Home Powered Subwoofer

If you're interested in building a kickin' home speaker system, or possibly adding a custom sound system to your car, you will undoubtedly want to invest in a powered subwoofer. Unlike regular speakers which produce the sounds themselves, a powered subwoofer uses its own electricity supply to amplify the sounds from other devices. This creates a louder and more immersive sound when compared to traditional speakers alone. The advantages of using a powered subwoofer are many, but the main point is that it will amplify the sound from your system and produce a louder and more noticeable bass.

The basics

sound is basically changes in air pressure which causes audible noise. When you listen to a song or watch a movie through regular speakers, you will probably not realize that the sound is actually pushing air waves together. However, when you purchase a powered subwoofer, you will actually be able to feel the sound, especially deep and loud sounds, such as gunshots or a car engine. Home powered subwoofer bass is great - it will faithfully re-produce sounds that have really low frequencies; ie sounds that are very deep. One word of caution though: if you live in an apartment powered subwoofer may not be popular with your neighbours. An alternative is to use passive subwoofers which use an external amplifier to supply the power. The downside of passive subwoofers though is that they can easily drain your amplifier when producing bass effects.

Useful terminology

Below are some basic terms that you will probably run across when you're comparing subwoofers and deciding on which one to purchase. To ensure you get the right bit of kit for your needs, for example to assemble your powered subwoofer home theater outfit, it's important that you know what each term means and how it applies to powered subwoofers.

Bass Reflex – A bass reflex subwoofer is highly sensitive, which translates into it being highly efficient at producing great sound. Another name for these types of subwoofers is ported speakers. Oftentimes, a ported speaker won’t require as much electricity as other types of subwoofers because they are more energy efficient.

Crossover – The crossover is a network of capacitors and resistors that take incoming sound from the receiver and transmit it to the subwoofer itself.

Distortion – This translates into the difference between the original recording and what you actually hear through your subwoofer. A high level of distortion can lead to bad sound as artifacts will often appear in the sound. Make sure your subwoofer has distortion no higher than 5 dB.

Frequency Range – This is simply the spectrum of frequencies produced by the subwoofer. For example, if a product had a frequency range of 50-150 Hz, it will produce quality sound at these frequencies. If the frequency of the movie or music is higher or lower than this preset range, the sound quality will suffer.

Armed with this basic introduction to powered subwoofers you now can go off and start researching the brands on offer. Although there is no such thing as a free powered subwoofer you should be able to get one that fits your needs for a price you can afford. Happy hunting.