The best car subwoofers to boost your bass

There's a line in a 1990 hip-hop song that goes: ‘Now that the party is jumpin'. With the bass kicked in...the Vegas are pumpin', and just like the Miami miscreant who wrote it, we too can appreciate a great bass response. Drug-running, jet skis and early white rapper identity confusion may not be our bread and butter at CAR, but cranking a sound system up from loud to health risk to ‘pumpin’ is a gesture most of us are very familiar with, especially while on the road.

We must also commend Mr Ice on his regard for Cerwin Vega: an LA-based audio equipment manufacturer with almost 70 years of experience producing quality car subwoofers and other audio components. Although Vegas can be difficult to find in the UK, there are still plenty of other great subwoofer options to be explored on the domestic market. Don’t have a subwoofer in your car? Perhaps it’s time that changed.

Fancy upgrading the rest of your in-car tech? Check out our other articles on the best dash cams, best phone holders and CAR's guide to Alexa for your car.

What is a subwoofer?

Subwoofers are loudspeakers that supply the ultra-low-end frequencies of a sound system’s output. While most car stereos feature woofers to fill out the low end, they usually cover a relatively wide frequency range from 20Hz to 2500Hz. Subwoofers, on the other hand, are frequency focussed with narrower output ranges, producing frequencies from 20Hz up to 200Hz. They’re both specialised speakers, just a subwoofer has a little more to give at the very bottom with a more limited role.

Why are subwoofers used in cars?

Subwoofers are great for improving the clarity of sound systems, especially those found in cars. By serving as a free, auxiliary speaker, subwoofers share the overall frequency load of a sound system, freeing up smaller speakers to produce more comfortable frequencies relative to their size. By distributing the load, subwoofers can lower distortion, improve bassline volume, and enhance the overall listening experience. If you love your car music as much as we do, you should invest in a sub.

Not sure which is right for you? Check out our picks of the best subwoofers below:

Tube vs box

So, what are the differences between a tube subwoofer and a box subwoofer? While they’re both designed to carry out the same job, they both have their own strong attributes and their weak ones. Based on sound quality, box subwoofers are generally considered to be better than tube subs as they’re more effective at containing the airways to produce a more precise sound overall. If it’s a tight bass sound that you’re after, the enclosed design of a sub-box will restrict airflow in or out of the unit, ensuring greater clarity of the audio.

Conversely, a subwoofer tube will provide a much more boomy bass tone – not great for picking up on delicate musical nuances but fantastic for carefree Wayne’s World-style headbanging. If you want to turn your car into a rolling party station, a sub-tube would make a great choice.

Beyond the quality of the output, however, box subwoofers are usually more expensive than tube subs while bigger, more cumbersome, and more power-hungry. Historically, most box subs were also sold as passive speakers, meaning they required additional amplification to work. Today, many box subs, including some of the examples on this list, come equipped with built-in amplifiers to save the extra weight. Having said that, they’re still usually less portable than their tube subwoofer counterparts.

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