Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
bassahaulic

Subwoofer SQ and Subwoofer SPL

Recommended Posts

I have seen a lot lately people posting threads asking about their woofers SQ and woofers SPL in different enclosures. Also, using the same to compare different woofers like, " I don't wanna loose any SQ and but I want a lot of SPL."

I'll start with SQ, most "SQ" woofers you will see are less then 1000w and are optimized for sealed enclosures to aid with a flat response. When most people talk about woofers and their SQ, they just want it to not sound like shit, not a flat response. It's takes 10% or more Total Harmonic Distortion to hear it. Most people wouldn't even notice it at that level. So next time you say you want to say you want SQ from your woofer, please reconsider what you are looking for.

Now onto to SPL, SPL stands for Sound Pressure Level which is the atmospheric pressure generated from your sub-woofers. This has NOTHING to do with the audible loudness of the stereo to the ear. Audible loudness is achieved with a lower tuning and larger net enclosure. Higher SPL is achieved with a much higher tuning around 45Hz and slightly smaller enclosure. Tuning higher for better SPL numbers will severely limit the sub woofer to the frequency range it can play, usually making it VERY peaky at the resonant of the vehicle with very bad drop off from the peak, and will reduce the audible loudness of the woofer on music.

This explains why when you sit in a vehicle that does a 155 at 55Hz and it doesn't seem as loud as a vehicle doing 150 at 40Hz.

So when you say you want higher "SPL", I think you want high numbers and don't care about the woofers ability to play music. So specify whether you want audible loudness or a higher numeric value on the meter.

Any MODS/Admins that feel like this is lacking something, please, feel free to edit in what you think should be in it. :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yup.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×