty of room to rearrange things but with sub(s) and amps back there it'll start to get snug. Also had the thought of getting the underseat storage and putting the amps in there, but then the risk of theft is much greater than if everything is behind the seats. Old pic of my amp rack for reference, hoping I can squeeze something on the passenger side:

 

Sounds like a sweet plan. I had a P99 headunit, Helix DSP and Director...spent hours and hours playing with tuning...lots of fun when youre running active setups. Got to know my Dayton mic and mini screwdrivers very well.

 

You have a lot of good info here.
I think it will come down to what will be "the best" fit for your needs. I believe you intentions are for a single sub but you are open to a pair. This can be a factor when dealing with what type of music you listen to and how loud/how clear you want that music. I have been a fan of JL due to the R&D they really put into their lineup. But it's all about the application and ultimately you have to nail the box design (you indicated you were building it) to maximize the theil small parameters you would be going for based on which one you choose.
That being said, my single sub choice for sound quality would be the 12TW3.
It's got the right amount of what you need to get high quality and good output. I would recommend multiple subs for higher output spl. I like the Hertz product but it is definitely a JL spin off with a little tweaking (maybe too much) and the other choices left are just not frontrunners like the Illusion carbon or Evos.
I have two 10TW3's powered by a 1000w Audison amplifier and it is both loud and clear enough for the wife to yell at me that its too loud and then blow me when her song is booming.

 

Snert

You have more audio skills than most on this forum, so you know what you are doing.

Something you might want to look at.

If you are doing a single sub on just the passenger side. Take a look at the Dayton RSS210Ho-8 inch sub
Mounting depth is 4.96 inches, it should fit. Build the box somewhere around .85 cf port the box to around 34 hz. A 3 inch port would need to be 16.39 inches long using subbox pro caculations.

With the Dayton subs you can call parts express and they will work with you on the phone about different enclosure designs and sizes.

A single 8 inch in the correct enclosure can sound really good. I watched someone flex the roof on a blazer with a single 8 inch.

My current sub setup is two Rockford Fosgate p2 8 inch subs. The box my local shop build is just a little too small to get the lower hz that I am looking for.
I think if I would have started with the single dayton 8 inch in the correct box I would have been happy and not ordered the gatley brackets.


If I were stuck on a sealed enclosure I would probably go with the Stereo Integrity. I have been very satisfied with the other gear I have used with them, and I would assume the BM11 is a good option.

 

Lol I am in a similar boat it sounds like. I think for my needs a single will do, and I had the thought that if I end up wanting more, if I start with a single 4 ohm and crave more I can always build a second box to go next to the first one, wire them together to 2 ohms, and still probably use the same amp (depending on the amp and power at 2 vs 4 ohms).

I've always been curious about the Dayton offerings, I get the parts express catalogs in the mail and love thumbing through them. I've had ported boxes in the past and but my personal preference is usually towards sealed as they're easier to build lol.

Another option I was just looking at are the Wavtech thinPRO12's. They appear to have absolutely crazy specs on paper and I anecdotally read they're owner/engineer left Alpine to start his own company. The thinPRO12 has 750w RMS, 83 dB sensitivity, 3" mounting depth, 25 Hz Fs, an ideal sealed volume of .6ft^3 and last but not least an absolutely bonkers 20mm of one way xmax. There's not a lot of info on them but if they're hitting the numbers they claim it seems like they'd be the new sheriff in town.

 

Their price is crazy though

 

Yeah I mean it looks like the JL TW3's, Hertz MPS's, and Stereo Integrity BM-11's are all right around that $450-550 mark, the Wavtech's are $700, and then topping the list is the TW5 at $900. Wild how expensive car audio has gotten in the last decade and in particular the last few years.

 

The set of Dayton HO10's in my sons Camaro sounded fantastic. I feel they are one of the best budget subs out there for SQ. Car audio forums seem to agree.

Ported boxes are easy. Just use a round port and let it run outside the box some if needed due to port length. Subbox pro is a free website and easy to use to caculate port size and length.

The wavetech thinPRO12 does look nice. At $699 a sub it better be. Several videos on YouTube talking about the sub but few videos actually showing it playing.

One thing to think about. If you take a sealed sub setup and build the box to where it is too close to the rear seat, it may cut down on a lot of the output. I had that happen on a set of 15's in a blazer. I had some speaker grills covering the subs that I put some cloth material over to grills and had the subs firing into the rear seat. Had almost no output. Took the grills off folded the seats down and everything went back to normal. If building a sealed box with a shallow sub setup give the woofer as much space as you can between the speaker and the rear seat. If not, the sub will be screaming into a pillow.

Most people do not know this but just putting the front door 6 1/2 behind the door speaker grill door panel, you can lose up to around 30% of the speaker output.
Just look at most high-end home tower tweeters. They have little to no grill cover. Yes, subwoofers play different from tweeters, and some say that it does not matter if the subs are covered up some, but in my experience, I have seen output reduced a lot by getting the sub to close to the seat.

 

You described to a T why the 13Tw5 is still on my list. With the TW5 venting out the sides rather than the rear you can mount it virtually right up against the rear of your enclosure. With my current setup I have my 8w7 in this box I made:



The sub mounting surface is inset a couple inches about where the dashed line is and the curved part accommodates the seats being all the way back on both sides. As you can see, it plays directly into my center console and although the box is slightly undersized compared to the last spec box I had it in, it's definitely noticeably being muffled/stifled by the center console. If the 8w7's had an actual grille and not just the rods, and if I didn't have dogs in the back all the time, I'd mount it in the top and have it play straight up.

I'm curious why JL chose to have the 10tw3's in their Tundra stealthbox face towards the rear wall and wonder if exactly what you described didn't have something to do with it:

If I decide to go with a single shallow, I'll probably end up with a box that looks very similar to the stealthbox for the 2007-2013 Tundras like this:

Crutchfield lists this for 2007 up Tundra crewmaxes, but JL's website lists it as 2007-2013, guessing the rear molding of the box is different. In any case, they want $1400 for it, whereas the TW5 itself is only $900, JL charges a hefty premium for this stealthboxes.

 

I’m a Fosgate fan as I had 4 - 12’s in my car back in the day. I ain’t young anymore and have kids. Got the truck 2 months ago so I ordered the items below recently to go behind back seats and they are starting to trickle in. Hopefully get them all in by end of year. Can update when done on impressions. Subs are not their shallow mount options, they are slightly shallower than bigger ones at about 4.5” top mount depth.
RF R2D2-10 x 2
RF R2-500X1
Skar box for two tens

 

Because they do the best research!
I spoke with JL audio directly about the stealth box for the tundra (which is what I went with) and they said they built 4-5 different boxes, both sealed and ported, forward facing and rear facing. He said, hands down, the sealed, rear facing set-up had the best performance across the board. He said the phasing and output issues were the biggest reason to face the drivers rearwards.

 

Makes sense I figured there was good reason for it lol, can't imagine JL does anything half cocked. How do you like the stealthbox/what have you had previously to compare to? The stealthbox is soooooooooo nice looking and man what a dream to install I just don't know that I need that level of output anymore, but I say that and still like to bump every once in awhile so overall I guess my system goals are 75% SQ 25% L

 

Id rather have it and not need it than want it and not have it. Thats what a bass knob is for

 

True that. So long as the box I build doesn't take up more than half the rear wall I can always add another later if need be lol

 

Im going under seat....I think JL designed a stealthbox for us 3G guys but theyre VERY proud of it. Dual MPS 250s on an Epic1500 for me

 

I had a stealth box for my 06' that was in the center console that was fantastic too. I worked in mobile audio for a while and built countless custom enclosures for just about any level of project. So, I have had the pleasure of listening to a lot of different systems and enclosures. I love JL because they do the fucking math when it comes to the stealth box and get it as good as it can get without the sacrifice of space. If you give up space for Bass then many enclosures sound very good with less quality drivers. So when you are dealing with shallow subs in a restricted enclosure, the experience JL has clearly sets them apart.
Before I settled on the stealth box for my tundra, I designed both a triple 10" and a double 12" custom enclosure to replace the center console back to the rear seat, similar to your other pic in this thread.

 

I've been out of the game for a bit so I haven't listened to most of the subs on your list...

BUT, I've been running SI BM's in my tundra for over a decade and absolutely love them. First a single mk3, now dual mk4s. The XBL motors make them blend so seamlessly into any music and they really do play deep.

My vote is BM11's from @blenton

 

It's a bit on the over the top side of things but I gutted the foam, had my seat rails re-fabbed and a 2inch lift where the seats mount. Had a custom enclosure built and installed 2 DDaudio sl612s under the rear seat. Mounted 2 4 channel amps and my subwoofer am to the back wall. Still have some little touch up things for fit and finish but it sounds great in my opinion

 

Love DD products...had a single 3512 in my Silverado...makes me miss that truck