A Buyer's Guide to Choosing Boss 12-inch Car Subwoofers
Car subwoofers allow you to enjoy listening to your favorite music while you drive. The subwoofers work with the other components of your car audio system, such as speakers, compact disc changers, or MP3 players, for playing your preferred media. There are many enclosures, coil styles, and other options to consider when choosing Boss 12-inch car subwoofers.
What are the available types of vehicle subwoofers?The available types include:
- Enclosed and powered: These come with an enclosure made of wood, synthetic materials, or metal and have their own power supply.
- Non-enclosed and powered: This type does not have an enclosure but does have its own regulated or unregulated power supply.
- Non-enclosed and non-powered: This style consists of the speaker and coil and must be wired to a separate power supply.
The available voice coil types for these subwoofers include single and dual. The single coil units have a regulated power supply and independent wiring setup. The dual voice coils may have a regulated or unregulated power supply and can be wired independently, in series, or in parallel. The wiring method may change the ohms of impedance and the output watts.
What is the available watt output of these vehicle subwoofers?The available wattage output of the vehicle subwoofers ranges from 800 to 2,000 watts for the single voice coil units and 2,000 to 3,600 watts for the dual voice coil units. This is calculated for the single subwoofers. For the double subwoofers, the watt output ranges from 2,500 to 3,000 watts.
What is the impedance level in ohms of these sub-woofers?These subwoofers have an impedance level that ranges from 4 ohms to 8 ohms. The units with 4 ohms of impedance have a single voice coil within the enclosing system, and the units with 8 ohms of impedance have two voice coils inside the speaker enclosing system.
What are the types of enclosing styles for these sub-woofers?The enclosing system affects how the sound amplification and tones come out of the speaker, and the available options include:
- Sealed: A sealed enclosing system for the speaker uses a calculated volume of air as a spring for dampening the movement of the voice coil.
- Ported: This type of enclosing system uses a tuned port to modulate the lower frequencies of sound released by the sub-woofer.
- Aperiodic: This enclosing system style uses a membrane to modulate sound, allowing the box to be small in size.
- Isobaric: This enclosing system type uses two woofers to create the sound, and the enclosures can be constructed in a small size.
- Infinite baffle: The sub-woofer is mounted to the surface of the enclosing system, taking up minimal space in the car.