Subwoofer Info: Learn About Car Audio Subwoofers

Subwoofers. The bass. The loudness. The glory. The most obnoxious component in your system, and also, one of the most necessary.

If you've read my article about speakers, you're up to speed. If you haven't (and don't know anything about speakers or subwoofers), read it here.

Subwoofers reproduce the lowest frequencies of the autotune setting audio spectrum, AKA bass. They are essential to both SQ and SPL systems, but for different reasons. Let's take a look now...

For SQ systems: Effectively reproduce the lowest frequencies making the music sound full and powerful. Instruments that play lower frequencies such as organs, drums and synthesizers will sound more realistic and powerful with a subwoofer installed.

For SPL systems: Because subwoofers are loud, they are the preferred speaker to make a whole lotta noise.

Also, because our ears are less sensitive to lower frequencies we need the extra bass for the system to sound balanced.

So, what do I have to look for to find a great woofer? I'll tell you!

Power Handling:

Just like with every other part in a stereo system, power handling is important for subwoofers as well. Earlier, in my article about speakers, I talked about how you can send more power to them to increase their volume, but decrease the distortion. The same is true of subwoofers, but be careful! Since lower frequency distortion is harder to perceive, it's easy to overdo it, and blow your subwoofers. Anyway, with that said, it is smart to buy an amp that can put out exactly what your subwoofers are designed to take, but take it easy!

Size:

Subwoofers come in many sizes, but the most common are 8", 10", 12", and 15". This is probably also noted in metric for the european brands. As you can imagine, the bigger woofers are the ones that will play louder and play lower. Of course, the smaller ones are more musical, more precise, and sound "tighter". What size you decide on usually has to do with your own preferences, as well as installation considerations. Remember! 18" subwoofers don't just fit anywhere!

Voice coil info:

SVC: Single voice coil

This means that the speaker has only one voice coil. In other words, only one input.

DVC: Dual voice coil

This means that the speaker has two voice coils, or two inputs.

Ummmmmmm, ok. Why does it matter?

I could go into details here, but I know you don't really care. Basically, it boils down to this: With a DVC subwoofer, there are more installation options. Look at it this way, a DVC "looks" like two subwoofers to your amplifier. With some nifty wiring tricks (called series and parallel), you can hook up many subwoofers to a single amp--even if the amp is a "mono" or a two channel amp. In addition, you can manipulate how many ohms the amp has to push. If you have an amp that is stable to a half ohm (like some old school Orion HCCA amps), you could potentially hook up 4-8 woofers to a single channel! Imagine the noise you could make!

Some words about boxes:

Boxes are essential to most subwoofers. In other words, consider a subwoofer's box just as important as the subwoofer itself. Why? Because most subwoofers need a box to operate properly, sound good, and not damage themselves. Subwoofers that don't need a box are called "free air" or "infinite baffle" subwoofers.

Like I said, most subwoofers need a box. So, let's talk about boxes!

First, what types of boxes are there?

Sealed: The simplest kind. Essentially, a sealed box is a box where the inside and outside are not linked. There are no holes, and care is taken to ensure that the box is completely sealed.

Ported: A ported box is a subwoofer box with at least one hole, or "port" in it. The goal of the ported box is to emphasize a certain frequency. These boxes are used because they are often louder than sealed boxes.

Bandpass: A bandpass box is similar to a ported box because it has ports; however, the bandpass box tries to de-emphasize certain frequencies, while emphasizing others. In other words, it works like a bandpass crossover. The bandpass box emphasizes a frequency band while de-emphasizing frequencies lower than and higher than the band.

Isobarik: These boxes aim to fit more than one subwoofer into a small box. The subwoofers are set up to work in tandem. Sometimes both subs move in the same direction at the same time, sometimes one sub pulls while the other pushes. There are advantages to this type of setup, but box design is difficult.