best subwoofer for $500?

[30DZ 10+ year member]

man what's with the censoring of cuss words on here, never been on a forum that censors as many words lol

but this forum is hella active, ive been getting good replies and so quick, really surprised

 

[The_Grimy_One 10+ year member]

It really comes down to how much power you have. Once you find that out, we can recommend some subs. You are going to want to do a single 12, and get a box built. If you have 500 to spend, spend like 350 on a sub, and 150 on a box. If you have relatives that own shops, then I am sure they will build you a box for much cheaper. Pre-fab boxes are not the way to go, at all.

 

[USAFbro 10+ year member]

I'm going too google those tomorrow but, are those like the 'bad boy' subs? since my relatives own car audio shops and don't carry any of those and i've never heard of any of them, i guess since they might be really high end? I've only heard of models like, Kicker, Rockford Fosgate, Memphis, MTX, Ample Audio, of course pioneer/kenwood but, those aren't worth a mention.
I suppose if I got any of those you mentioned, I wonder how much sound deadning I would need to do, I installed Dynamat extreme on the trunk lid and quarter panels of my current system and I didn't notice any difference, I still hear rattling and my rear view mirror is **** useless lol due to all the shaking from the bass. I can't imagine what one of those subs you mentioned might do but, definitely want to find out lol.

yeah man they are more "underground" i guess you could say. they are the companies that dont spend all their money on advertising. just on a good product. you sound like you have some pretty high expectations. what your looking for seems to be a pretty high wattage system. you should look into electrical upgrades before you even consider buying new subs and amps.

 

[30DZ 10+ year member]

It really comes down to how much power you have. Once you find that out, we can recommend some subs. You are going to want to do a single 12, and get a box built. If you have 500 to spend, spend like 350 on a sub, and 150 on a box. If you have relatives that own shops, then I am sure they will build you a box for much cheaper. Pre-fab boxes are not the way to go, at all.

ok yeah all their boxes are pre-built. how come a pre-built box would not work? aren't those supposed to be standard? they are made from 3/4" mdf wood. i mean you put the sub in a box, what else do you need? how many different types of boxes made of wood can there be? or am i missing something? they have some options a ported box, sealed box, deep angle box, and a plexi-glass box. would none of these types work? how come it has to be custom built? is it custom built based on the model of the car or space in trunk or something?

 

[Chriszle 10+ year member]

Just changing subs without adding power will not change output that much, unless you are adding more cone area than you already have. Having a proper box will help a sub perform the way it is supposed to. As mentioned before, increasing power, means increasing electrical upgrades, which are all things to think about.

 

[Chriszle 10+ year member]

ok yeah all their boxes are pre-built. how come a pre-built box would not work? aren't those supposed to be standard? they are made from 3/4" mdf wood. i mean you put the sub in a box, what else do you need? how many different types of boxes made of wood can there be? or am i missing something? they have some options a ported box, sealed box, deep angle box, and a plexi-glass box.

How a subwoofer is going to sound is dependant on the size/shape of room (or in your case vehicle), and the box that it goes into. Different subs like different sized boxes, and different tunings, and thats not even going into bandpass style boxes (prefab bandpass boxes are complete garbage generally).

 

[IonRL205 10+ year member]

ok yeah all their boxes are pre-built. how come a pre-built box would not work? aren't those supposed to be standard? they are made from 3/4" mdf wood. i mean you put the sub in a box, what else do you need? how many different types of boxes made of wood can there be? or am i missing something? they have some options a ported box, sealed box, deep angle box, and a plexi-glass box. would none of these types work? how come it has to be custom built? is it custom built based on the model of the car or space in trunk or something?

Sealed pre fab boxes are okay, but ported ones not so much. There's no telling what the box is tuned to and that will make a big difference in how well your sub plays certain frequencies. If you wanna hit the lows, you need a low tuned box, if you're more for SPL, then you'd want a higher tuned box.

 

[surreal 10+ year member]

Plan B FTMFW, rollin is still alive.

 

[30DZ 10+ year member]

yeah man they are more "underground" i guess you could say. they are the companies that dont spend all their money on advertising. just on a good product. you sound like you have some pretty high expectations. what your looking for seems to be a pretty high wattage system. you should look into electrical upgrades before you even consider buying new subs and amps.

electrical upgrades? my current system has it's own battery and heavy duty capacitor.. if i connect my current system to my car battery directly I immediately get the red car battery light in my car and the car battery will die. so i have it setup on it's own car battery in the trunk seperatly.

is that what you meant? power issues?

 

[USAFbro 10+ year member]

ok yeah all their boxes are pre-built. how come a pre-built box would not work? aren't those supposed to be standard? they are made from 3/4" mdf wood. i mean you put the sub in a box, what else do you need? how many different types of boxes made of wood can there be? or am i missing something? they have some options a ported box, sealed box, deep angle box, and a plexi-glass box. would none of these types work? how come it has to be custom built?

different subwoofers perform differently and "like" different types of boxes. Ported, sealed, t-line, bandpass, horn loaded, 4th orders. theirs so many different types. designing the box and building it according to the subwoofers specific specifications will make it much louder, and keep the sub performing optimally for a much longer time.

 

[USAFbro 10+ year member]

Plan B FTMFW, rollin is still alive.

hahaha heck yeah bro! their are a couple skaters on here actually

 

[USAFbro 10+ year member]

electrical upgrades? my current system has it's own battery and heavy duty capacitor.. if i connect my current system to my car battery directly I immediately get the red car battery light in my car and the car battery will die. so i have it setup on it's own car battery in the trunk seperatly.
is that what you meant? power issues?

get rid of the capacitor. its not really doing you any good.

if thats happening with the battery light, then your doing something wrong my man.

and by electrical upgrades, i mean, upgrading positive and negative wires up front in the engine, adding multiple batteries in the trunk or wherever, and even high output alternators. sounds like you need to do some reading up on all this stuff before you really go in on this monster system bro. you will be glad you did.

 

[30DZ 10+ year member]

designing the box and building it according to the subwoofers specific specifications will make it much louder, and keep the sub performing optimally for a much longer time.

ah, ok.. if their are specifications or instructions provided by the subwoofer manufactureres then it won't be an issue, as i know a couple custom speaker box manufacturers here locally that we used to by speaker boxes off from.

 

[The_Grimy_One 10+ year member]

They pretty much already answered the questions you had for me. But I second what they say. The box is the key to the system. You can have a mediocre sub, in a very well built box and it sound good to great. Pre-fab is not the business. I mean yes, sealed pre-fab is ok, but they are so easy to make, I would never even do that.

I am sure you can get a much better sub than you have now, with the same wattage, then have a box built, and it sound 3 times better. It probably wont get a ton louder though, on the same power.

I have an RD Alpha V1 12, running off of 1400 watts, and its loud as hell. Much more than I could imagine. And a lot of the credit goes to my custom built box.

 

[Bettr n' Revrse 5,000+ posts]

If you can get the power I have a custom built 12 that will take 2000 daily...