How would you like to be able to buy an affordable subwoofer? Say something that cost about $169.99? What if it had a brushed-aluminum-looking cone encircled by a mean-looking gasket and a butyl-rubber surround? Well, out in the market there appears to be a number of subwoofers available that fit that description, but most of them do not come anywhere near to sounding as good as they look. Many of these super-spiffy-looking subs sound really, really bad, so I was a little skeptical when my boss, Casey, assigned a $170 subwoofer to me. I thought "Not another chromed wonder woofer!" That was before Casey told me it was from Phoenix Gold. That brought back warm feelings of the Titanium Elite subwoofer I tested a few years ago and hope was born anew.
Installation
I called Errin Keeling at Phoenix Gold, who turns out to be the guy who did the final in-car listening and enclosure recommendations. So, Keeling would be the correct guy to ask questions to when it comes to this subwoofer. I asked him to give his recommendations on the proper size and type of enclosure for the very best in sound quality when using the RSd12. He recommended a 1.8ft3 sealed enclosure. He stressed that the RSd12 would work in any sealed enclosure that measured from 1.2ft3 to 2.0ft3. Many of you may be thinking, "Man that sub takes a BIG enclosure." And you would be correct, IF you believe it when the other subwoofer manufacturers tell you their 12" sub will work in a smaller enclosure.
Well, I'm here to tell you, I am constantly complaining during these listening tests of a humpy, non-uniform frequency response. The hump is from the enclosures being too small. Just about every subwoofer manufacturer is in a race to claim the smallest enclosure sizes. If you have read some of my past reviews, you may remember that on any number of tests, I have stopped and built a bigger enclosure to improve the sound of the test subject. I am very glad Phoenix Gold has gone with what I think are the correct enclosure sizes in their printed material and did not go with the poor-sounding, undersized air spaces that many of the other manufacturers have been pressured into recommending.
I had my guys at the Speaker Works bust out a 1.8ft3 sealed enclosure. I also tested the RSd12 in a 1.2ft3 enclosure, just to hear what it did in Phoenix Gold's minimum recommendation-I was highly impressed to say the least. The master installation group at Speaker Works liked the nice nickel-plated, spring-loaded, push-button terminals on opposite sides of the basket for the wire hookup and that it installs into a standard size cutout. This makes the RSd12 installer and DIY friendly because it fits easily into most pre-made enclosures.
To power the Phoenix Gold RSd12, I installed two Crossfire VR1000d amplifiers bridged together. These two amps running into the RSd12's single 4-ohm voice coil will produce well over 1,000 watts of power. I used the internal crossovers from the amplifiers and bypassed the subsonic filters. The front half of my reference speaker system consists of a pair of USD Audio B-72pro WaveGuide separates. I am powering these with a Zapco C2 K 6.0X amplifier at 150 watts per channel. The built-in highpass crossover filter was used to block bass from the component system. These amps are fed via Zapco's SymbiLink balanced line driver SLB-U. There are no other signal processors in the signal path.
Listening
I started off with Diana Krall's Love Scenes album. The RSd12 produced very clear note delineation. I was immediately impressed with how flat the frequency response was, from the very lowest notes all the way up the scale. There was no annoying upper bass hump that ruins the image location of the subwoofer and colors the sound quality. The big stand-up string bass was snappy, forceful and really energized the air within the listening vehicle.
Score: 8/10
Switching to the pop/R&B artist Usher, I played the song "Simple Things." Listening to this track, I found a renewed appreciation for how much I like larger subwoofers. Bigger is almost always better. Bigger subs reproduce the deep stuff with more authority than smaller subs. With the RSd12, I heard notes and details that I haven't heard since I tested the JL Audio 12W6 and the Stroker Pro 15". At low, medium and at high volumes, the RSd12 was unstressed and sounded wonderful.
Score: 8/10