How To Stop Subwoofer From Bottoming Out

subwoofer bottoming out

If your car subwoofers are experiencing bottoming out problems, overtime this will cause mechanical failure to the internal parts of the speaker. This includes sensitive movement parts such as the voice coil and spider can get damaged in the long term. A subwoofer bottoms outs because of too much cone excursion way past the mechanical limits. There are many ways to stop your subwoofer from bottoming out. You need to try them each individually to see which solution works the best for your setup.

1) Subsonic Filter. This is used to stop really low frequencies around 25 HZ and below going to the subwoofer. This is a feature on most amps that is activated by pressing a switch. There is more excursion at low frequencies which can cause most subs to bottom out if your tuning on your ported box is way too high in the 40 HZ region.

2) Box too big. If your box is too large, for example the manufacturer recommends 2.5 cubes and your sub is placed in a 5 cube box its not going to work. The subwoofer will think its placed in a free air location since the box too large and not providing any spring back action. If you wanna keep the same box and want to stop the subwoofer from bottoming out, reduce the volume size by cutting it in half. Remember to use a free sub box calculator online using Google to get the specs close to what the manufacturer says in the user manual, taking port tuning into consideration if its a vented design.

3) Back down the gain. If you are overpowering your speaker more than 50%, you will need to turn down the gain a little. Too much power going to the voice coil inside the speaker, more than what it is rated for will drive it past its capability. Always remember to try match the power ratings of speakers and amplifiers taking rms into consideration.
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