Energy Power 10 & Power 12 Subwoofers Preview

All true audioholics have run into the situation where a friend wants to know what gear to buy. They ask for your recommendation and you pull out your standards. These are products that overperform for their price tag. Some of them are such good deals, you can't understand why they aren't in every person's home. After laying out the performance, features, and how your recommendation dominates the market, you sit back to bask in glow of your friend's thanks. But instead you hear, "But I only wanted to pay..." a price that could barely buy an entry level model.

That's right, you've just wasted your time, again. And you know that your "friend" is going to go off telling everyone that you don't give "reasonable" recommendations and the product they picked up on the sale rack at Walmart was just as good.

It's the sort of thing that happens enough to use that we've learned to ask budget first. We can then tailor our recommendations. But, unfortunately, too often the budge is so unreasonable that we end up saying, "Just run out to Walmart and see what is on sale."

That's no longer the case for subwoofers.

Yes, if you ask us, subs can't be too big or too powerful. There also can't be too many in our home theaters. But we aren't everyone. And if you are on a budget, a really, really strict budget, finding a decent sub can be a problem. Energy Audio has an answer with their new Power series.

The Energy Power 12 and Power 10 are looking to put as much performance as they can in as inexpensive a package as possible. How inexpensive? The Power 10 retails for only $199 and the Power 12 retails for $299. Now those are numbers that even the cheapest of our friends can stomach.

Like most subs, the model numbers indicate the driver size. The Power 10 has a 10" front firing woofer with the Power 12 sporting a 12" driver. The enclosures constructed out of MDF and feature a rear-facing slot port. Normally, we'd shun any sub with rear-facing ports as they tend to make placement more difficult, but with budget models, it really doesn't matter. People only willing to shell out a few hundred on a sub are as likely to care about proper placement as they are to change the audio settings off "Rock Arena" on their receiver.

Other than driver size, enclosure size, and weight, the only main difference between the two subwoofers is amplifier power. The Energy Power 10 has a 50 watt amp (100 watts dynamic) and the Power 12 has a 75 watt amp (150 watts dynamic). Both the amps feature variable low pass filters, 0/180 phase switch, auto on modes, and line (RCA) and high level (spring type) inputs. For maximum compatibility, the Power series subs from Energy can accept 100-240V, 50/60Hz power and consumes only 1/2 watt on standby.

The real question, is performance. The smaller (12" H x 11.5" W x 14" D, 15lbs) Power 10 will hit down to a fairly modest 45Hz. It is rated by Energy +/-3dB up to 150Hz which is important considering what speakers this $200 sub is likely to be paired with. The Power 12 (14" H x 13.5" W x 16" D, 23lbs) is rated 10Hz lower to a much more respectable 35Hz and up to 120Hz for even more flexibility.

Conclusion

No, the performance numbers of the Energy Power 10 and Power 12 subwoofers won't blow you away. But these subs are not for you. With price tags at $199 and $299 respectively, the Energy Power 10 and Power 12 subs are squarely targeted at those on a budget that are looking to build their first systems. To those people, the new Energy Power subs are sure to impress both in how hard they hit and in how low their price point sits in the marketplace. While they won't make their way into the home theaters of seasoned audioholics, the new Energy Power subs have easily made our recommendation list.

For more information, please visit www.energy-speakers.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.