How to Choose a Subwoofer for Your Car – A Comprehensive Guide

Subwoofers are the main component to lighten your mood while driving and erase the chance of getting bored while listening to the music only. Everyone knows, premium speakers, amplifiers and aftermarket head units always enhance the sound quality in your car, but without a perfect boom, it’s very tough to get satisfied. So here our mission is to go through the things and knowledge on how to choose a subwoofer for your car.

Selecting the right subwoofer depends on what you want, how exquisitely the tuning has done. Also there are different types of subwoofers for cars. So discussing all these under one article will never make you feel lost.

What Are the Types of Subwoofers?

Car subwoofers have different types. To find out the best subwoofer for your car, first you must know what SVC and DVC are.

SVC: It indicates a single voice coil subwoofer and the coil stays wrapped up around the speaker’s voice coil. This is the most common type of subwoofer and various sizes are available. Most importantly it doesn’t come with a specific RMS Watt. Various power ranges are available. So you can match with your amplifier’s output power.

DVC: now the dual voice coil subwoofer offers two separate coils wrapped up around the speaker’s voice coil. Definitely it’s the modern subwoofer and comes with different impedance compatibility.

Choosing the Right Size of Subwoofer

The most popular sizes are 10” and 12”. Yet you can have a much smaller and larger subwoofer for your car. Whatever the size you prefer according to your car’s available space, always keep reminding yourself, would you keep the subwoofer in a sealed box or ported? That’s called the enclosure type. Desiring to have a deep bass from a car subwoofer, may end up having a subwoofer with enclosure. Keep in mind, enclosure efficiently makes the bass deeper. So always choose the size of the enclosed subwoofer, even if you buy a subwoofer without an enclosure and it’s the first step to understand how to choose a subwoofer for your car.

Technical Specification for Car Subwoofer

If you already have your aftermarket speaker, head unit and amplifier, then understanding the specification of the subwoofer may never look as bad as when we first tried to understand the technical part of the subwoofer.

Choosing a subwoofer for your car audio depends on different technical factors, Let’s dive into them .

RMS Power

The RMS power rating is not the power we see written under a subwoofer like 1200 watts. 1200 watts power means the subwoofer can handle a maximum 1200 watt. But the average power, most of the time it handles around a decent margin. Let’s say the RMS watt is 600 watts. It means on average 600 watts is being used while listening.

So why is RMS power important? Because if the amplifier can’t handle the RMS power of a subwoofer, both amp and subwoofer will get damaged. So at least ensure your amplifier has more RMS power than your subwoofer instead of just choosing the right subwoofer for your car just by the brand value.

Frequency Range

Subwoofer produces beats and boom, so it’s even a sound frequency. Mainly low to medium low frequencies produce the beats and boom. The lower the frequency level goes, the more exquisitely you will be able to listen to the beats and boom. Any less than 50 Hz is a very decent range.

Impedance

Impedance means how much electricity you allow to flow through the subwoofer system. It is extremely important to maintain the impedance value with amp. Like if an amp allows only 4 ohm impedance and you connect a subwoofer of 2 ohm, then both your subwoofer and amp have more chance to get wasted. This is why understanding the effect of impedance is crucial when learning how to choose a subwoofer for your car.

FAQ

1. How many watts is good for a car subwoofer?

– you must look at the rms wattage of a subwoofer, if your amp allows to have 400 rms watts subwoofer, it’s no risk to have a 350 or even 400 watts subwoofer. But if the volume is always high and you keep listening to most beat and boom music, then your arms’ watts may exceed the specific range. In that case, your amp must have the capacity to handle more wattage.

2. What is the best size of subwoofer for a Car?

– 10”, 12” and 15 “subwoofers are the most ideal for a car. But you must measure the size where you will put the subwoofer, like in the trunk behind the back seat. So if you use any type of enclosure, it may exceed the size and get twice bigger. So choose the right size considering the enclosure type.

Final Words

Well some of you may think, why do you need a subwoofer for listening to beats and boom. Because you only like listening to music. Let me tell you, the music you listen to in your car, even after using the best speakers, amp and amplifier, you are not having the best quality music. Here are the benefits of using a subwoofer in a car, it expands the bass response level in sound and helps the speakers produce much clear music that speakers can’t produce alone.

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