Side firing subs or facing cockpit?
 

Hey guys,

I currently have a side firing Polk 10 in my boat. My buddy was awesome enough to buy me another amp to power easily another 10. So I'll need to make another box. I'm curious why the owner put in the 10 side firing as opposed to facing the vents on the back seat, that project towards the cockpit? I will need to make another box, curious if I should do another side firing or have it face the cockpit. Need to understand this better.

Usually do side firing to give the sub some compression. Basically gives the short waves something to bounce off, like the other side of the boat am causes the cone to compress the wave against itself. Forward is ok if the cockpit is not too long. Boats are lots of compromises when it comes to music. Open cockpits, weird angles, and so many different configs make it hard to design anything perfect.

A thing to consider. When mounting side fireing subs, if you have more than one, and they face eachother you can run into phase issues. Because of that I never side mount them but install them next to eachother facing the same way. As an example under the rear seat ect. I definetly prefer to install speakers in a way so no waves are bouncing off anything, or as few as possible anyway, and then tune the system for that. Speakers facing anything and sending waves bouncing off sides, walls ect. create phase issues and blurry rumbly sound.

Each have their own recipe I guess.

He is right. If you do it that way make sure to flip polarity an run one out of phase and see how it sounds. I have mine mounted like he does and just put brutal power to them. Boats are a lot of compromise. Go for sound levels not so much audiophile spin quality.

So if I currently have the side firing, would you guys recommend doing another facing the opposite direction? Or should I start over?

I would put them under rear bench and fire forward. Even running it out of phase will make it sound funky and u will probably lose some of or maybe even all the bass.