Planet Audio AC12D Subwoofer - Set of 1

Very low bass and powerful

With the trunk open its awesome, powered with its matching PA AC1000.. problem is Audi is made sooo well, the sound doesn't get out of the trunk easily, but sound it is tight and vibration free. I would imagine in a "domestic car" it would rattle and shake the car like crazy...

I picked up one of these to check out as its parameters modeled well, build quality looked ok (decent terminals and stitched tinsel leads) and it seemed to be pretty optimal for a quality 12" ported box I had around. 900w rms power handling with a 2" voice coil is of course delusional and a recipe for a burned voice coil, but with reasonable expectations and a quality enclosure you can expect a very pleasant surprise. 2" voice coils have been a standard feature on reasonably rated 250w rms subs since the 90s, and newer designs with more optimal cooling designs and possibly better coil materials sometimes claim 350-400w these days from manufacturers with legitimate power ratings. Remember if you don't hook up both coil terminals, you've lost half that power handling and your 1" of usable voice coil will be lucky to survive 200w of legitimate power. At the entry level, this is likely a common mistake and recipe for wrecked subs along with trying to use eq'ing and bass boost vs correct subsonic (for ported setups, around 5-10hz below your tuning frequency) and low pass filters (80-120hz range depending on your interior spks) with correct phasing. Styling is nice and subtle on these, if they would just hide their ridiculous 1800w peak power claim (hello black Sharpie..). The nice terminals are mounted rather weakly to the stamped steel frame and bend easily, but are easy to work with as long as you are careful. I would expect the glossy poly cone to not stand up well to any sort of abrasion, but these are one of the most visually appealing cheap subs I have seen. The impressive looking foam surround protrudes dramatically above the sub, but its xmax / excursion is a rather mainstream 10 mm (.39 inches) which is less than a modern entry JL Audio 12w0 (11.4mm) so it is more show than go. Luckily this spec is more important in sealed vs ported setups where the port is doing most of the work, and its parameters & suspension performance work extremely well at this price point. In my (slightly undersized) 1.75 cu ft ported boxed tuned to 36hz, the sub is very efficient and plays flat and deep, with usable response into the mid 20s in my test room. Transient response was also surprisingly good, meaning the sub did not sound loose / sloppy. With a proper sub phasing / polarity selection in a car and the low end boost from cabin gain, anyone with a 250-400w RMS amp (30-50A of fusing if it is an entry brand with inflated ratings) should be thrilled with what this sub can do for the price. As with any sub setup (especially ported!) the enclosure is more important than the driver itself in terms of sound quality. A "cheap but good" sub like this is a quality matched box will always sound better than a higher end sub in a too small or leaky sealed box, or a ported box tuned to bad frequencies (anything > 42hz or so is made to sound "BAD but loud" and easily damages subs). If you have an overpowered amp (400w rms+), simply wire the coils in series at 8 ohm and run your gain higher. Bass boost should never be used until you are absolutely sure your system is tuned properly and phasing issues are not cancelling certain bass frequencies. Be warned that if you are bridging two amp channels, 2 ohms in parallel becomes 1 ohm and most average amps are not stable bridging below 4 ohms--which will likely overheat or damage your amp, or wreck the sub from high distortion in short order. I would not trust an entry sub like this to have any sort of break in done at the factory, so my suggested method of accelerated break in is to use the Tara Labs "Cascade Noise" website for about a half hour with a higher than normal LP crossover point (150hz or so) at a volume level just high enough to create consistent (but not extreme) cone movement. The Cascade Noise sounds annoying (no need to hang around...) but the sub suspension will break in quickly to play louder, lower, and more safely in a short time. You can lower the crossover point back to a normal 80-120hz range and listen to a track with some punchy or deep bass before and after each session to gauge the level of improvement, and once the improvement diminishes you should be good to go!

Had for a month, broke it in and everything. Have a good powerful amp but the sub still blew, smoked, very cheap but in the end not worth the money just put another hundred and buy a brand name like skar or sundown. I should have listened to the reviews but i have a hard head and paying for it now

Currently @8 OHMS, juicing 400watts RMS at it... (much less for break in period...) soon i'll parallel it to 2 OHMS and run it at 1200 watts RMS see what she can do.. review might change a that point