What Is The Best 12 Inch Subwoofer?
If you are looking for a great 12 inch subwoofer then there are a few things you might want to look out for. Among these things are price, power, and the tightness or accuracy of the sound. Of course there are other important features as well. In this article I will highlight a few subwoofers, comparing these elements.
First, lets take a look at the Polk Audio PSW505.
Price: As much as we might wish that price wasn’t an issue, the current economy has made this one of the most important factors for many people. The MSRP is $589.95. If you get it from Amazon, you can usually find it for under $300, which fluctuates due to sales or special promotions going on.
Power: The PSW505 is rated for 300 watts of continuous usage. This is quite good for a 12 inch sub. More importantly, it is powerful enough to fill a moderately large room with quite a bit of thump and bump to spare.
Sound Tightness: This sub produces sound in the frequency range from 23 – 160 Hz. The audio is very tight with minimal noise distortion.
Input Connections: The PSW505 has 3 types of input terminals, speaker level, line level, and LFE inputs. This allows for a great deal of flexibility in how you set the sub up.
Overall Impression: The Polk Audio PSW505 is a solid 12 in subwoofer. It is very affordable and the power and quality of the output is hard to match in this price range. In addition, it gets good reviews on many different websites, which is a very good indication of it’s quality.
The next subwoofer I will review is the Sony SA-W3000.
Price: This is another very inexpensive subwoofer, which is good given the current state of the economy. The MSRP is $199.99 and on Amazon I’ve seen it for under $100. Definitely worth a look for that price.
Power: The power of the sub is less than that of the PSW505 at 180 watts. While there are a large number of positive reviews a number of reviewers had problems getting enough volume out of the sub to satisfy them.
Sound Tightness: The range of this sub is 20-200Hz. While this may sound better than the Polk sub, the sound is often described as being not very tight.
Input Connections: There are only speaker and line level inputs on this sub.
Overall Impression: This is a budget sub. If you are looking for an inexpensive sub just so you can add a little more bass to your system, this sub might fit the bill. Overall, I would recommend the PSW505 over this one unless your are really budget conscious.
