Ok, it's about time for me to give an "in the car" update. So, here are the system specs. 14" wide AT with MCM 8" driver powered with a 230 watt Alpine Mono amp. 8 ga power/ground wire to the amp and 14 ga maybe even 16 ga wire going to the sub (I can't tell what size). Initially I turned the amp gain to 1/4 and bass boost down to it's lowest with the LP freq around 80 hz. Turned up some tunes and really nothing to hear. After turning the gain and bass boost up on the amp, I finally got some sound. Now it's set at 1 notch over half way up on both gain/bass boost. My radio setting are where they were ( -2 for bass level and Sub level at 0 or neutral).
I am getting peaks of around 20 volts at my highest comfortable listening level and the bass is pretty good. I'm not going to lie, it's loud for an 8" driver but to be honest, I think all of the hype got my hopes to high. The bass isn't as clean as I had hoped for, surprising after hearing ppl sound so excited on how clean the bass is. Maybe it's my car, idk (2001 Subaru Impreza) or my warped plywood that I used for the cab and the tuning is off, beats me or maybe even just the position in the trunk (it's pointed at one side of the trunk about 8-10 inches away). Could also be that the bass notes I'm trying to hear are below what the cab's tuned for.
All in all, I am kind of satisfied. I do have one screw hole that I need to fill on the back of the cab, other than that, the box should have plenty of glue on the inside so I'm not too worried about leaks.
One more thing, I noticed someone else had the same problem in hearing with the "phwap" sound on kicks, the beginning of bass notes and what not. I think I can hear the same thing on my TT in my living room but it's hard to tell. I feel like those sounds are whats making the cab sound not so clean to me. I can't hear the "phwap" inside the car, just next to the cab, I feel like I shouldn't hear them at all though.
Please let me know what you think and if you have any recommendations for me or my setup. Let me know if I am over expecting or if there is something I might be missing
Thanks..