About Small Subwoofers
Small subwoofers are popular bass speakers among aftermarket car stereo enthusiasts. Providing rich, deep bass in the lower ranges where a car's stock speakers can't reach, small subwoofers fill a readily apparent gap in car audio without the overwhelming booms and rattles proffered by the speakers' larger cousins.
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Function
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Small subwoofers function much like other car and home speakers, and are similar in function to midrange and "tweeter" speakers. When the car stereo decodes incoming sound from a radio broadcast, CD, or other medium, the decoded sound is sent out from the stereo across speaker wires to the speaker components in the form of electrical impulses. Powerful magnets in the speakers respond to the impulses, causing a thin sheet of membrane material to vibrate. Just like the thin, small diameter membrane in a tweeter vibrates at high frequencies to create upper-octave sounds, the larger, thicker membrane in a subwoofer performs at much lower (sometimes even visible) vibrations. These vibrations carry through the air and are picked up by the human ear as deep, low sounds.
Benefits
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Car audio enthusiasts have long used subwoofers to create the low, deep sounds missing from their car's stock stereo components. Rather than the thunderous, loud (and physically moving) booms produced by the larger subwoofers, though, small subwoofers are more adept at simply completing the lower octaves of a rich musical experience. Small subwoofers are especially useful in recreating low sounds such as bass guitars, bass drums, tympani, and electronic bass music, and can easily do so without overpowering the car's mid-range and tweeter speakers.
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Size
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Common sizes of subwoofers range from 8 to 15 inches, though 8 and 10-inch speakers are generally considered to be small (15-inch subwoofers, by comparison, are considered quite large). When shopping for small subwoofers, though, buyers should keep in mind that the larger sized speakers are capable of producing sound down to lower frequencies, with 15-inch subs accurately producing sounds as low as 150 hertz (150Hz).
Enclosures
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A subwoofer, regardless of size, can not effectively be deployed in a car audio system on its own. To accurately reproduce sound, subwoofers must be mounted inside an enclosure, and these enclosures are often made of wood to encourage resonation of the speaker's sound. The larger the enclosure, the more the enclosure can resonate with the speaker and help amplify the sound, adding to the owner's listening experience.
Power Handling and Sensitivity
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Power handling and sensitivity are two key measurements which should be considered when shopping for a subwoofer. The first of these measurements, power handling, simply indicates how much power input the speaker can receive from the stereo or amplifier before it fails (or "blows"). The sensitivity, however, is a measure of how loud the speaker will seem to be. With typical sensitivities in the 90 decibel (90Db) range, ratings of over 100 decibels will be quite loud.
Considerations
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Shoppers for subwoofers should keep several factors in mind when browsing available products. One such factor is the space available; vehicles often have limited space for speaker enclosures, and even small subwoofers may have trouble fitting in some roadsters, convertibles, and other small cars. Buyers should also keep local ordinances in mind; though smaller subwoofers are much less likely to produce noise pollution due to their smaller stature, some municipalities, like the city of Orlando, Florida, restrict noise to no more than 25 feet from the offending vehicle.
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