Professional Series · Datasheet

Professional Series Ported 8" Enclosure Sundown Audio M-Series M8 · Single 8" Ported enclosure

Net volume
1.28 Cubic Feet
Tuning
33.0 Hz
Max mounting depth
6.330 Inches (Sundown Audio Spec)
Cutout
7.320 Inches (Sundown Audio Spec)
External dimensions
30.00 Inches W × 14.00 Inches H × 12.50 Inches D
Front baffle
Three 3/4" MDF layers, 2.25" total | Woofer Flush-Mounted In The Outer Layer
Buy at Audio IntensityFactory-direct, ships from Tullahoma
  • Alignment: 1.28 cu ft net vented at 33.0 Hz. F3 28.2 Hz anechoic, 5.20 dB passband ripple
  • Driver: Sundown Audio M-Series M8 D2, 800 W RMS, 18.0 mm Xmax, 43.95 Hz Fs
  • Build: Front-firing standard box, 2.25" three-layer baffle with the woofer flush-mounted in the outer layer, Sundown Audio logo acrylic, dado joinery, 21.9 sq in front slot port beside the woofer with one bend along the back wall, port and excursion gated at 800 W
  • Cabinet: 30.00" W x 14.00" H x 12.50" D, 50 lb, threaded insert kit included

Spec of record

Technical specifications

SeriesProline X Professional
Driver-Specific FitmentSundown Audio M-Series M8 D2 (D2)
Enclosure TypePorted | Front-Firing Standard Box
External Width30.00 Inches
External Height14.00 Inches
External Depth12.50 Inches
Internal Volume (Gross)1.96 Cubic Feet
Internal Volume (Net After Displacement)1.28 Cubic Feet
Port TypeVertical Slot Beside The Woofer | Front Exit | One 90 Degree Bend Along The Back Wall
Port Geometry1.75 x 12.50 Inches, 21.9 Square Inches, 34.02 Inches Of Path
Port Area21.9 Square Inches
Port Tuning (Fb)33.0 Hz
Port Mouth1/2 In Roundover On All Four Edges, 37.1 Square Inches At The Face
Port Air Velocity21.4 m/s In The Channel, 12.6 m/s At The Mouth, At 800 W (17.0 m/s Chuff Threshold)
Design Power Basis800 W RMS (1.2 x The Driver Rating) For Port Velocity And Excursion
Predicted F328.2 Hz (Anechoic)
Passband Ripple5.20 dB (Anechoic)
Subsonic Filter26 Hz High-Pass, 24 dB/Octave - REQUIRED On A Vented Enclosure
Driver Fs43.95 Hz
Driver Qts0.418
Driver Qes / Qms0.473 / 3.589
Driver Vas3.620 Liters / 0.128 Cubic Feet
Driver Sd219.2 Square Centimeters
Driver Mms247.12 g
Driver BL23.41
Driver Re3.8 Ohm
Driver Xmax18mm (One-Way)
Driver Displacement0.09 Cubic Feet (Published by Sundown Audio)
Driver Sensitivity80.0 dB
Driver Power Handling800 Watts RMS
Driver Overall Diameter8.720 Inches (Sundown Audio Spec)
Mounting Depth Required6.330 Inches (Sundown Audio Spec)
Cutout Diameter7.320 Inches (Sundown Audio Spec)
Flush Mount Recess9.625 Inches In The Outer Layer
MaterialLangboard Elite 3/4" MDF
ConstructionShopSabre CNC / Two Windowed Braces Front To Back Either Side Of The Woofer
JoineryDado Joinery (CNC-Cut), Flat Panels
Front Baffle ConstructionThree 3/4" MDF layers, 2.25" total | Woofer Flush-Mounted In The Outer Layer
Baffle Layers3
AcrylicGlossy Black Sundown Audio Logo Insert, Outer Layer, Standard
Mounting HardwareThreaded Insert Kit Included: 8-12 Inserts, Drill Bit, 2.5 In Allen-Head Screws, Allen Key, Gasket Tape
Voice Coil ConfigurationD2
Terminal CupProline X ABS/Carbon Fiber Composite | Back Panel, Terminal-Cup Side | 12g OFC Pre-Wired
DampingNone - Ships Dry. Polyfill Detunes A Ported Enclosure
Recommended Power560-800 Watts RMS (Sundown Audio Rated: 800W RMS)
Carpet FinishPlush Black
Weight50 lb
ShippingUPS Ground Parcel, Included In The 48 States
Bundle OptionsEnclosure Only (Bring Your Own Sundown Audio M-Series M8)
Warranty2-Year Limited (Enclosure)
ManufacturedTullahoma, Tennessee, USA

Modelled response

Performance in this enclosure

Net airspace
1.28
cu ft
Tuning
33.0
Hz · Fb
Half power
28.2
Hz · F3, anechoic
Xmax at
3337
W RMS · 26 Hz subsonic
With NO filter
1360
W RMS · unfiltered
Port
12.6
m/s at the mouth · 800 W

01Is this driver right for a ported box?

Efficiency bandwidth product places the motor before anything else is decided.

EBP = Fs ÷ Qes = 92.9
SEALED 0–50 TRANSITION 50–100 PORTED 100–150 0 50 100 150 EBP 92.9
Sundown Audio M-Series M8 D2 · EBP 92.9
Between 50 and 100 a driver takes either load, and the choice becomes one of priorities rather than of physics. The Sundown Audio M-Series M8 D2 reads 92.9. Ported buys output and low-end reach around tuning; sealed buys a shallower rolloff below it. This cabinet takes the first trade.

02What the box does to it

1.28 cu ft net against a 3.6 L Vas, vented at 33.0 Hz.

Fb = 33.0 Hz  ·  F3 = 28.2 Hz  ·  passband ripple 5.20 dB
20 30 50 70 100 150 200 +16 +12 +8 +4 0 −4 −8 −12 −16 −20 −24 −28 FREQUENCY · Hz LEVEL · dB −3 dB Fb 33.0
Sundown Audio M-Series M8 D2 · Fb 33.0 Hz, F3 28.2 Hz
Anechoic, before any cabin gain, with the 26 Hz subsonic filter already applied. The vent takes over below 33 Hz and the cone stops doing the work there, which is what holds travel down at the bottom of the passband.

03Perceived Ported vs Sealed

This cabinet, 1.28 cu ft net vented at 33.0 Hz, against Sundown Audio's recommended range (low end) sealed box, 0.25 cu ft.

Ported Fb 33.0 Hz  ·  the 0.25 cu ft sealed box runs Qtc 0.51, Fc 54 Hz
20 30 50 70 100 150 200 +16 +12 +8 +4 0 −4 −8 −12 −16 −20 −24 −28 FREQUENCY · Hz LEVEL · dB +14.5 dB at 33 Hz
Ported · this cabinet, 1.28 cu ft, Fb 33.0 HzSundown Audio's recommended sealed, 0.25 cu ft net, Qtc 0.51
Shaded blue is where the ported alignment is louder for the same power, orange where the sealed one is. The sealed curve is Sundown Audio's recommended range (low end) sealed box, 0.25 cu ft, not this cabinet with the port blocked: two different boxes, because that is the choice a buyer actually has. Across 25 to 60 Hz the vent is worth 14.5 dB at its widest and 7.8 dB on average. This is the anechoic picture, which is not what you hear in a car.

04Real World Ported vs Sealed

The same two boxes with cabin gain applied, 45 Hz corner, 18 dB ceiling.

Flatness across 25–60 Hz: ported 11.3 dB spread, the 0.25 cu ft sealed box 2.7 dB
20 30 50 70 100 150 200 +16 +12 +8 +4 0 −4 −8 −12 −16 −20 −24 −28 FREQUENCY · Hz LEVEL · dB +14.5 dB at 33 Hz
Ported, in-car · 11.3 dB spreadSundown Audio's recommended sealed, 0.25 cu ft net, in-car · 2.7 dB spread
Cabin gain lifts both boxes by the same amount, so the gap between them does not change: what changes is the shape each one ends up with. A car pressurises below roughly 45 Hz, which fills in the sealed box's shallower rolloff and over-drives it where the ported box is already flat. Across 25 to 60 Hz, the band kick and bass fundamentals occupy, this alignment holds 11.3 dB of spread against 2.7 dB for Sundown Audio's recommended range (low end) sealed box, 0.25 cu ft. The sealed curve is flatter on paper; the ported one trades that for output. Note where the curves cross. Below about 22 Hz the sealed alignment becomes the louder of the two and stays louder all the way down, by up to 2.9 dB: a sealed box rolls off gently into the subsonic region where a vented one falls away steeply once it is below tuning and the vent stops contributing. If the content you are chasing lives below 22 Hz, a sealed alignment reaches further down than this one does. Cabin gain here is a house assumption, not a measurement of your vehicle.

05The watts that reach Xmax (in this enclosure)

Travel scales with the square root of power, so there is one wattage that puts the cone exactly on Sundown's published 18.0 mm. The two traces are the same cabinet with the subsonic filter switched on and switched off.

PXmax = 3337 W with a 26 Hz subsonic  ·  1360 W with none  →  the filter is worth 2.5×
20 30 50 70 100 150 200 0 4 8 12 16 20 FREQUENCY · Hz CONE TRAVEL · mm PAST LINEAR TRAVEL · Xmax 18.0 mm 3337 W reaches Xmax here
3337 W · subsonic at 26 Hz, 24 dB/oct1360 W · no subsonic filterXmax 18.0 mm one-way, published
Each trace touches the limit and no further, because each is drawn at the exact power that puts the cone on 18.0 mm. With a 26 Hz subsonic that takes 3337 W, reached first at 28 Hz. Take the filter away and the same cabinet reaches 18.0 mm on 1360 W — the filter is worth 2.5× the safe power. A vent unloads the cone below tuning, so there is nothing holding it once the box stops loading: on a sealed build a subsonic filter is an improvement, here it is required equipment. The unfiltered trace is still rising where this chart stops at 20 Hz, so treat 1360 W as a bound rather than a floor. Every wattage on this page is a MECHANICAL limit, not an electrical one. It is the power at which the cone runs out of linear travel in this cabinet, and nothing more. What the voice coil can dissipate as heat is a separate ceiling set by the driver, not by the box — Sundown rate this one at 800 W RMS, and that is the number that binds first here: heat stops you before travel does, so treat 800 W as the ceiling and the travel figures above as headroom. Final wired impedance, amplifier output and how long you hold the level are all electrical questions this graph does not answer.

From the shop floor

Installer's take

I built this box on Sundown's own published numbers for the M8, and the D2 and D4 versions of this driver share the same basket, so one cabinet and one listing covers both.

The port here is modeled clean past the coil's own 800 watt rating, out to 1456 watts, before mouth velocity becomes the limiting factor rather than the coil.

Wire the D2 coil in series for 4 ohms or parallel for 1 ohm; wire the D4 coil in series for 8 ohms or parallel for 2 ohms. A parallel load under 1 ohm needs an amplifier rated for it.

Sundown Audio publishes no mounting hole locations for the M-Series M8, so the inserts are not in the baffle when the box arrives. The insert kit is in the box: set the inserts where the woofer's own holes fall, with the drill bit and the 2.5 inch allen-head screws in the kit, and lay the gasket tape before the woofer goes down.

The Performance Optimized wedge is the smaller and cheaper box, and I try it first for every driver. I could not make its port keep up with the M-Series M8: the calmest port that fits that envelope goes noisy at about 604 watts, under what this coil is rated to take, so I did not sell you that box.

It ships dry. Do not add polyfill to a ported box. Set your subsonic filter at 28 Hz.

Before you order

Questions

Why is this enclosure tuned to 33.0 Hz?

Sundown publishes a Qts of 0.418 for the M8 D2, and the figure checks out: computing it from their own Qes of 0.473 and Qms of 3.589 lands within a rounding error of the published number. The gate here is measured at the coil's rated power, 800 W, and the port stays clean past that rating, modeled to 1456 W before mouth velocity becomes the limiting factor rather than the coil. Ripple across the passband holds at 5.2 dB, the tradeoff of fitting a full alignment into an eight-inch box this size. Tuning is chosen for in-car response rather than an anechoic curve: a vehicle adds roughly 12 dB per octave below about 45 Hz, and this tuning is where that sum comes out flattest across 25 to 60 Hz.

Why is this a Professional build and not a Performance Optimized box?

Every driver is run through the Performance Optimized wedge and down-fire before this chassis; the Professional box is where a driver lands when that smaller envelope, 30 inches wide and 18 inches deep with a triangular side port, cannot give it what it needs at its rated power. The M-Series M8 did not clear the port gate there. The calmest wedge port that fits that envelope is 13.0 square inches at 30.0 by 10.50 by 14.78 inches, and its mouth runs 19.6 metres per second at 800 W against the 17 metres per second line where a port starts to chuff. That port would stay clean to about 604 W. The slot on this box reaches 21.9 square inches and holds the mouth at 12.6 metres per second at 800 W. An under-ported box does not fail quietly. Air speed at the mouth rises with power; past the chuff line the flow turns turbulent and the port is audible on every note. The turbulence also chokes the port, so the box behaves as if it were tuned higher than it is, loses output near tuning, and lets the cone travel further below tuning than the design allows. This chassis is a full-size front-firing box on a 2.25 inch baffle built from three 3/4 inch layers with the woofer flush-mounted in the outer layer, a Sundown Audio logo acrylic, and a port and excursion budget checked at 800 W. It carries a 2 year warranty against 1.

Threaded inserts or a kit?

Sundown Audio does not publish the mounting hole locations for the M-Series M8, so we cannot install the threaded inserts before it ships. The threaded insert kit comes in the box instead: 8 to 12 inserts sized to the woofer, the correct drill bit, 2.5 inch allen-head screws, an allen key and woofer gasket tape. You set the inserts when you mount the woofer; one kit serves one woofer. A dual cabinet ships two kits.

Do I need a subsonic filter?

Yes, at 26 Hz, 24 dB per octave. Below tuning a vented box stops loading the cone and excursion runs away toward DC. With the filter in place this cabinet puts the Sundown Audio M-Series M8 at 49 percent of its usable travel at 800 W.

Would a sealed box be better for me?

Below about 22 Hz, yes. The maker's recommended sealed box is louder down there by up to 2.9 dB, because a sealed box rolls off gently into the subsonic region where a vented one falls away steeply once it is under tuning. Above that this alignment is the louder of the two for the same power. The Performance Graphs tab plots this cabinet, 1.28 cubic feet vented at 33.0 Hz, against Sundown Audio's recommended range (low end) sealed box, 0.25 cu ft, so you can see exactly where they cross.

How does the front port work?

It is a vertical slot beside the woofer, the full height of the cavity, 1.75 inches wide and 21.9 square inches. It runs 7.00 inches to the back wall and turns once along it for 21.52 inches; the fold costs about 1.5 Hz and the port is cut for it. The channel runs at 21.4 metres per second at 800 W, 54 percent of its turbulence limit, and the mouth edges carry a 1/2 inch roundover so the air leaves the face at 12.6 metres per second against the 17 metres per second threshold where a slot starts to chuff.

What does the price cover, and how does it ship?

50 lb, 30.00" W x 14.00" H x 12.50" D external. It ships as a UPS parcel; the price includes shipping in the 48 states. Every Professional cabinet is priced the same way, by its size: this one is 3.04 cubic feet outside. Delivery to the 48 states is inside the price; it ships as a 50 lb parcel and checkout adds nothing. Do not add polyfill; it ships dry on purpose.

Is the M-Series M8 included?

No. This is an enclosure only, cut for the Sundown Audio M-Series M8 specifically: the 7.320 inch cutout, the 6.330 inch mounting depth allowance and the 1.28 cubic foot alignment all come from Sundown Audio's published parameters. It fits both coil versions; the alignment published here is the D2. Bring your own driver.

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