How To Choose The Right Car Subwoofer The Bottom Line Read this review to find out how to choose the right subwoofer(s) for your car. Choosing a subwoofer can be a very difficult but interesting task. When you're choosing a car sub, you need to know what you really want. It depends what kind of music you listen to, and other factors. -Your Car Is Not A House-
*I have heard subwoofers in big rooms in houses. The subs for example were 8", and the rooms were large. The bass was terrible because it wasn't able to fill the room or anything. The vibrations and everything that the sub had to do was not there. The car is a completely different environment. Bazooka makes popular subs, and a lot of people buy their 8" amplified tubes, I have heard these tubes in Jeep Wranglers and in a lot of SUVs, they can make the cars shake and vibrate, and get people to stare.
Car subwoofers can also be as small as 6.5"... So as you can see, the bass reflects of more areas in a car, thus giving a drastically improved bass response because the smaller area. So you don't need to get a 10" or 12" necessarily to get your car to vibrate. -Tubes VS. Box Enclosures- *Tubes - The only brand that makes tubes is Bazooka. Many of the tubes have built-in amplifiers, they are easy to move, and they are quite inexpensive. They are popular because of their simplicity and price. These will create bass, but not the cleanest or lowest hitting bass out there. So if you're into music, then these aren't for you. If you want something to just pound, then these are quite good. However, you can do better with box enclosures.
*Box Enclosures - Box enclosures are when you buy either a ported or sealed enclosure, and put in however many drivers the box can hold. You can get one that holds either one, two, or three. Many people uses sealed enclosures because they are the smaller one of the two, but I use a ported in my car. Unlike tubes, with boxes, you can add whichever brand of woofers you want, and your own amplifier. However, this can be a more difficult task than just putting in a tube. But, you get much more versatility. Whether you're setting up a budget or audiophile sub hook-up, a majority of the people will use box enclosures. -The Different Materials-
*Different subwoofers are made out of different materials. Many of the more inexpensive and common subs are built out of paper cones. These will generally handle the job well, but there will be more distortion, but the price difference is quite large. Polypropylene is becoming quite of a popular polymer, it is higher quality than paper, and still quite inexpensive.
