[Johnb911]

Sherwood,

After 16 years in the high end audio industry (Both custom car and custom home integration) I have a hard time letting stuff like this go and having the consumer more confused than they already may be.

Our indutry does a disservice to the average guy every day with our marketing tactics.

By changing the speakers back and forth you will change the electrical phase of the speaker BUT:

The front and rear of every driver emits the exact same wave form but out of pase from each other. 180 degrees.

If the two wave forms meet they will cancel each other out.
ie. No bass from a sub that is hanging in mid air.

That is the first reason for an enclosure.

The second reason for an enclosure is to tune the enclosure for the best possible output of the driver.

This is done by using the thiel small paramters of the driver.
Math and typically an enclosure program.

khamul02 is dead on about the stage and image of the car using kicks.
In the height of Autosound contests of the late 80's and 90's people like Dave Navone, Richard Clark and Eric Holdaway etc. used both kick panel enclosures and Horns loaded drivers under the dash to create the most relistic soundstage possible.

And the we all think the average PCAR guy is a little nuts.
Don't get me started about the audio industry.