They did originally intend to test more woofers (you have to read the preliminary thread about it before the testing started). The problem was the test was done by contacting manufacturers and asking them to send a sub to be a candidate for the test. I believe that pretty much all the manufacturer's replied in some way (through the various contacts available to the guys that run ICIX and eD) but not every manufacturer could get a sub sent out for the test in time.

Still the test did cover models which are popularly touted as being among the best.

I would second your eBay recommendation, for car audio you can find everything from garbage off-name brand stuff to high end products from good brands; *and* usually at prices that are better than most places. However if you can get products discounted through employee discounts of your own or of friends, then it may be just as cheap (or cheaper) and much more convenient.

haha lol

I didn't mean to say that people shouldn't voice their opinion, the thread title and inital question didn't seem to ask for that. If it had said "what's your favourite subwoofer" or something like that it is a different story...

I'm sure if I made a thread saying "what is the best car *ever*", I'd get a lot of stupid looks (or replies rather) because that is a very open and non-specific question. I.e. a question like that makes me ask "what does that even mean?" Same as if there was a thread asking "who has the best Grand Am ever" it would be just as non-specific and open-ended.

yeh, i know what you meant. ive been in forums that were shutdown from being overrun by those threads. but i have yet to see that happen here.

as great as that test appears to be, where does it list any of the enclosures used and at what power range?

10w7 IMO :jackson

The enclosures are the manufacturer recommended enclosures for each driver; for more information, you'll want this thread (which also lists which drivers they wanted to test but couldn't due to manufacturers not sending woofers).

http://www.icixsound.com/vb/showthread.php?t=13843

For all testing I believe the enclosures were:
For power for the listening tests:
For power and measurements for the output tests:
Hope that clarifies it!

I don't understand this thread, but whatever. Asking for the "best" sub is like asking what's the "best" vehicle on the road. It depends on what you need in your life. No $700 15" sub is desirable to me, because I don't feel the need to spend that kind of money, I don't listen to music that needs that much bass, and I like being able to actually carry things in my trunk. So, to me, my 10" $140 Kicker is the "best" for my needs.

thanks for the link. geez, i wonder why david and dan didn't want to volunteer their drivers to ben, lol. in terms of the output test, i guess you could consider the power used to be a flaw. some drivers require more power to reach the excursion that would've given them better output measurements, but at the same time, not everyone is going to use the exact requirement on each woofer in real life.

[quote=MantaGreen97]They did originally intend to test more woofers (you have to read the preliminary thread about it before the testing started). The problem was the test was done by contacting manufacturers and asking them to send a sub to be a candidate for the test. I believe that pretty much all the manufacturer's replied in some way (through the various contacts available to the guys that run ICIX and eD) but not every manufacturer could get a sub sent out for the test in time.

Still the test did cover models which are popularly touted as being among the best.

i should read the thread before i reply but its almost 2 and i really dont want to. for this test i find it hard to belive that mtx would send a 9500 before the jackhammer. i would also like to know who they sent invites to. i am sure all these questions and more are answerd i am just too damn tired to read all of it.
also i dont know if any of you are framilure (wow that doesnt look right) with a company called ovation. theres one in ft wayne IN and i went there today. they sell jl boston alpine kenwood and total a brand i had never heard of. any way i was really comparing the w7 to the boston g5 and to be honest you could barely tell i differnce. once you found the spot in the room where both woofers sounded best you almost couldnt tell the differnce. that boston really moves fast, fast enough to stink your finger pretty good. the jl was in a non ported w7 box, it has grey carpet but where the speaker sits its in a red oval, and the g5 was in a 1.5ci box. aperently that box is not good for the sound quality of the w7 but the boston had 33% more box then recomended. any way theres is no way i would buy 1 w7 for 1000. no way. and if you think the w7 is that much better of a sub then you can get 2 g5s and still save 200.
ok kids i am going to bed i got up at 7 drove over 300 miles and my eyes are on fire. sorry about any spelling mistakes!

10w7 for 250 you just have to look around

probly because the jackhammer would've finished dead last in the listening portion of the test and because it's power recommendations fall well outside of the range that every other sub was in. invites were also sent to RE, Adire, Cerwin Vega, Soundsplinter, Earthquake, OZ Audio, and Treo. i can give you a good idea as to why RE and Adire didn't do it (Ben Milne is not a very popular guy with either Dan or David for understandable reasons) but i can't really say why the others did not wish to join. Treo and RE would've given them a run for their money, imo, but that's neither here nor there.

i think they should have invited everyone. they didnt even invite pioneer the biggest car speaker company in the world or kenwood who has the best rated woofer of all time by car audio mag. to be honest it sounds like they just invited the companys that they knew jl and kicker would look good in front of. of course i have no proof but doesnt that seem kinda funny? no eclipse mb quart boston audiobahn or alpine? that just doesnt seem right. if i had the money i would rate atleast 20 differnt subs. and i would give the companys like a year to send a speaker of there choice and i would tell them what they would be up against. if they declined i would tell everyone and then go buy there most expensive speaker and still put it through the test. not to be a monday morning qb but that seems like the fairest way to do it.

alpine does not have a single sub that would look better than any of those that were invited.
mb quart does not either (they are an sq company, these are all big sql woofers)
audiobahn would lose in the listening tests, they are just a bling bling company
boston is decent, but again, they do not have any big sql woofers
same thing with pioneer (yeah, they earned an spl record, but those are spl drivers and they do not have any big sql drivers of any type of quality)
the eclipse titanium pro's could have been included, but maybe there was just not as much interest for them.
what year is the car audio mag article that lists a kenwood sub as the best ever? to be honest, i do not read many audio mags (outside of voice coil) because they simply do not cover the product necessary. i have never once seen adire audio or resonant engineering listed once in any off the shelf car audio mags, yet people who have used those companies and used the stuff in the magazines will tell you 99% of the time, the RE and adire stuff is better. i once saw treo in a magazine, but it was an ad and not an article on them.

Many of the companies could not get woofers to them in time for the deadline. They are planning on doing this on an annual basis, and expect a much better turnout next year.

i too belive there is a bias in the car audio world. however i belive it leans more tword jl than kenwood.

i find it odd that no one has debated me that there is a bias in the car audio world for jl. there a good speaker but now a days you mostly pay for the name. cant wait to see what 10w7 boy will call me!

i must apologize to you i must have overlooked your post. i just read it about 5 seconds ago. sorry. ok let me respond.
i agree with you about both audiobahn and alpine, but i think these are both very over rated companys and i wanted everyone to see that on a test like this. boston and mb quart would have held there own. not in overall spl but in overall sound quality, and PRICE should be a catagory in comparison. how can you not invite the world record holder? thats like not inviting the super bowl mvp to the pro bowl. thats not fair to eclipse, they should have been invited, even if they did something to **** them off.
car audio mag is the only car audio mag that i have seen around here. i dont know the exact issue but if you want i can find it for you. and if anyone else has read the article and can testify or has any more info please help me out here.
back to the price issue they have to throw that in. if they dont it would be like car and driver comparing a corevette to a diablo. sure the lambo would kick its ass across the board but is a half a second off a quatermile run worth an extra $200,000? but you could put anther 50k in the vette and make it superior. so price should be in any comparision subs cars or anything else.

Everyone knows JL has a lot of hype following their product. The vast majority of people that know anything about car audio consider JL to be the best. But they built that rep in the 90's when good subs were hard to find, and the w6v1 was just plain amazing. They have the bloated low end that most bassheads want. Hype sucks and it gets blown out of proportion which sucks, but ya just gotta deal with it. But all hype and marketing aside, the w7 really is an incredible woofer. Mentioning it with some of the other subs in this thread is a f'ing joke. I personally liked the sound of the IDMax better, so I got it instead. But as far as clean and dirty output, I know the w7 is superior. I definitly consider it to be the leading sql woofer out there. That says a lot cuz I don't think to much of JL in general.

How many times does it have to be beat to death? This was a 100% voluntary test. Maybe the other manuf's were worried about how their sub would perform, or maybe they didn't want to put up the resourses, or maybe they didn't have the time. There are a million reasons that every sub on the planet wasn't in the test. I personally am happy boston and MB weren't in the test, as I havn't found any of their products up to the level of those tested. Why put them in the test when they are gonna get owned and it is just gonna be a waste of time...

Obviously you missed the point of the review. That comparison was not about price, it was about subjective and objective opinions of the best subs out there. How much something is worth is 100% subjective to the individual. Why add that extra bs to the thread when it doesn't add anything worth while?

perhapes you have missed my piont. i understand that the piont of this test is to find out what the "best" subwoofer out there is. i get it. i also understand that there could be a million difernt reasons why the manufactures didnt send there stuff in. i get it. all i am saying is how can you make a test of something so contriversial and not have everyone that should be there there? you cant! you can say a sony is the best sub ever if all that comes to the test is crap from the 80s. you cant compair subs fairly and not have some of the big hitters there. well you can but would shouldnt title the test "best woofer ever" that is not fair. and who its not fair to is not the companys that didnt partisapate, its us! we suffer from inadaquite tests. what this test is saying is that if i had a w7 or a solo x then no one woofer in the world would be louder. that isnt true. not by a long shot. so i have just waisted a grand for a woofer that i thought was the best that may not be. i am not trying to say they did a ****ty comparison of the woofers they had. its true out of that group the w7 and solo x are clearly the best choice. but from a compatition stance if i go in there with 2 of either woofer and think i am untouchable and talk like i am untouchable, then get my ass handed to me by a pair of eclipse of premiers then i look like an ass. and i have just spent alot of money to find that out.
price does make a differnce! i know the test didnt cover this but why not? your everyday joe probley cant just go out and wirte a check for a w7. just stop and think about this for a second. take 2 woofers in the $500 or less range. good woofers, not crap from best buy or circut cuty. in this case lest take the boston g5s. there $400, and are perfect for this example. if i gave you a thousand dollars to spend, and what you dont spend you can keep, would you buy a w7, or 2 g5s and save $200 for yourself? the w7 got up to what mid 130s db, i bet the bostons would get in the mid 140s! and in a comp if you had 800 watts( i know the rms is 750) going to your w7, and 400 (rms 450) going to each boston, which would be louder? the bostons, and you would have an extra 200 bucks! yeah its 2 against 1, but a w7 is 2 and 1/2 times more expensive, so is it really 2 on 1? in price the w7 still has the "advantage".
all i am doing is trying to look out for the folks that are new to this stuff. value is everything everywhere! and value means differnt things to differnt people. your goal shouldnt be to find the best sub out there it should be to get the best sound for your budget. sure people get sponcerd and stuff but most of us dont and have to dish out are own hard earned money for this stuff. there are too many brands out there to list all cliaming to have the best speakers. to me the best woofer is the one that my ear thinks is the best. not what people in some thread on the internet think. its what the ear and checkbook like. if it sounds good to you thats all that should matter, unless you have distortion. most people know what that sounds like and if you dont its pretty much when the speaker sounds like crap and pops more than plays music. this review is right untill they said the "best sub ever" then its not. i personally am glad someone finally compared some woofers. i just think that it could have been done alot better by more subs being in the test than what 7 or 8. its just not that simple.
wow i just wrote a book. i hope i have cleared all questions up and this isnt alot of bs. just a guy who is looking out for people who cant afford a $1000 woofer, but can still sound better than one.