The King of Bass is Dead, Long Live the New King
Well guys, the results are in. Comparable testing of the W15GTI vs a 2205 recently remagnetized and reconed (in Dec 2005) as a 2235 show the W15GTI the clear and present winner in the reproduction of bass. Furthermore, the W15GTI has a more extended high end.
Both speakers are in the same enclosures and there is no reason that the results wouldn't be directly comparable.
It is also interesting to note that the W15GTI has a nice "hump" at 60 Hz whereas at that point the 2235 is starting to loose ground. From my experience with WinISD, I recognize that with the W15GTI, this hump could easily be smoothed out by further lowering the tuning of the cabinet which would further help the W15GTI go lower, and flatter.
Sorry that the format is a little hard to read. It's the fault of the web site tha twill not let me space the values, even though I've added blanks between them. If anyone would like to see the data, I have it in an excel sheet.
Frequency W15GTI 2235 Difference
Hz dBL dBL dBL
1500 91.9 84.5 7.4
1450 93.7 78.9 14.8
1400 95.6 87.9 7.7
1300 96.4 89.2 7.2
1200 98.8 90.5 8.3
1100 97.9 94.2 3.7
1000 92.3 101.4 -9.1
950 93.1 101.8 -8.7
900 95.3 101.9 -6.5
850 98.1 99.0 -0.9
800 103.0 98.3 4.7
750 101.2 98.7 2.5
700 100.0 96.6 3.4
650 99.1 98.2 0.9
600 98.7 99.1 -0.4
550 98.1 100.8 -2.7
500 98.8 100.1 -1.3
450 98.8 99.3 -0.5
400 97.9 99.6 -1.7
350 99.0 98.9 0.1
300 99.2 99.8 -0.6
250 100.2 100.0 0.2
200 100.0 100.0 0.0
180 100.0 100.0 0.0
160 99.8 100.5 -0.7
140 99.5 100.3 -0.9
120 101.5 101.4 0.1
100 101.3 100.7 0.6
90 101.6 101.8 -0.3
80 102.3 101.5 0.8
70 103.1 101.6 1.5
60 104.3 100.9 3.4
50 103.8 99.5 4.3
45 101.0 96.9 4.1
40 98.0 90.4 7.6
35 97.0 89.7 7.3
30 96.4 89.6 6.8
25 95.4 90.4 5.0
20 93.4 89.3 4.0
http://www.largescaleonline.com/eima...235-w15gti.jpg
Not your typical subwoofer
In the car audio world, "woofers" are almost nonexistent. The nomenclature almost excludes them by definition. If you peruse JBL's car audio pages, the largest "woofers" are either the 6.5" diameter drivers as part of coax or triax or component systems, or 6"x9" woofers in coax or triax designs. Anything that's 8" or bigger is a "subwoofer."
So the naming conventions must be considered.
As such, the W15GTI is listed as one of the largest subwoofers, yet an examination of its characterisitics is instructive.
http://jbl.com/car/products/product_...at=SUB&ser=GTI
It's a sub that goes to 1kHz at the high end or down to 16 Hz at the low end. It'll handle 800W with 5000W peaks. To really get the measure of this beastie, plan on having a solid 500W just to warm it up.
As I wrote earlier, I'm not at all suprised it can whack the nuts off a 2235, and I think that given enough power it can beat the 2235 at both the low and the high end.
Now, whether you'd like the sound is another question. My opinion is that in a blind test, most people would pick the W15GTI, but in a sighted test, it'd probably lose, due in part to everyone knowing it's NOT a pro or high end consumer product--just a freaking low rider, ghetto blaster, ass-thumpin', tuner freak car speaker.
Really, it's so much more. :bouncy: