Sub investigation begins

As I am still unconvinced that the plastic box under my seat actually has a speaker in it, I am pulling out the seat this weekend and checking myself. The good news is if it is there but not working, then it will be fixed, but if it is there and working, I found out today that the blue and green wire going into the sub box can be fed into high power input on a sub amp (or whatever i decide to use). This is a lot easier than having to pull out the head unit, or remove door cards to get to speaker wiring.

I'll take photos and report on weekend - just for anyone else that may be interested.

Always Interested Clip, photo's and info would be useful!

After this issue was rised a few weeks back, it got me thinking & I wasn't convinced I had a sub. Adjusting the sub level in the menu screen just doesn't make a lot of difference. I've had subs before (Audi's & LR D3) which would shake the whole cabin.
There is a black plastic box like thing under the drivers seat, that looks more like a air duct. Is this the sub?

(11-08-2015 08:50pm)doug Wrote:  After this issue was rised a few weeks back, it got me thinking & I wasn't convinced I had a sub. Adjusting the sub level in the menu screen just doesn't make a lot of difference. I've had subs before (Audi's & LR D3) which would shake the whole cabin.
There is a black plastic box like thing under the drivers seat, that looks more like a air duct. Is this the sub?

It looks like part of the air duct, but it's separate.

I can turn my volume up really loud with Sub volume up full and cannot even feel any vibration coming from the box let alone hearing anything. All my Sub control does is feed more bass into the lower door speakers. But the box is definitely there under the seat, so be interesting to see what I find.

Having said all that, it's not a real Sub like you would have installed aftermarket - it certainly wouldn't shake the whole cabin even if it was working.

If I turn the sub control to full and full sound (50), I nearly get blown out of the car when I play Blondie's Fade away and Radiate and can feel the vibrations through the seat, doors and floor. I have the standard system, but I need to turn the sub control down to almost off when I turn it back to the radio (radio national or news radio) LOL

The sub or no sub issue got the better of me today. with a spare hour this afternoon i had a proper investigation under the drivers seat.
what i said was a air duct, is indeed just that. But to the left if you lift up the carpet is a round speaker looking device (its not a speaker, just made to look like one). once the air duct was removed out of the way you can see that the whole of the floor area is a SUB .
After a lot of playing around with sound levels i can say that it does work, but not in the same way as a aftermarket or home cinema sub operates. i.e treble & bass set too min but the sub at max i would have expected a low rumbling sound, but what you get is next to nothing. As you turn up the bass setting the floor only whens comes alive. To prove that the vibration wasn't i transfer from the door speakers (which go mad at high volume), i turned the sub level down too min & the floor vibration stopped.

So my conclusion is yes the sub works, but it makes little difference at low or normal dB levels.
Its more like a mid range setting than a sub, as altering the sub levels also effect the bass in the door speakers.

Sub @max, bass @2 down from max, treble @3 down from max, volume @half & the whole car shakes


Picture showing the dancing feather test

Thanks Doug, did you see the blue and green wires? I'm thinking I may just add an underseat sub for the moment (while still not a real sub, I like the Pioneer TS WX120 - had one in previous car and it really filled in some of the missing bottom end). Should be easy to wire in under the passenger seat if those green and blue wires are accessible.

Unless it differs between years of the Evoque, according to the documentation from Meridian, the sub is under the passenger seat.
Have you checked there?

(15-08-2015 08:26pm)BCEvoque Wrote:  Unless it differs between years of the Evoque, according to the documentation from Meridian, the sub is under the passenger seat.
Have you checked there?

Passenger seat for left hand drive models, drivers seat for right hand drive models (i.e it's under the right hand seat)

Good news and bad news.
- Good news, my sub wasn't connected properly - the plug was only just sitting in the connector, not pushed all the way in. So as I thought, not working. However, I still pulled out the entire unit to check it out further:



As you can see, it has a dual voice coil. It's quite a nice design and could possibly benefit from leaving in-situ and running a separate power amp, but then I've no idea what it's specs are, and you'd have to locate the amp somewhere. So could be more of a pain than it's worth.

- Bad news, once I put it all back together, thinking I would be blown away (or at least mildly blown away), it made stuff all difference! I can only notice it when turning the volume up loud. One of the benefits of a sub is that it can run at higher volumes to main speakers to counteract the low frequency killing effect of road noise, as well as taking the load off your doors speakers. So while it is very nice of RR to add this, a pity it doesn't work as it should - a missed opportunity and added expense for relativity little gain.

- But there is more good news, removing the sub leaves a cavernous space for adding a big under-seat sub that will do the job much better (you can see the culprit plug on the left).



Given it is such a big space, it opens up a lot more choices. Also given that everything is there already other than a power lead, this will be a very easy job. Nice and neat, and I'm sure will make a big difference for relatively little cost and no visible difference.

I'm glad I got to the bottom of this! It only took 30 minutes to pull the whole lot out and put it back in, which was worth it, if only just to prove to myself that I didn't have a working sub.