I have seen some subwoofer cabinets designed to face the woofer down though. It's an interesting design, and makes the woofer cone "invisible." But the disadvantage is that the cone weight will tend to shift it downwards, which will only get worse over time.
Speaking of subwoofer facing up or down, I've seen a few subwoofer setups in a vehicle where the subwoofer was facing up. As you mentioned that this type of setup will get worse over time, but are there subwoofers that are made to face upwards?
Wayne Parham Messages: 18787 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
The only way a speaker can be made to tolerate facing upwards or downwards is to make it have a suspension that takes much more force to overcome than the force due to gravity on the cone.
The trouble is, that is exactly the opposite of what a subwoofer generally is. Subwoofers usually have heavy cones and soft suspensions. Those qualities give low resonant frequencies and generally lend themselves to low-frequency characteristics.
However, another thing that lends itself to low-frequency characteristics is having a large cabinet. Conveniently, a car trunk is a pretty large cabinet, especially for a relatively small woofer. So a woofer can be used that has a more rigid suspension and still hit the low notes.
Car speakers have other hazards that they must endure - not the least of which is sunlight. The sun will bleach the cones and disintegrate rubber surrounds. They are exposed to temperature extremes, often from well below freezing to over 150° Fahrenheit, sitting parked in the sun. Humidity ranges from 0 to 100%. So they're frozen, cooked, dried and soaked.
That is a nasty way of damaging the subwoofer. Those car subwoofers must have very good resistance with temperature and humidity rapid changes. Even then, I would also think that it is still susceptible to damage no matter how good the subwoofer is. It's just a matter of time before it gets damaged.
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