Very, very new to car audio...A little help? :)

[lolwut 10+ year member]

I'm looking to buy a sub for my 91 Honda Prelude and was looking at 12w7s.

Good idea?

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[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

What are your goals and how much money are you looking to spend? W7's are great subs, but the majority of people on this site feel that you can get a sub that's just as good for less money.

 

[lolwut 10+ year member]

Well if I can get a sub that's just as good for less, that would be better. I really don't know what my goals are, I just want a lot of bass >_> I love the stuff.

I was going to try to find a used 12w7, too.

Are 12w6s any good? They're pretty cheap.

 

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

Well if I can get a sub that's just as good for less, that would be better. I really don't know what my goals are, I just want a lot of bass >_> I love the stuff.
I was going to try to find a used 12w7, too.

Are 12w6s any good? They're pretty cheap.

They're really good sound quality subs, but they don't have much output. I suggest checking out ficaraudio.com you may be interested in something along the lines of the bl, Q or ssd.

 

[lolwut 10+ year member]

Where do these subs rank with the 12w7 and 12w6?

 

[lolwut 10+ year member]

How do the Qs rank with the w7 and w6?

 

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

JL isn't the god of car audio Fi is great stuff.

 

[Kyle_Keating 10+ year member]

its hard to find a driver that doest exactly what the W7's do for less money, but there are other performing factors that many cheaper woofer excel at over the W7.

You have to understand acoustic design goals:

BL and Q trade off (Magnetomotive Force... BLi)

Mass and Sensitivity

Linearity and Sensitivity trade offs

Xmax and BL or Mass trade offs

High Q, low Q design goals (one is not necessarily better)

Ect ect... there is also an inductive issues, but thats really a higher frequency problem when the period of the wave gets shorter. For LF content (longer strokes, longer period), the inductor's time constant is not long enough to make much of any current lag at all. Of course if its really high (depends on the modeled resistance too), it may cause problems in the fq band you care about.

the W7 excels is usable (relativity linear ) throw from a very long overhung coil.

it also has a very very good suspension system relative to most stuff you can find

low back emf from a 2-layer (not 4) layer voice coil gives it a high Q allowing it to work in a sealed box if thats your goal. It also lacks distortion elements from eddy currents which reside in the voice coil former of the more common higher RMS subwoofers that use conductive formers such as aluminum.

Where is comes short is it truly does not have *that* linear of a BL curve for its rather long voice coil so its BL distortion is not significantly lower than most drivers. (I would say thats the false hope with he W7 considering JL intensionally keep the BL low and coil thin, we can't really criticize too much else here...). It may have an advantage over most drivers when excursion goes beyond 2", but keep in mind, excursion and SPL are dependent on frequency! So for most of the bass, you don't need to dip into the 2+" area for loud spl (depends on a lot of other stuff too, alignments etc...) The JL Hometheater F113 measured rather average in terms of SPL vs distortion, but its was an "acceptable" distortion that people don't dislike... call it "warm" it technically its an even-order harmonic from asymmetries in the BL curve ( i suspect )

The W7 also doest not have terrible high power handling (not a bad thing if sensitivity is high, but its only average), this is in part from its thermally insolative (rather than conductive) former made of kapton and its thiner voice coil cross section area (2 layer, not 4) as said above.

Its BL is also low (good for sealed boxes, bad for ported) which means its BL^2/Re is low and its hard to use it in a ported system without sounding boomy (non-linear fr response due to added ring around system resonance), but its natural low BL makes it ideal for sealed systems. (again trade off...)

All in all its still a very nice and well executed design that shares no common parts from any other woofer in existence (most can't claim that) I give the woofer a lot of respect, and there are more expensive woofers out there, but it cant simply beat or replace any woofer.

 

[innsanes 10+ year member]

Make sure you have a well built box and not just a wack prefab box. A wrong box can make an expensive sub sound like poo. X2 on the Fi Q great sub, plus you save money so you can spend it on a custom box and an amp. Rather then spend all your money on the w7 and not have money for the proper box and amp. But, But But, ..... If you have the money for the w7 and everything else; i would say go for it. there great sub for sure

 

[lolwut 10+ year member]

This will be my first system so I'm sure I'm going to love the Fi Q if I get it.

Now I need an amp...

And my uncle has a w7 so I know it's an awesome sub. Settin off car alarms in the mall parkin lot, lol

 

[BobbyDD 10+ year member]

The only way I'd buy JL anything is if I got a real good deal on it. Most of it's good stuff, but it's too expensive for what it is.

 

[MTXman 10+ year member]

Your Q in the proper box will be louder and sound just as good as the w7 for a third of the price.

 

[dman4486 5,000+ posts]

you need to get your mind away from jl and look into something worth the money....you assume the w7 is loud, but my 2 10's for $65 each set off car alarms if im being a "tool"

 

[siacarman 10+ year member]

i would look into used treo subs...great output great sound quality...buyt i am a treo fan myself...my 10 tsx's bang

 

[Rookie_80 10+ year member]

I am using Eclipse Titanium SW9122. and i love that sub. Its has both loudness and sound quality.

P.S.

I don't think "setting off alarms shud be creteria for choosing subs and Im not the type whod set off the alarms so im just running it on 900watts.

But my friend has 2 of Tis and he gives em bunch of power and i saw him setting off the alarms of the cars which were 40-50 feet away