Did some testing with REW to capture the Alpine 10’ ported vs the FU300 10” ported in my Mazda CX-5. Both were tested on my JBL GTX 500 with the engine off and about 12.6 volts at the battery so the power was probably ~ 400 watts RMS. The Alpine SWS is in a custom built slot ported 1.12 gross cu ft box with some stuffing and the FU300 is in a 1.4 cu ft gross pre fab ported box with no stuffing. Both are tuned to 35 hz. Listening impressions are telling me that the Alpine has the edge in SQ but not by a lot and the Alpine is also louder but the FU feels like it digs a little deeper. Keep in mind that the FU300 isn’t fully broken in yet. With the REW graph the Alpine is in the red and FU in the green. I set the LP to 80 hz 12 db octave BW and no subsonic via the JL DSP. REW does show that the FU has a slight advantage at 31 hz by about 1 db but the Alpine extends lower at 27.88 hz by 3 db and lower. Of course this could be the box and I was unable to install the FU300 into the box I built for the Alpine because the cutout was slightly too small and I didn’t want to cut it. For two different woofers in two different boxes though they are remarkably close.
Overall the FU300 gives up a little bit of control to the Alpine but it’s not a big difference and this could be the box too; for $50 shipped this woofer is a great deal. I had to keep switching them back and forth while playing the same songs to make sure it wasn’t just me.
So I may have to build a two chamber dual 10” ported box for the other FU300 I have (got two) and have some fun. I recommend these subwoofers if you’re on a tight budget and want a good sounding subwoofer to blend into your music. I recommend giving these 500 watts RMS as they can take the power and actually seem to like it with more power but still sound good on 400 Watts RMS too. In fact they could probably take more than 500 watts RMS but I haven’t tested that.
Alpine SWS vs FU300
https://imgur.com/gallery/d5eiB
via Imgur for iOS