this is the new woofer introduced by kenwood. i wanted to try somthing new in the entry line cat. therefore i made no delay in checking how these bad boys sounded.
1) Physical
physically, the sub looks very solid. it is slightly bigger then pionner 308. i had to alter the cut hole a bit to fit these in.
it has two cones which are sandwitched together. same type of technology can be found in woofers like alpine type R , etc.
the rear is totally packed which would make it very difficult to pass out heat.... a typical entry level problem.
some pic to compare with the king of entry level sub.... pioneer 308
2)Connection/coils
this sub comes in both d4 and single coils. Alot of ppl would tell u single coil is useless and dvc is better... plz boys dont listen to them. it all depends on the application and the amp. the single coil kenwood 3012 will be same sounding as the kenwood dvc 3012.
i brought the single coil model because 4 would give me an ohms load of 1 ohms. however, ppl seeking to run it on a 2 channel amp or a mono 1 ohms load, would be better off getting the dvc model.
3)test
having heard pioneer 4 308d2, this woofer really had to perform to live up to my mark....... and yes it did!! having calculated the box tuning, the box initially tuned for pioneers (35hz) came down to (34.5hz). not much of a difference....
the sensitivity on kenwoods are 89db , whereas pioneers are rated at 96db.... but i felt the otherway round. with all the settings same, the kenwoods looked to be louder then pioneers at volume 13 ( my setup)
which shows tht either the sensitivity of the kenwood is higher or the rms rating on the sub is lower.
however, at higher volumes, both the kenwood and the pioneers sounded the same! there might be very little difference which could be because of the tuning of enclosure or the break in period of the woofer.
the woofer hits the highs and also picks up the lows .
Conclusion
i can safely recommend these subs to anyone who is trying to buy a good budget system. for many years, pioneer has ruled over the entry level cat. with no competition to it. however, now its time to make way for the kenwoods. these subs have real potential.