Subwoofers
Setting up a home or car audio system isn’t easy. It’s far from hard. Hard would be filing your entire neighborhood’s taxes, shaving a wet cat, or perhaps scaling a mountain on one foot. Those things sound hard and likely are. But while putting together a dream, audio experience can be fun, making sure all the components are in place, the wiring set, etc., can be a pain. Many times, folks will enlist the aid of trusted professional, but that can really drive the price up.
It is natural to begin with the speakers. We’re not saying that’s a bad place to begin. Speakers are integral to any home or car set-up, but a close second is the subwoofer. The subwoofer is responsible for the bass, that enjoyable low-frequency bump that both bumps and vibrates and rounds out any movie, song, etc. A two-channel or even surround sound setup can get close to producing low-frequency sounds, but nothing close to a subwoofer. If you’re watching a movie, and experience an explosion, the difference in the sound of said explosion through a subwoofer or a two-channel system is night and day. The same can be said with sounds from instruments like the pipe organ, bass guitar, or kick drum. Listening to Bootsy Collins’ bass in your car with a solid subwoofer is a religious experience. Anything less would be uncivilized!
A subwoofer essentially allows you to feel the sound. But more than that, it lets your audio system do what it does best, without having to process the bass and attempt to churn it out through high-frequency outputs. As a rule, you don’t want your speaker to process every frequency. The subwoofer is the “heavy lifter” of the bunch, responsible for low frequencies, and this will improve the performance of the overall system.
In your home, you can place a subwoofer literally anywhere. However, if the acoustics of the room is poor, don’t expect the subwoofer to magically make things right. One of the best subwoofers on the market for home audio is the Q Acoustics Q B12. Priced just under $1,000, the bass is clean and powerful, and while it won’t overwhelm you with any belly punching bass, for most this is an excellent addition and more than enough bump for any home audio system. If you’re on a tight budget, check out the Monoprice 9723. Priced significantly cheaper, this subwoofer is not going to blow you away from a design perspective. It looks rather simple, but the amount of power this small subwoofer generates is truly otherworldly (at this price). The sound quality is quite clean, and the continuous, uninterrupted thump is evident without any sloppy reverberation.
On the auto side, the subwoofer market is vast. This is where folks tend to gravitate when jumping into subwoofer conversations, and it all begins and ends with Alpine. Alpine has been at the forefront of the subwoofer game for some time, and their SWR-12D2 Type-Rz is consistently rated as one of the best car subwoofers available. If you’re a bass fanatic, you’ve arrived. Peak power yields upwards of 3,000 watts and the inner cone is made of a Kevlar treated pulp for extra durability and stiffness. Another solid pick is the MTX TNE212DV. Otherwise known as the Terminator subwoofers, what do you expect with a nickname like that? This subwoofer does not thump at peak power like the previously mentioned Alpine (2,000 watts), but it does have a mechanical cooling processor, so you won’t ever have to worry about overheating with this unit.
Some people mistakenly think that you only need to be into rap music or movies with heavy bass to enjoy a subwoofer. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is bass in everything, and a good subwoofer helps in smoothing out the highs and lows, thus providing for an optimal listening experience.
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