Ok I have been tossing up replacing my two 12” Alpine ZR subs. I am after an SQ sub but still retaining lots of Bass. Now my budget (around $500) really only supports the purchase of either two lower range 12" subs or one mid range quality sub. I probably should stick with two 12" subs due to the size of my car (VX Commodore SS) but the rest of my setup is SQ so I think I can get away with one sub. I will be providing the sub 691 wrms from a Class D MTX Thunder 500D amp. These are my choices so far:

1. Pheonix Gold Ti 12D sub from the online store

2. JL Audio W3v2 12" sub

3. Focal Polykevlar 33k sub from a fellow forum user second hand but unused for $500.

4. Kicker square S12L7 sub

5. Two 12" JL Audio W0 subs

Now these will be complementing my existing Boston 6” rear fill speakers and front 6.5” Focal Polykevlar 165k splits.

What are peoples thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks

how bout Xtant X124 sub? heard one the other day but in a ported box, and was
even after only 1hr running in

out of those choices i would go either the PG or the jl 12w3d2

Unless you have problems with your ZRs I don't see why you'd even contemplate replacing them considering you only have $500 to play with. There's no way in hell you'll like reverting to just one woofer after using two ZRs.

Of those you've listed I have not had a chance to compare each one against the others back to back to fairly judge which offers the most accurate bass (which I doubt anyone else has either). All I can say is that JL Audio subs have generally always sounded very accurate when used in sealed enclosures throughout my years of reviewing them, and they've always finished up front of the pack for SQ. That's as close to a recommendation as I can give.

Damon Dupriez

...although that might depend on how happy you were with the ZR's, and how hard you were driving them. if for example, you had to have the gains down to avoid dominating subbass with the front splits, it suggests you are running 2x 12s at low levels. and instead, a single 12" may be more than enough, but running from more power.

500+WRMS is a lot of power, and would be ample to get a good quality sub pounding very hard IMO, without an lack of subbass. and given you are wanting SQ, i suspect you should be happy with a single 12".

on the other hand, if the ZR's are lacking coz they don't doof hard enough, then i also suspect you'd want to stick with 2 12s.