A car subwoofer is an great addition to any car audio system. It will allow you to gain more bass, allowing the car door speakers to play distortion free music. Most of the time, it's not about how expensive your car subwoofer or amplifier is, but how its setup. I have seen many budget cheap car subwoofers such as the red sony xplod out perform bigger expensive subwoofers like the JL audio W7. Over the years, I have worked for several car audio shops and used to fit car audio systems on a regular basis. I have leaned what makes an car subwoofer louder and hit harder. I am going to go through this with you in detail.
Are you giving your car subwoofers the full RMS power they need? RMS is continues power rating, this is the real figure that you need to go buy when purchasing car audio equipment. Real or max power rating in big writing on subwoofer dust caps or printed on the metal heatsink found on an car amplifier is there on purpose just so you buy it. Ask any car audio guy, the RMS is what is important. You need to ensure that you use an amplifier that matches the RMS of the voice coil of the subwoofer. If you're under powering your car speaker, then it will not produce the full potential of bass. Also, you need to make sure if its an single voice coil subwoofer or an dual voice coil. Dual voice coil can be wired into different ohms configurations, which allows you change the ohms of the final load on the amplifier. Match the lowest ohms your car amplifier can produce power to the voice coil wiring your subwoofer supports. Your car amplifier will make more power at a 2 ohm load than an 4 ohm load. If your car amplifier is a stereo 2 channel, you can bridge it to make one mono channel to make it more powerful. You can find more information about this by reading the specifications section found on the back of the user manual for the car amp.
The box is more important than how expensive your car subwoofer is. The box needs to be made specific to the subwoofer specifications required for your subwoofer to operate. You simply can't get an random subwoofer and place it in a random box. This is hit and miss, it will either sound poor or ok. My best recommendation is to spend the money and get a custom subwoofer enclosure made. The tuning frequency can be made to your liking. If you listen to alot of deep bass music with lows in, 31 Hz is a good tuning. If you want hard hitting bass that you can feel on your chest, then 35 Hz port tuning is the way to go. This will give you the best of both high and low bass frequencies, allowing you to play an wide range of different bass songs. A sealed box is going to give you less loudness, however an ported tuned box right will increase bass response. Sealed boxes provide a flat frequency response, they are less louder, but the quality of bass is more superior. Ported is the way to go if you want hard hitting and low bass produce your car speaker.
Electrical is also important. Do you have an upgraded battery? If you are using a stock battery, then the voltage will not be strong enough for the car amplifier to produce full power. Car amplifiers make full power at 14.4 volts, if your voltage is dipping, the RMS power output will decrease. The stock car battery is not made for additional load and is designed in theory to power just the cars electrics and crank the engine in the morning. An deep cycle battery or leisure style battery used for camping is what you should replace the stock battery with. Yellow top optima is an good brand for car audio batteries in UK and if you're in the US, XS power is the brand you should go for. Upgrading the alternator is also an good idea, to increase the amps of the charging system to provide additional power to your car amplifier. You can also consider doing the BIG 3, replacing the stock thin wires in the engine bay to bigger 0 gauge wires. This will improve the current flow in your charging system. There are many videos on YouTube explaining what the BIG 3 is in more detail and what wires you need to upgrade.
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