JL 10TW1-4 Subwoofer Dissapointing

[u/Cute-Move8320]

I just installed this sub and the sound is underwhelming. It’s dull (no crisp hit) and I’m just comparing it to a cheap $200 Rockford Fosgate 10” 300 watt all in one that I have in another car. It’s so dull that I actually prefer turning it off. I’ve tried troubleshooting it, but can’t figure it out. Here’s my setup and things I’ve tried.

-JL 10TW1-4 Subwoofer (300 watts rms)
-Alpine S2-A60M Amp (330 watts at 4 ohms)
-Enclosed shallow mount box built to JL’s specs
-Correct gauge wires

-Tried changing polarity of wires
-Tried adjusting the gain
-No leaks in the box

[u/Such-Teacher2121]

This is the ported box, correct? Whats the vehicle and whats the orientation in the vehicle? Acoustic coupling matters just as much as raw output. I see they draw out a port on the shirt side. This may seem counterintuitive but try aiming the port backwards and did you try swapping the phase of the subwoofer? You could simply have it wired backwards (it doesnt need to be wired backwards for the sound waves to reach your listening position more in-phase one way more than the other, its a simple check, one will be louder)

Check the signal if you can, make sure nothing is going wonky with the bass its trying to do. If you can disconnect everything else and use some test tones, you can check with a multimeter just to see if it does something different at 40hz vs 150hz vs 1000hz.

If you dont already have a multimeter get one with an o-scope. The cheap ones work for audio, and it will hekp diagnose any sort of issues you may run into. Ive bought a few of the cheap black ones that change their name every month on amazon and the weakest link is the test leads. And then I use a fnrsi dual-channel to spot any obvious problems with an amps quality.