Orion BP-HP12D2 - Bass Depot

Orion built a lasting reputation in car audio on a single premise - power. Even though the company has gone through its fair share of acquisitions and dozens of engineers, the "power" principle has remained the foundation for their products. Now with corporate parent DEI behind them, Orion is looking to bring even more attitude and harder-hitting products to market. To give us a taste of their latest goods, Orion sent me the BP-HP12D2 subwoofer system to beat up.

ORION BP-HP12D
MSRP: $329

The BP-HP12D2 uses of a single 12" subwoofer in a fair-sized vented enclosure. It's nicely constructed of 18mm MDF throughout, including the many septums that make up the extremely long port. The outside of its large rectangular shape is covered in black ozite carpet, and the bare insides of the vent are painted black. Unlike most enclosures that have their woofer mounted to the face (long side of the enclosure), Orion chose to place theirs on the side. The baffle for the subwoofer is angled, inset so that its face is slightly tucked in. To make this aesthetically pleasing, the sub is flushed-in by an 18mm MDF trim panel painted metallic silver. This panel bolts in over the baffle and hides the mounting screws of the woofer. To the inside, the baffle and trim panel terminate at the tuning port. This close proximity should allow port and sub to couple, limiting the possibility of wave cancellation and therefore improving output.

I pulled the woofer out of its enclosure only to find that it is an off-the-shelf Orion HP 12D2 (minus its stylish rubber mounting gasket). And that's a good thing. To start, this sub uses a nicely finished die-cast aluminum basket, with machine-turned edges on its legs that add nice detail to the satin black finish. The frame also uses built-in standoffs for the two sets of nickel-plated push terminals and a large ventilated area below the spider. Out front, the silver metalized injection-molded, polypropylene cone is offset by a detailed black dust cap with a raised, chrome-plated Orion logo in the center. The outer edge of the cone is attached to the frame via an NBR rubber roll. To motivate the cone, the sub uses an "Open Loop" motor consisting of a vented hybrid magnet structure and 2 11/42" voice coil. This "Open Loop" design improves cooling by using forced convection, dramatically increasing airflow through the speaker's mechanical parts, thus effectively helping the woofer sustain lower operating temperatures under high SPL situations.

In the manual department, Orion gets two thumbs up for at least including one. By no means are its contents going to "wow" anyone, but it does provide the all-important wire diagram and specification chart. Beyond that, I found the installation guide a bit humorous with common sense statements such as, "Place the speaker assembly in your vehicle," and, "Common placement will normally be the trunk, back seat, or back of a van." The warranty, located on the back of the manual, is one year if consumer installed and two years if installed by an authorized dealer.