DaleK

OK - update time on the wOOx Note: this is way long. If you aren't interested in the wOOx, carry on and save yourself from certain boredom I finally installed it on the weekend. It does fit under the passenger seat - just. I had to remove that wire that I talked about previously to get the box right where I wanted it. The wire I removed simply attached the two frame rails. It appears that its function is probably to assist in assembling the frame rails to the seat at the factory, so off it came. wOOx will not fit under the driver seat without some grief (like not being able to move the seat), because of the rod in the front of the seat for the height adjuster. You need to put the box as far forward as possible, as the seat is furthest from the floor here.

I mounted the wOOX to the seat rather than the floor, facing down (and forward I might add due to the seat angle). This allows almost full movement of the seat; I lose about 2 inches at the very front of the seat travel because the speaker assembly does hit the ridge in the floor under the seat. Otherwise, it clears the floor fine. If you mounted it to the floor, you would lose most of your seat travel, plus reassmbly would be tough (gaining access to the bolts at the back of the seat requires moving the seat all the way up. It was a tight enough squeeze as it was). The mounting hardware that came with the wOOx did the trick with some minor coercing.

I mounted the sub's remote in the glove box for easy access while being out of sight. The remote is good - level, crossover frequency and phase adjustments. The sub can be effectively turned off this way.

The sub is fed by line outs on my 4-channel amp mounted under the driver seat in a similar manner (an old Alpine V12, 35 W/channel). This install results in not taking up ANY usable space in the car, and also in not being able to see anything unless you get in the car and poke your head under the seat, regardless of the seat position. Totally stealth. Plus my dog still fits in the hatch.

So how does it sound?

The sound quality of the sub is decent. It cranks pretty good for an enclosure that is probably on the order of .2 cubic feet, including the amplifier and crossover. Also, the sound is good and clean to my ears provided I don't overdo it with the levels. I set the crossover to 80 Hz, as that seems to be best with the music I listen to. If you want to bounce doen the street, this ain't for you, but if you want balanced sound with a properly stout bottom end and ALL of your space, this will probably work for you. Keep in mind too that the subbass is WAY up front this way - no 'sub is in the back' syndrome at all, and it is really freaky when you sit in the back seat because the sub is actually further in front of you than the speakers in the doors.

But Dale, isn't there a down side to having all that bump attached to the seat? Yes. If you sit in the passenger seat and crank it, you get a nice massage. Whether you like this or not, well I guess that's up to you. For me, I don't like that all that much. But, since the stereo is not normally cranked (by either my wife or I) unless there is only one person in the car, this will probably not be a big deal unless you drive from the passenger seat. Maybe some dynamat between the sub and the seat would help a bit. Maybe I want to tear my car apart again just to try.....We'll see.

Also, the sub won't do 20 Hz - it's a 6 inch speaker with a 6.5 inch passive radiator, so there is only so low that it can go. I would say it goes as low as most 8 inch subs in the proper box though. My 8 inch solobaric gets maybe a smidge lower. Volume wise it's plenty though - keep in mind the sub is less than 2 feet away and the orientation of the sub facing the floor and angled forward will tend to force the bass to the front, kind of like facing the sub to the back in the hatch. You won't go deaf on the 100W it has, but you don't need 500W just to hear it either.

Overall, I'm happy. It sounds good enough that I am ready to run out and get some proper speakers for the front to replace the factory ones. The amp cleans them up quite a bit over the headunit by itself, but the speakers don't keep up with the amp. Oh, the stock head unit provides clean enough signal to properly run an amp!! I see Dave Cameron has posted this very revelation as well elsewhere. Plus it's got that cool orange lighting that matches the gauges in my P5.

So there you have it. Factory headunit, 100% cargo room, 240W RMS of decent sounds from almost 20kHz to almost 20Hz. Nothing to see here folks!

Would I do it again? Using the same criteria (I want bass but I have no room to spare), yes. As good as it turned out though, if I had the space to spare, I would go with the sub in the box in the hatch like everyone else. It's easier, and if you really want to boom, that is what you need. If you have room to spare, go that route, if you don't then this works great, thanks. And did I mention that you can't see any part of the install?

I took a bunch of pictures, so one of my next hobbies will be learning how to post things on a webpage on the net! Maybe in a couple weeks I can figure that out and you can see what leather and no sound system looks like

Dale.

hihoslva

Nice write-up Dale.

This will be solid information for anyone looking for some extended bottom end that doesn't care about "bumping".

The whole small bass speaker+passive radiator thing is quite interesting. Glad to hear that it's performing as expected for you.

Makes me wonder.....in a system that does include external amps, and a traditional subwoofer/box combo, would the wOOx provide anything resembling solid mid-bass? I'm just curious if it would project or be drowned out by a higher-powered system. Maybe one of the audio nutz here (not me) will get one cheap and give it a try....who knows.

Funny you should mention the "massage" phenomenon. I had a '93 Miata, with the top-of-the-line factory Pioneer system - this tiny little cabin had a total of 10 speakers! - a separate mid and tweeter on each door (so 4 there), stereo speakers (3 inch I think) in each headrest (nice for top-downing - and another 4 makes 8), and - yup - 8 inch subs in the BACK OF EACH SEAT - firing right into your spine! Kinda cool - the subs didn't have great SQ or SPL, but the system as whole really cranked for a factory system. And a stock CD player (with tape deck also!) in 1993 wasn't the norm for sure. It also had the speed-sensitve volume adjustment, different modes for top up/top down driving, and separate volume for the subs. Very cool system - and it definitely thumped you in the back when the volume was up!

~HH

dynamho

Living in New York City, I wanted to stick to factory head unit for fear of theft, yet I like rich bass.
I needed a sub that was tight (not boomy). I'm into bass quality not quantity. I also wanted to sacrifice the least amount of space as possible. I also wanted easy of installation. I decided on self-powered subs.

The Kenwood Woox completely slipped by me. I wish I had known about it sooner.

When I was shopping, my two choices were:
1. Self-powered Bazookas
2. Infinity Basslink

I tried the Bazooka EL-8A initially. There was a lot of bass. It was rattling my rearview mirror etc. But the bass was too floppy for my taste. If you want bass slathered all over you, this tube is it.

I exchanged it promptly for the Infinity Basslink. It's one of the best sounding bass I've heard coming from a car. I hear a lot of cars on the road with booming basses coming down the road a mile away, but that same bass can be heard fading for another mile (sloppy bass). Basslink has tight non-fading bass. And it takes up the space of about 4 six-packs. It's pretty loud too if you want that kind of bass. In fact, if you raise the onboard crossover to 100Hz and turn up the Bass Boost, it's sounds like the Bazookas. Loud and all over the place.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that the Bazooka is a poor bass unit. It was powerful. It's just not the kind of sound I like.

DaleK

Hey HH - Thanks for your comments

I don't think that the wOOx would work as a mid bass solution. The passive radiator is set up for the lower frequencies, not the mids. While it won't go as low as a 10 or 12, it is definitely sub bass, and the mid bass sounds pretty crappy, like turning the crossover up too high on any normal sub - boomy and directional. There are 120, 100, 80 and 60 Hz crossover settings on the wOOx. I tried the 100 and 120 Hz settings for maybe 10 seconds before I decided that was not appropriate for the setup.

Dynamho, I seriously thought about the basslink before I found the wOOx. While I haven't heard it myself, I like Infinity and I like the design of that unit, but it still needed to use up space in the hatch, which wasn't cutting it for me, both for space and security. I take my dog in the back, so I don't have the hatch cover on most of the time. I didn't want to have my car say 'steal me' by having an expensive looking sub setup in plain view.

Dale.

hihoslva

Hey, dynamho - where in the big City are you?

I'm out on Long Island, but I work in Manhattan frequently, as well as the other 4 boroughs, Jersey, Connecticut, upstate NY, etc., etc.

Any distinguishing marks on your ride? I'll be sure to flip ya' the brights if I ever see you around - it's a big area of course, but you never know!

BTW - if you ever see a Sunlight Silver 5 with the fogs on independent of the headlights (Fogs and parking lights only - I re-wired them, as per the mod posted a long time ago), that's probably me. I usually leave them on at dawn/dusk, not much during the day. But I know a few P5 owners have looked at my car longer than usual - for sure wondering how I get my fogs to do that - non-internet people, for sure.

Anyway - I've also got 20% tint all around, the WeatherFlectors, and gunmetal painted badging. Be sure to gimme a beep or even stop me if you ever see me. I still have yet to meet any board member outside of cyber-world.

~HH

dynamho

Hi hihoslva,
I'll greet you too if I see you. I know about some of your mods. I visit your Webshots site on and off.

Here are two of my car's identifying features:
1. Ferrari sidemarkers

2. Red caliper paint

95ProtegeLX

Has anyone installed the Kenwood wOOx in their Protege yet???
I was interested in finding out if it actually sounds good to add some good bass to a stock powered system (with Sony Xplodes F&R)??? With the Sony's they're all mids & highs!!! And also, has anyone installed one under the passenger seat???

90210brandon

Why don't you just use a 6" or maybe a 8" sub. That is more than enough. I used to have two tens, that was to much so I went to just one ten. Then I turn down the power and it was not to bad. If I, which I plan to, I would/will only use one 8". That is more than enough for me and you save all the space and weight!

dynamho

95ProtegeLX,
I think the bulk of your question has been answered by Dale on the previous posts on this thread.

90210brandon,
Yeah, two 10" subs in a Pro seems overkill, but it's all subjective to whoever's listening. Some people like to show-off their music more than they enjoy listening to it. The two 10 incher may be good for that. Some people just want mid-bass fill and are not deep bass fanatics. The 6" and 8" will add richness for these folks. As for me, I have enough mid-bass from my rear deck and front door Pioneers, and I want some accentuation deep bass punches, so I picked a 10" with a passive radiator set to a low gain setting and low crossover point.

arl240

Hey Dalek, thanks for the review, I just picked one up off eBay. for $150 USD. I got some questions for you regarding your install, mainly how long would you estimate your cable is from the head unit and which way did you run the cable? I have a JVC SH707 (awesome headunit) and want to run rca cables from the sub out to the sub, using your igenious mounting method and need to pick up the cables on Friday when the sub comes.

I bought the system for almost the exact same reason as you did. I wanted a bit more oomph in the lows without blowing my ears or sacficing space (hence no basslink). Also I did not want any hassle of putting a sub in a box and adding a amp etc.. Just a small powered sub of decent quality. The three it came down to were the basslink (bigger but pounds better), the woox (underseat sweet) and the clarion SRV303 (meh..) Found a Canadian seller on eBay, snagged it and paid no PST or duty. Shweet. Install this weekend, I think I will even do pics, as long as I don't butcher it too bad.

DaleK

Thanks for the compliments, and good luck with the install!! BTW - it is a bit of a PITA, :end disclaimer:

For RCA lengths, I ran rca's from the deck to my amp which is under my driver seat, and from the amp using the line outs to the wOOx under the passenger seat. I JUST made it with 6 foot RCA's from the deck to my amp (JUST), and I had to run the cables through the console to do it (not a bad place really - the console isn't too bad to take off, plus there are some really nice grounding points in there for power). There was a thread on here discussing console removal with good pictures at some point, you may want to search for that.

If you want to go around the door sill, you will want at least 8 feet or so I would think. If you find the path you are thinking and run a tape measure along each leg to get an estimate, then add a couple feet for slack under the seat (since you will be attaching stuff to the seat) and to give enough room to work in the dash, I would think that you would be OK.

Hope that helps!
Dale.

damaster

As the subject of my post says, I'm a complete noob to the whole car audio scene. I want, like others, nice, clean, sub bass without disturbing the entire neighborhood and I wanna keep all my trunk space. I am considering the wOOx or the Basslink.

As for the wOOx, can it be mounted inside the trunk of the Protege sedan between the 2 rear speakers (kinda the sub in the MSP). If so, has any sedan owner done this and how does it sound? The wOOx is self-powered, right, or do I need to install an amp as well?

As for the Basslink, one very important question: is it easy to remove if I need the trunk space?

DaleK

Holy thread resurrection Batman!

The wOOx is powered - no need for an external amp. My amp drives the door speakers in my P5. As far as mounting it on the rear deck, you could definitely do this, but I would question whether the wOOx would have enough output to be satisfying in the trunk like that. It would help, but if you are keen on putting something in the trunk, I would go with something bigger, like the basslink or a component sub in a box with an external amplifier mounted to the box.

How easy things are to remove will depend entirely on how you do the installation. If you decide what you want, then put some though into how to mount it when you have the pieces on hand, you probably can come up with something that will meet your needs perfectly. The basslink does come with mounting brackets, but I don't know if they are simple to undo or not. A big factor for easy removal will be how you wire up power and audio connections.

Dale.

edit- You should be able to mount the wOOx under the passenger seat in any 2002+ Protege (and possibly any 3rd gen, depending if the seats and the floor are the same shape) if the format appeals to you. The install done this way is not necessarily the BEST acoustically, but it sounds good, and uses up essentially no space.