MTX Audio T812S-44 Square Subwoofer

Supplied with the MTX enclosure especially made to go with this woofer, called the Sledgehammer MTX SLH 12SU (that costs £109.99) this is not a cheapo or low performance-aimed product. The slot vented box is well made and has internal support for the back of the speaker driver as it is so heavy duty just like on the mad first Jackhammer install on the Pimp My Ride show. It also features embroidery, a smooth carpeted finish and some painted surfaces for the air to flow around the big slot port. This is the real-world product of the second generation square, as against round Jackhammer speaker made a year back or so.
Whereas the BIG one is a 24 inch square, this one is twelve inches along the side and costs a lot less than thousands of Dollars! As well as selling the ready-made optimum enclosures with the cool Sledgehammer branding, the manual the subwoofer arrives with also features instructions for both sealed and ported enclosures for self builders, complete with parts lists.
MTX feature both round and square woofers in both 6000 and 8000 series in both dual 4 Ohm and dual 2 Ohm coil configurations with this 8000 series being the top end before you go Jackhammer-crazy! This is a rugged-looking heavy duty driver with a bizarrely high efficiency rating as a square cone provides more surface area than a round one and this is directly proportional to Sound Pressure Level. (It’s also a little bit of what’s going on with oval speakers and their extra surface area, so why youngsters love oval six by nines.)
The subwoofer was wired to show a single two ohm load to the resident reference bass amplifier, a JBL GTO 24001, by running the voice coils in parallel, although the manual shows three hook ups each for both single or dual woofer installations.
– Frequency response: Not quoted
– Power Handling: 750w RMS 1,400w max
– Glass fibre Stitched cone
– Large Butyl square rubber surround
– US Patent #7,275,620 on square surround
– MTX Die cast Aluminium chassis
– Tinsel leads woven into spider
– ALDS or Asymmetrical Linear Drive System for cone travel linearity
– Dual 4 Ohm voice coils (also available in dual 2 Ohm)
– Dual sets of spring loaded ‘StreetWires’ speaker terminals
– 220 degrees hi temp type Voice Coil
– Mounting depth 224mm
– Triple stacked magnet
– Efficiency: 93.6dB 1w/1M
– Xmax 20mm
– Fms: 31.95Hz
– Qes: 0.88
– Qms: 8.12
– Qts: 0.79
– Vas: 60.16 Litres
Review by Adam Rayner
I did a Clarkson-with-the-Bentley with this poor speaker. I spanked it. I gave it beans. I soaked it’s poor pair of 375-watt-each voice coils in an utter hell bath of some thousand watts each. I’m actually a bit embarrassed now to admit it. They are supposed to add up to a top RMS of 750 watts for the whole driver – which is impressive – and cope with peaks of 1,400w. It’d have been more than a kilowatt per coil but I was hovering around twelve, not fourteen volts as that wattage would have been the 2,400 number of the JBL GTO24001 amplifier’s actual real output. It’s why it is the Talk Audio Magazine reference bass amplifier.
To start with I wasn’t a total hooligan, I played the Focal Spirit Of Sound #6 disc as ever and took some time to set the woofer up on the reasonably clever crossovery and filter settings on the amplifier and played some decent tunes through it. Immediately you could tell that the clever square patented surround was going ideally to need some few hours of rugged play to soften it up or run it in. the sound was full but you could hear the cone almost not wanting to do the most lush parts of the bass notes at this initial low volume.
Nevertheless, the combination of this ported box and the driver was tight and seemed to be tuned to drop to a deep note if asked for one. The third track on this disc uses the bass line as the main melody and the sub tracked it pretty well.
Although it was a bit like a rugby player dancing. Not a lot of finesse.
Then I gave it some more level with another track on the same posh-o-phile disc and it all woke up. You have to admire the two year old and much abused Odyssey battery we use. It still holds a good power lump for heavy 2 Ohm suckage by a two kilowatt amplifier and the only reason I eventually eased off in the end was the familiar smell of hot adhesive on a voice coil system being asked to do a bit more than it had aughta!
You could also get that the square shape allowed a mad amount of efficiency. Even at low levels the bass system could hold a big fat heavy bass note and KEEP that air shifting around without strain. That big old glssfibre dished-in square cone is much more than a normal round twelve for surface area, so it seems fabulously efficient.
But it wasn’t really enjoying being ponced about with, so I got out my favourite bass CD. More Bass More Boom, More Bottom, by Power Supply on Pandisc. Being a ported box and with a new not-run-in woofer, I found that there were some notes it didn’t seem to like much and then there were some it loved. In fact it ate the whole of the scary track six test section and then launched off into the bizarre low dropping melody after it.
This was more like it and I think what the woofer was born for. It gripped and throbbed and it came over as being one hell of a speaker for aggressive dance, techno and hardcore. It may not be the ultimate deep tone dropper in the ported box but it played with the ridiculous over powering and it was only when I smelled the glue getting hot, that I backed off. Sort of like smoking the tyres of press car, really.
But the point is this is an expensive set of bass kit and the reason is that it is both highly capable but also good looking to go with its high performance.
I loved it and reckon it’s an interesting and unusual way to get more actual material bass from every watt than many options. I know there are some enormous watt houses out there but what ever power you do have you want to know that it’ll be made best use of by the cunning of your bass array and this subwoofer is as efficient as a porn star fluffer at raising the Gallant Reflex.
It might not make you hard but if you are hard core, then the MTX Thunder 8000 Square subwoofer is too. Heartily Recommended by Talk Audio.
Sound Quality 8.0
Build Quality 9.0
Power Handling 9.0
Efficiency 10.0
Value For Money 8.0
Overall rating 8.8