As a lot of people are getting to know now, we at ABTEC have been doing a lot of dB SPL Testing using Entry Level Sub-Woofers. We have tried testing Entry Level Sub-Woofers from Sony, JBL, Digital Designs and this time around we decided to try four of the Pioneer TSW-309-D4 Sub-Woofers.
Over this time ABTEC3 has been taking a bit of a beating from the Sound Pressure Levels but I’m sure the little Vitz will continue to happily put up with a lot more for quite some time too.
I went through my usual check list as I do and then double checked just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Once this was all sorted and ready it was time to do a frequency sweep, apparently to the Term-Lab the sweet spot was 58Hz so we gave the TSW-309-D4’s a quick ‘Burp’! And the result caught me by surprise, we got a 153.1dB @ 58Hz. I could of stopped there but I had a feeling that there was more in them, so I tried a couple of more times with the best result of 154.4dB @ 56Hz!
My overall opinion of these Sub-Woofers has definitely been lifted after the tests we have done on them, not only did we do a 154.4dB with them but we also did it without even running them in. SPL testing a Sub-Woofer that is not run in can increase the risk of damaging the Sub-Woofer but in saying that so can putting 10K+ RMS into four Sub-Woofers rated at 400w RMS even if they are run-in.
I must say I really enjoyed doing this SPL Test since we all had a good laugh while learning something at the same time and it also goes to show that you don’t need the most expensive Sub-Woofers to get 150+ results. Just a little bit of patience, a good or sometimes simple box design and a lot of time testing!