Subwoofer Review - JL Audio 8W7
May 25, 2004
By Paul Sonoda
MSRP $399
Who ever said great things come in small packages must have had a conversation with JL Audio. While other companies are seeing how big they can make subwoofers, JL Audio decided to include an 8 inch woofer in the flagship line. My inside sources told me the 8 inch woofer almost did not exist. It was too small, too expensive. People want 10s and 12s these days. I was curious about what this “little” woofer had to offer. The JL Audio 8W7 would forever change my perception of little woofers.
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topFirst Look
The JL Audio 8W7 is a single voice coil, 3 ohm subwoofer. The cone is black plastic dish with a cool “W7” logo. When you first look at this subwoofer, you realize that it is something different and special. The most obvious are the dimensions. They are almost square. Even the 2.25 inch voice coil is out of the ordinary. From the front of the woofer you realize something is missing: the mounting flange. It’s hidden behind the oversized large surround.
Closer Look
Nine patents. In the world of “me too” engineering, JL Audio’s 8W7 has nine things unique enough to be granted patents. (Eight application patents and one design patent) The most obvious is the OverRoll™ surround (U.S. Patent #5,687,247 and #5,949,898). In most “large roll surround” woofers, the actual cone area is reduced to accommodate the huge surround. In the 8W7, the surround actually goes over the mounting flange right to the edge of the basket. The result is more cone area for a given size basket. The rest of the patents can be grouped into two different areas: structural reinforcement and thermal stability. Patents #6,496,590, #6,501,844 and #6,118,884 refer to the cone and spider assemblies and accounts for the excellent control the 8W7 has over its massive linear excursion (1.5 inches peak to peak linear excursion to be exact). Patents #6,243,479, #D472, 891, #6,219,431 and #6,229,902 refer to the pole piece and basket which maximizes the thermal power handling by directing cool air more effectively and efficiently over the voice coil. Detailed information about all the patents is available on the JL website.
Manuals/Web Support
The documentation between the website, http://www.jlaudio.com, and the owner’s manual is one of the best I have every seen. Not only did the owner’s manual provided technical information, well illustrated enclosure recommendations and an easy to understand power handling reference chart, it also had amplifier recommendation. (JL amps of course!) It even illustrated how to adjust the amplifiers to extract the maximum safe performance from the JL Audio 8W7. The only gripe I have about the owner’s manual is the description of the grille needed. It had a typo regarding the grille height clearance recommending of 25mm for the grille. (1 inch for us Yankees) The inches documentation was a more believable at 2.3125 inches. The website was easy to navigate and contained even more information than the manual. It not only described, in detail, the features of the woofer, it also has the owner’s manual available for download.
Next: Installation
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