Mr.T Posted November 12, 2001 Share Posted November 12, 2001 What should I look for or listen for in a subwoofer? What would be consider good or no good?? And what brand would be a good balance between quality and price? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake2 Posted November 12, 2001 Share Posted November 12, 2001 Mr. T - Can you give us some more info, like what kind of speakers you are trying to work with, how big a room is it, what budget range are you looking at, etc?? Doug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted November 12, 2001 Share Posted November 12, 2001 Mr.T, First a good subwoofer should reproduce only the sub bass,clean and with good output. The high quality subs after its set up should not be heard,it must blend with the mains,the sub helps the system with the bottom end.In no case should the sub stand out or overpower the rest of the spectrum. Take for example a very simple yet very clever design the reflex loaded woofer in a cylindrical cabinet(HSU and SVS are known for this).The driver output energy is all transformed towards bass,the cylinder cabinet walls dont resonate like the box type subs(unless built like few are)and the footprint is very small. A good sub should be capable moving lots of air,subwoofing is about moving air,lots of it.Subs vary from 9" cubes to huge fridge like boxes with 18" drivers.The small subs must use very high excursion drivers(Sunfire Junior)the larger subs(JBL)employ very large drivers and dont need to have huge linear excursions to produce the same output as a smaller driver.Less excursion means less distortion. The best compromise is a 12" driver(Paradigm 2200,SVS Cylinder/Ultra,HSU 1220,Sunfire Signature,Velo SPL1200...),it can be installed in a compact cabinet and still deliver plenty of output,even in a large room. A real sub should... Extend the output down to below 25Hz with power(over 100dB in room at 25Hz) Good definition and slam(poor subs sometimes use band bass loading to give huge output with boomy and one notey bass) A great sub sould... Get down to 16Hz with power(over 100dB in room)very very few can claim this.As over 100dB at 16Hz is not an easy feat. Hope it helps TheEAR(s) Now theears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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