There is an opinion that it is impossible to build a good sound system in a car without a sub woofer. Many during the existence of music in the car have tried to challenge this. Nobody succeeded in full. And that's a fact. There is no substitute for a normal powered subwoofer car.

The sub woofer can be connected to any car radio. If it is standard, then the signal to the sub woofer is taken from the speakers, which have a subordinate component, the range from 20 to 100 Hz is especially important, converted to linear and then fed to an amplifier for a sub or an active sub woofer. Such a projector can be built into an amplifier for a sub woofer or an active sub woofer, or it can be purchased separately. If the radio is not standard, then it always has outputs to the amplifier or sub woofer.

Sub woofers are divided into two main classes: active and passive with an amplifier.

Active sub woofers are usually compact, have a built-in amplifier, are easy to install, do not require thick battery cables, and can be placed both in the trunk and under the car seat. Their downside is mediocre sound and low power. These are solutions for budget systems where there are no complaints about the sound and you want to add a little baritone. Rarely is the case of an active sub woofer made of wood, more often it is plastic, sometimes metal.

A passive sub woofer is an acoustically designed speaker with an external power amplifier. Some car radio manufacturers have been trying to squeeze out of their car radios the ability to add a pair of channels and connect a sub woofer directly to a car radio for a long time - this is all nonsense. For a normal sub woofer you need an external amplifier and that's a fact.

Among the passive sub woofer speakers are the so-called Free Air, that is, those that can work for free volume. These speakers can be installed in the rear shelf, on the volume of the trunk, as a result, your luggage compartment will remain free. The disadvantages of this acoustic design are poor sound quality.

The normal acoustic design for a sub woofer is a wooden cabinet. There is a misconception that it must be manufactured at the manufacturing plant. For more than a decade of selling and installing sub woofers in the car, I can say that this is not the case. If the case is made in Russia, the cost of the sub woofer is much lower, and the quality of a well-made case is no worse. I met the bodies that our workshop produces after 5years of operation in a car - they have survived no worse than their foreign counterparts. It is also worth noting that any case must be designed and manufactured for a specific sub woofer speaker, in any kind of acoustic design it will not work. The only plus of the branded case is sometimes a beautiful appearance, but definitely not sound.

The most common acoustic designs for sub woofers are:

Closed box. Gives high quality sound in a compact size. Sucha sub woofer is usually quite musical, suitable for fans of good sound detail.

Bass reflex case. Gives good pressure with good bass depth.The case must be perfectly calculated, if the case is wrong, it will buzz and irritate the hearing.

Band pass. Nice body, high pressure and poor bass detail.Such a case is more difficult to make yourself, most often it will be native,and accordingly the price tag for such subs is not low, with a very mediocre sound quality.

Quarter-wave resonator or short-wavelength resonator. A popular case for car audio competitions, as a rule, is made independently,takes up a lot of space in the trunk, often does not fit into it at all, has avery high efficiency with good sound quality.