Master installer Patrick Holdaway of Speaker Works fame installed the LFT12 into one of our test enclosures and wired the dual 4-ohm coils in parallel to present a 2-ohm final load to the amplifiers. The LFT12 uses a standard cutout size for 12-inch subwoofers, enabling consumers to buy most pre-made enclosures, as long as the enclosure can accept a subwoofer of 7.10 inches in depth. Because the LFT12 is so deep, and the fact that the magnet is a pie tin-like diameter of 6.8 inches, I wouldn't expect to see this subwoofer installed behind the seat of many pickup truck seats. Instead, consumers purchasing this sub would be installing it in a hatchback, trunk, or SUV's rear storage area.
I hooked up the sub to my daily driver, the mighty Ford F-350, and gave it some time to "break in" before getting serious about listening to it. Strapped together as one amplifier, two Crossfire VR1000d's powered the sub. These two amps running into the 2-ohm load will produce well over 2,000 watts of RMS power. I defeated the amplifiers' crossovers (by setting them to their highest position) and bypassed their subsonic filters. Instead, I used the Alpine PXA-H701 processor installed in my truck to set levels and actively divide the frequency range to all of the speakers.
ListeningJazzDiana Krall Love ScenesAfter about four hours of hard break-in time, the LFT12-D4 was ready to go. My longtime favorite testing album, Diana Krall's Love Scenes, was reproduced with surprising linearity and smoothness. The note shifts of the big acoustic bass were clear, defined, and precise. From the lowest notes and on up the scale, the LFT12 replayed Krall's tracks with a uniformity in loudness that was impressively accurate. String plucks were fast and taut. The bass information, drum kit, and acoustic bass all imaged in the front of the vehicle with no pull to the rear of the soundstage. Score: 7/10
RockSwitchfoot Beautiful LetdownSo how does it do with synthesized bass with layers? To this end, I swapped in Switchfoot's 5.1 Dolby Digital mix of "This Is Your Life" from their Beautiful Letdown album. This track opens with a loud drop bass note and the LFT-12 pumped it out. The heavily layered bass content on "Gone" and "Dare You To Move" came through clear and snappy. The bass guitar and drums stayed distinct and clearly definable in timbre.Score: 8/10
InstrumentalFocal "Boxenkiller"Next, I put in a really fun track, "Boxenkiller," from one of the Focal test discs. It's an amazing duet between the full drum kit and bass guitar of Cyrill Lutzelschwaband Martin Hess. The LFT12 played back all the fun in this track totally intact. The full drum kit was up front in the soundstage, and the toms and kick drums were punchy and tight. The bass plucks were fast and well defined. Both instruments remained detailed and individual throughout the entire presentation. Very fun indeed!Score: 8/10
ElectronicYello "Resistor"Normally, I don't listen to Eurotrance but I did for this test. The opening 12 bars of Yello's "Resistor" feature an open pipe organ that goes very, very low. On these really low notes, the LFT-12 didn't give me back the full output level I expected. On the rest of the track, where the trance part kicks in, with a bass line that is repeated over and over and ver again, the Realm was just like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going.Score: 6.5/10