15" Low Rider Subwoofer

I really wanted to like the woofer, the stiffness and the Xmax for my application is perfect plus I have never had a speaker that you can “fix” by replacing the basket before. The reason for the very low score is simply noise caused by using cheap glue. I test all my speakers before doing a final install and the point of Xmax is to let the user know how far it is designed to move with very low distortion being added by mechanical limitations. These speakers (all three of them, just some are worse than others and one was a replacement) all make a clicking noise when the cone is moving as little as 1 mm, my curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to see what was causing the noise, the answer is cheap hot-glue gun style adhesive mounting the edge of the cone to the basket. I was able to eliminate most of the clicking noises by looking at the back side of the speaker where the cone and the basket meet and using low power low frequency tones I looked for where the glue balls were touching the cone as the cone moved back and forth. This is unacceptable and really the only point to a woofer / subwoofer is for the cone to move without making unnatural noises. My thoughts are this is a really good design subwoofer but cheap parts in manufacturing made it unusable, something as simple as the wrong glue and it being applied incorrectly nets the same results, unusable.

This speaker looks like a heavy duty monster. The magnet and bumped backplate look super heavy duty. The entire build of this speaker looks amazing. Then I loaded it in a 4.5' vented 35Hz cab. What a let dowm. This speaker had some of the worst cone flapping noise I have ever heard. The paper cone is just far too thin and flimsey to create sub bass at power levels above 250 - 300 watts. Any freq below 35 was too much for the outter edges of the cone. The speaker worked "ok" as a general woofer if used in a 3 way cab, but in no way is this a high power SUB. I run 2 JBL 15" with horn PA cabs for full range. They create good bass to about 50Hz and very pounding around 100Hz. I needed a true sub to cover the 80HZ and below. The Peavey speaker was not even able to add ANY bass to the configuration. Through a active x-over at 60HZ with a low cut filter at 30HZ and a U.S.A. Crown Microtech 1200, the peavey was not even able to accept 1 channel at full power. No amp clipping at all! Just pure nasty CONE FLAPPING NOISE !!The Voice Ciol would probably take the full bridged power since it didnt even make the driver warm at half power ( 1 channel) but the weak cone is the weak link in this driver. I cant tell you what driver to buy, but I can tell you I would NOT suggest buying this one.

So I am gonna write an honest review here. The speaker itself looks really nice. The frame is built well, the spider is nice and woofer is nice. However as I do with all my speakers, I test the flex ability of the woofer material. The woofer seemed a bit flimsy itself after moving it with my fingers, I prefer the woofer stiff to avoid speaker farting and any unnecessary harmonic flapping, however too stiff isn't good either, so something in the middle is good. So I suspected that once I plugged this in at very high levels that the speaker would flap a bit. I was right. However the speaker itself at lower volumes sounds good, lots of kick to it, low end is decent. I have four of its bigger brothers, the lo rider 18". This speaker is a beast and you can really nail them. These 15s not so much, They just seemed to lack when you really gave it to them. I got two of these and the tinsel leads actually broke on one(the ground wire lead) which I read in some reviews with other lo riders, like the 18s. I have not had that problem with 18s but seemed to be more of a problem with the 15s. On a another note I contacted amazon's amazing customer service and they refunded my purchase and I didn't even need to return it which was awesome. I did not buy the same brand the second time, instead I got a speaker from PRV audio. Now these speakers had what I was looking for. Build quality was better and cone material stiffness was better. You can really push those woofers and they sound better. They can also handle same power and are more efficient as they have a higher sensitivity, and they are a bit cheaper. So on a side note, these are decent speakers that provide decent quality of sound, but don't push them over their rms limit as they don't like it. The 18" lo riders I pump 2500 watts through them(obviously not continuously) and I have had them for a couple years now and they perform great. If your not gonna put more than 1600 watts which is rms through these speakers they will do great, but any higher and they start to flap a bit. I have been in this business for awhile now so speaker build quality, sound quality and abuse standards are what I look at in speakers these days.

specs as described good product good sounding woofer.