Product Spotlight: The Very Fitting Loaded Enclosures
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With the evolution of the REDLINE Series, an opportunity was revealed. One that would better allow DD Audio’s popular loaded enclosures to get the most output from the upgraded REDLINE drivers by adjusting the previous designs for optimal size and tuning. The result is a series of loaded enclosures that play louder and lower without requiring any additional amplifier power. With an overall internal volume increase of nearly 20%, the LE-500 Series is able to utilize bigger ports with lower resonance frequency.
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This new series of loaded enclosures offer several noteworthy features. Among them you’ll find the switch from an aero-ported design to a fully integrated slot-port, allowing for precision tuning and enhanced box durability, an upgraded grill that improves protection, and a dual impedance speaker terminal that offers 1Ω or 4Ω speaker loads. However, the biggest difference between the LE-500 Series and previous DD loaded enclosures can be found in the dimensions. DD Audio’s R&D team spent their summer climbing into the trunk spaces of sedans, hatchbacks, and SUVs to get a huge variety of measurements.
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While there may never be a silver bullet, one size fits all pre-fab loaded enclosure for the masses, a new standard was carefully determined from these measurements and it takes into account seat inclines, 60/40 split fold-down seating, and cargo cover heights. From this a design took form that ensures not a single inch of wasted space. The classic rectangle design, while perfectly suited to producing great bass, isn’t perfectly suited to most modern trunks. It’s hard 90 degree angles means it can only go so far back into a trunk before the top edge comes into contact with inclined seating. When it does, the bottom edge will still be several inches from making contact with the seat, leaving a considerable amount of usable, but wasted space. The new LE-500’s trapezoidal design takes advantage of this opportunity.
Additionally, by increasing the height just a few inches, the overall width has shrunk, meaning in most cars and SUVs you can have the enclosure behind just one side of your fold-down seating, freeing up the other half.
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