Box questions

[sparticus1313]

Hey, I'm planning on buying a new box for my 2 JL Audio 10wO's. Their websites recommends having .5-.9 cubic feet of air space per sub in a sealed box, and .9-1.5 cubic feet in a ported enclosure. First of all, does a bigger box mean louder bass? Can I exceed the recommened amount of air space without hurting the sound? Also, I listen to heavy metal/rock, so would a sealed or bandpass box be better for my music?

Thanks alot,
Michael

[Primer_Drift]

Shoulda put this under the ICE section, but I'll try to help ya out to the best of my experience. The boxes I have made smaller than required airpace have not been able to produce really deep bass well, the reason I speculate being that the sound waves in the box become out of sync causing destortion. As for a box larger than spec, I found that the higher punchy bass was not as clear. The recommended specs for your subs are generally the best, they test them extensively to determine the optimum value. Now depending whether you want your subs to be able to produce a good range of bass or specific tones, you will want to design you box around that. IMO sealed is much better, but requires good components as well as a well designed box. Bandpass is sloppy but will make a cheap sub sound quite loud with enough power. Another thing to note is that the subs will break in differently in each encloser, so decide carefully.