Stereo gurus

[RT]

I have 91 hardbody ext cab and have aftermarket system in it. I am placing some 6x9 speakers in the panel on jump seats. I have removed seats and pan for clearance. Question is with the area behind seat open, would it give better quality sound if I enclosed the area behind speaker? I am thinking like a sealed box over back of 6x9 so it is in an enclosed area. Seal unit kind of. Anyone who has placed speakers in the panels that cover jump seats please respond. Thanks.

[C-Kwik]

Sorry for the late response. First off I know nothing about the way the truck looks so I wont be specific to your application.

However, enclosing a speaker tends to provide better sound. Particularly with larger sized speakers. Speakers work by emitting sound by vibrating the cone. It's simple enough, but speakers do create sounds from both sides of the cone. They are essentially equal and opposite sound waves which can cancel each other out. Higher frequency sounds aren't usually as much of a problem as the sound waves are shorter. But lower frequencies can be quite long and can cause a cancelling effect if the waves aren't isolated far enough apart. This is why subs are usually built-into enclosures. Free-air subs don't require boxes and such, but do they still require that the area behind the sub is isolated from the front enough to prevent wave cancellation. Essentially, you just need make sure any sound from the rear of the speaker takes a long enough path to get to the intended listener so that the waves don't cancel each other. I think Crutchfield used to sell some baffles for various speaker sizes. Something like that would probably be sufficient.

[RT]

Thanks will give them a call and check on the baffles.