Hi guys! So I'm looking around craigslist for a KILLER subwoofer and amp for a home theater system, I'll probably end up rebox'ing it into my car at a later point. I know basics, watts, oms, check for cone or magnet damage. Is there any other pointers I can look out for to make sure I'm getting quality? naturaly amps I double check online for quality, but every other 12-15" sub is 50$ -100$ . I don't want a sub that's gunna crack on me a month later. pointers guys?
Answer by Paul in San Diego
The best subwoofer type for home theater is a powered sub (it has its own amplifier), as opposed to a passive sub (it's driven by the power amp in the receiver). If you have a surround sound receiver, you connect the LFE (low-frequency effect) output from the receiver to the LFE (single RCA jack) input on the subwoofer. If you have just a regular stereo, you can hook the speaker output from one set of speakers (Speakers A) to a pair of satellites or small bookshelf speakers and the other output (Speakers B) to the speaker inputs on the sub. This kicks the signal level down to line levels, so the sub's amp actually drives it.
Since the home powered subwoofer runs on 120 volts AC, you can't use it with its own amplifier in a car. You might be able to rewire it so that it takes the output from a car amplifier to drive it instead. But, a subwoofer for a home is really not a good design for a car. A home subwoofer actually uses the room acoustics and surfaces (walls, floor, etc) to help generate a deep, rich bass. In fact, the best placement is in a corner of a room, so that the walls and floor kind of act like a horn.
12 inches is the optimal size for a subwoofer. Less than that and the cone has to move too far to truly reproduce the deepest bass. More than that is overkill. It can actually lead to muddiness, because of the mass that has to be moved by the voice coils.
For the home, I don't think you can beat a Klipsch powered subwoofer. The reference series (RSW-12) is top of the line and can run you over a thousand dollars new and several hundred dollars used. But, the synergy series (KSW-12) is a great subwoofer that you can pick up for about $ 350 new and about $ 200 used on ebay. It has its own volume control, a variable cutoff frequency control, and even a 180-degree variable phase control, so you can perfectly tune it to virtually any set of satellites.
I picked up a used KSW-12 and a used set of Klipsch Quintet front, rear, and center speakers, plus a refurbished Yamaha HTR-5550 surround receiver on ebay a couple years ago for about $ 700 altogether, including shipping. They were all in near new condition and the system sounds awesome.
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