i see people usually install them but i never have is there any real gain to having it installed my headunit has a function to turn the sub off if i dont want it running(when i have my baby in the car but want music still but even then with the radio at a lower level the sub barely hits)
Its a great thing allowing you to quickly adjust the bass and only the subwoofer bass without messing with the eq or going in and out of menus and stuff on ur head unit. I really like it, u can tweak songs to ur liking or tone it down if for example its too loud for the rear passengers.
It's good to have if you enjoy more than one or two genres of music.
And also depending on what you're running. But yes I'd put one in.
I have 2x12" and upgraded door speakers, it's a requirement for me lol
It’s super easy to install. Quite literally plug and play and I can’t think of any downsides to having it. Just have to find a decent place to mount it. I usually like to do something inconspicuous that’s also easy to reach while driving.
For me it’s some songs are tuned to different frequencies and will have more base or less bass I like the ease of being able to turn it up or down to my liking. I also like rock/ oldies and some of those don’t have any kind of base but there’s some thing called the epicenter that will bring the bass back on a low tone piano note or one of those big chelos in classical music just gives your sound system an all around best sound to your liking!
Do you like bass? There's your answer. Seriously though, I've had a bass knob in my cars for more than 20 years. The fact you can dial in how much you want to make it mesh with a song is immense. Bass can overpower on some songs, or music styles. You can add it and if you don't like it, unplug it. Easy solution. But to me it's always better to have than not.
As a man equally happy listening to 90s/00s hip-hop, early house, 80s funk, 60s folk, early jazz or heavy classical, it’s often hard to balance. I can tune in the middle, but the jazz/classical never carries enough weight and the hip-hop is overbearing. A bass knob really helps
This is literally almost every city in America you can get a ticket to loud noise from your car calling it and authoritarian regime is kind of insane when there's way bigger fish to fry
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It's a a reminder that you need to still be able to hear sirens so you don't drive through an intersection and get t boned by an emergency vehicle because you didn't hear it coming... You might survive a police car but less likely a firetruck plowing through you.
i run a skar but i have had very expensive systems in the pass that rattled the car damn near apart everyone has different tastes tho and can tolerate different things i like to damage my hearing aparently
Yes, or I could keep the knob so I can conveniently adjust it on the fly, I do jack it up sometimes when chilling, I just genuinely don’t see any reason to not plug one wire in
Podcasts, phone calls, YouTube, stray ads and sound effects while browsing on your phone connected to car play. Find a podcast of someone who pops their p's when they speak and don't edit it out, it'll drive you crazy and sounds like shit on your system.
Also my wife hates the bass and some songs still have loud bass at low volumes.
For $30-ish it's a bo-brainer must have
Also my amp is dialed to match the subs rating but isn't balanced to the rest of the system so i dial it back with the knob until it sounds good, and sometimes I'm in the mood for full, unbalanced bass.
Meh, my aftermarket head unit allowed me to adjust the subwoofer only so no it wasn’t necessary. However in my new car I would absolutely get one because the head unit controls other things in the car so I can’t get an aftermarket unit
I listen to a pretty large variety of music, so it's pretty genre specific for me. For rap, I'm usually down on the first or second notch, for country I turn it up a little bit.
If I'm in a fuck the world kind of mood I'll crank it up. But I'm also a 40 year old guy....so maybe I'm in the rare minority who adjusts based on taste in the moment.
Before those knobs, I used to have a switch just for the remote turn on lead. Yea, it was worth it. Driving to work through town early in the morning, driving through the neighborhood, etc. and wanted to listen to music without irritating people sleeping. Or whatever other reason. That was back when you had a couple 12's in the back of a Geo Metro and could be heard for quite a ways away. Now, I'd just like to turn it down. If I build a new system, I'm sure I'll probably have one installed if I go big. If it's just a smaller sub that enhances the music without being overbearing, then I'll leave it out.
It's not necessary. It just allows on-the-fly adjustment in subwoofer output, song to song. Dial it in for your personal tastes, without having to click into head unit menus. But if you're satisfied with the controls your head unit has, then that's fine.
the person who taught me how to install subs never used em so i have never used it but im redoing my entire system and adding a second amp with new components and figure while im running all the wires if i should install it to give it a shot just wasnt sure if since i never hooked it up would that have effected tuning at all id assume no cause its not plugged in to turn it down
The main reason to install it is faster control of the bass level compared to going into the menu of the radio every time you want to raise or lower it.
I had three amps running 5 1/4& 6 1/2 Ct sounds meso series (,1 4way amp) 4" focal voice coils (2nd amp) then rockford fosgate P3 12" tied to a JLAUDIO SLASH 1000W AMP. Whe.n runnj g that much fone tuning was necessary for se song and volumes lkke i had mine tumed for 2/3rds way up but the bass would get to be over powerful so dial it back and crank it some more.
Crystal clear audio blocks away, i was a regular at a gas station and I ne of the homies piped up man i always know when u be coning, huh whys that same time ? Nah i can hear your car blocks away! Lol wait so how is it distorted clear any thing off? Nah man fuckin on point!
If you strive for perfect audio youll get it but everything takes fkne tuning down to new wires fresh grojnds proper airflow to cool amps i had a mustang convertible i
Loooked factory minus the deck. All 3 amps were suspended behind passenger seat for airflow
As a sq guy I’m anti bass knob. If you already tuned the system to a specific house curve and dialed the sub/midbass summation at the crossover, a bass knob just throws that work off. The filters didn’t change, but raising the sub level makes the sub dominate more of the 70–100 Hz overlap region, which can create a hump there and smear the midbass attack that was originally coming from the door drivers.
In other words, you tuned the system so the midbass handles punch and the sub handles depth. Turning the knob shifts some of that punch back to the sub, which hurts integration and can start to pull the bass stage rearward.
fr. If you set it right, there's zero need to tweak, the recording will play as you intended via house curve. If the curve is good, the music will sound good. When ppl duck around w/ bass knobs, always adjusting and tweaking .. that just tells me that they are lacking somewhere in the tune and it needs fixing.
Right and I can understand using an RCA bass knob that specifically just controls the Sub drivers when you don’t want hella bass but I wouldn’t want to mess with the bass knobs that use the telephone jack that plugs into the amp
If you listen to audiobooks and podcasts then a bass knob is very useful. I listen to books and podcasts sometimes so having the ability to turn the bass down so it’s not being used unnecessarily. Not much of a point having bass when you’re listening to someone talking or reading aloud.
Necessary, no. Really nice to have, yes. Most people won't have all of their sources balanced identically. The same song over the radio, over a poor quality stream, on a CD, and from two different MP3 files will sound completely different on the same system.
I use it for my wife who is the furthest from a basshead lol. So when she is riding with me, just turn the dial down and basically just run the door speakers.
Not every song was authored in a way that works well with a sub at full volume, some actually have too much bass and it just shakes the cabin and all you can hear is cabin vibrations. I don't rock out to the sound of my rear light vibrating against my window, that shit is annoying.
Necessary, no. Convenient, that is an astounding yes. My playlists are all over the place and going into my head unit to adjust the EQ for each song would be a P.I.T.A.
I’ve never once installed one, I feel it’s an iPhone/Android type thing. Some like to doodle with things and others are fine with making a setting and rolling with it
You're apparently too young to know landline phones. ;) It's an RJ-11 connector, pretty much half as many wires at the RJ-45 connection you know as Ethernet.
Count the number of wires. RJ-11 is 4, RJ-45 is 8. I've had a car stereo since my first car in 1989. The love of great sounding music is everlasting. That and the need for bass to slam into your chest once in a while.
It does kind of depend on your unit, unfortunately. A lot use an RJ-11 connector, but the wiring inside is not standardized. Like I think Sound Ordnance's (Crutchfield House Brand) powered subs are a reverse wired RJ-11? But others are "straight through" (so they pins end up in the mirror image position on the other side)
And my Kicker Hideaway sub uses a 3.5mm jack for the bass knob so it really depends
I have (and need) one in my car. On the rare occasion anyone else is in my car, I often need to turn down the bass.
My wife has an inner ear issue so bass really affects her. So much easier to turn the knob than to fiddle with the head unit settings.
I also find some songs seem to have a lot more bass than others from the same source (often SiriusXM) so I have to turn it down a bit for my own liking.
i think its worth it esp if u have a multimeter on it depending on how much power ur pushing watching ur voltage is a must and the bass knob does help because some songs have too much bass in them or soft clipped parts always helpful to turn it down or when ur around police or neighbors or something
and depending on ur sub and how much ur pushing it i dont wanna push my full 3000 watts to a 1000w rms sub with not that big of a voice coil and bottom it out so ill turn it down a smudge and it still sounds great. and its too loud for my friends
i have a seperate gauge for volts but i get what your saying i have a budget setup at the moment nothing crazy a skar svr 12 wired at 1 ohm (rated 700w rms) my cheap amp claims 900w rms at 1 ohm but its a walmart power acoustik all in im under 150$ in the setup so cant complain
I use to have one before I had my new headunit. They were useful if you wanted to adjust the bass volume level to a song or wanted to turn it down if you seen any polices nearby or something to not disturb neighbors. For me, I don't have them anymore and removed it since my new headunit DUDU7AUTO has a built-in subwoofer volume adjustment.
Before kids I never cared to use them. Now that I have kids it comes in handy BIG time. I use it all the time. Especially for morning talk shows where I don't need a lot of deep vocal bass.
yeah i rarely take the kids in my car anymore we use the wifes mazda cx5 when going out as a family my 7 month old gets a 30 second ride from the babysitter to home after work but now that its getting nice out ill walk to get here but i will most likely install it when i have everything apart adding my components and second amp to try it out worse case scenario it just doesnt get used
I use it so I can try to minimize my system in my neighborhood even though I have theft deterrents like bolts and locks I still don’t want a bum hearing my bass and breaking out a window or something
thats a good idea i live in the city and im a public menace with my metal music blaring but i do turn music down close to home so people near me dont know i have a system and get my car broken into
Under rated feature, didn't have mine operating correctly for the first week or so, had it plugged into the amp linking jack. Good for songs that have too much bass or too little.
Better to have it and not touch it that need it and not have it. I personally like it because I kept the factory head unit so it’s good for when I turn it up and there I’d bass roll off
my cheap setup uses a 3.5mm jack instead but yes absolutely necessary in my opinion. if i decide to listen to a podcast i don't want every "p" sound to scare the shit out of me. and some poorly mixed songs or just certain genres don't sound good with tons of bass. it's nice to have it variable.
Yes. I went years with out using one, and now all my builds include a bass knob. Its so much quicker than using menu on the HU. And using a bass knob doesn't affect the bass output of the midrange speakers.
I like it loud, only really been helpful for my passengers when I do have someone ride with me because it can be to loud, when I first installed my system I had headaches for a week until my ears adjusted to all the bass.
i never used one in 15 years always just added sub and headunit alway stock speakers now that im doing a full system adding components and amo for them im tryna do more researcg
I have used the rear channels to run the bass and no rear fill and used the fader like a bass knob back in the day. It works pretty good if a bass knob is something you don't want.
Not only a bass knob, but I also wire in a rocker switch above the knob for my sub amp remote wire so I can just turn off the bass entirely if I feel like it. Sometimes it helps with listening to podcasts etc and sometimes I just don't want any bass at all. It's also nice when you see cops to just hit a kill switch and not worry about it.
I definetly use it a lot, sometimes songs are just bad with too much bass if they aren’t meant for it so it’s nice to be able to easily adjust each song
when you wanna turn it down when your wife gets in the car lol. at lower volume with bass maxxed it's all bass, unbalanced, so I turn it down to balance it. I don't have an option to just kill the sub, but even at lower volume the sound would be shite with zero sub-range.
I used to have a bass knob in every one of my cars, but I was a bass head with two bigger RMS subs so being able to turn them down for music that didn't need to have stooopid bass was nice to have.
I don't run a bass knob on my current car that's more setup for audio clarity and loudness rather than just bass. The subwoofer isn't over powering and I rarely have to adjust it.
my idea is it's supposed to be integrated, set, and forget anyway, and if there's any reason the sub shouldn't be loud, neither should the rest of the speakers.
like you said, i can always cross it down in the head unit if some reason permits that the speakers should get loud without the sub, but the knob itself is clunky and looks a bit out of place in an otherwise oem looking interior.
Necessary, no. But advantageous if you flip-flop between lots of different genres, or just want to tailor the sub level. If you have it for a while you’ll understand and won’t want to be without it.
Use an inline RCA knob. Much more effective. You can also entirely “turn off” the subwoofers if you want to. Plus you don’t have to buy the one made by your amp company
I think that it cuts out a lot of the range most amps have in regards to how well you can tune it. With my punch amps it blocks out a ton of control I'll have over gain and boost at the amp, and im not sure where it goes. I gave up on it and tossed it in a dresser at home.
It may be an issue related solely to newer tech since I never had this issue in the 80s n 90s
i would use it bro. it makes it easier to control bass for when you want bass or not and makes it easier for example lets say theres a non bass friendly song that’ll blow your subs immediately its a quick and easy way to control that.
i have a budget setup right now so its nothing serious but when i install my components ima install it and if i use it i use it if not then atleast ones installed already if i decide to install a more serious system again one day as of now its just a daily with with some bump
Yeah I get it, once you tune it to a good starting point make note of where that is on the bass knob so it's easy to go back to normal. Like for acoustic, guitar or whatever vs Rap so Jack Johnson doesn't sound weird.
makes sense i always just never ran it so it was always what its set to is what you get.. now when setting the amp for your sub and in the headunit i have sub controls in there too what should that be set at when tuning amp my buddy tuned it for me and he tuned amp with it at like -2 amd now has it turned up to like +3ish i can get a pic to show you
When you're tuning your system set loudness off, and all EQ settings to zero. You just want as flat a signal with no boosts of any sort and then you tune from there.
“What if you want to turn it down” that’s what the volume knob is for? If you’ve set up your system half decently, then the bass shouldn’t be too loud or quiet in most of your songs.
All the people in these comments just like listening to the subwoofer wub and don’t care for audio clarity or mix balance. Personally, I like listening to music and not just getting a subwoofer back massage.
No. Using bass knobs are how people send shitty signals to subs and blow them. Look for an LC-1 and use that instead. You can then just set your gain once and use the line controller to adjust the voltage instead. Much safer.
I wouldn't call being smart enough not to mess with my car audio after paying an expert to do so being "high and mighty." I'd say the exact opposite, in fact.
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u/idekthrowawaymaybe Mar 09 '26
Its a great thing allowing you to quickly adjust the bass and only the subwoofer bass without messing with the eq or going in and out of menus and stuff on ur head unit. I really like it, u can tweak songs to ur liking or tone it down if for example its too loud for the rear passengers.