# Tang Band W5-1138SM 5.25"...sub.



## crux131 (Feb 27, 2007)

I bought 4 of these when Parts Express had their crazy 8's sale. I never got around to doing anything until this week.

1rst impression is of a pretty well built speaker. It looks like an underhung design, with a pretty wide rubber suround for a 5.25" woofer. These are pretty light weight. You could probably use these for a small room theater system, or a computer sub with no problems what so ever. I have sat the speaker on my television with no adverse effects, so it appears to be or act as a sheilded woofer. 

I used them for a subwoofer in a standard cab pick up. The enclosure was a sealed single chamber about 0.72 cu ft, with 2 woofers sharing the space. I have them down firing behind the pasenger seat in my freinds Toyota Tacoma( not a lot of room to work with ). I powered them with an older Sony xm-6020 amplifier, and crossed them over with a cheap realitic sub crossover set to 90 hz.

After taking a few minutes to set gains by ear, I had it sounding OK. The crossover seems really touchy to mild adjustments up or down, so it seems to need more work...but it will get there.

1rst cd was an old DJ Bassboy disc I found in my cd case( Techmaster PEB is the same artist I beleive ). These little things kept up pretty well, but ran out of steam on the really low stuff....somewhere around 35 hz I think. I didn't have either gain set very high, but these are not the most efficient speakers I have ever heard. They seemed a little mechanically noisy( subs facing up at the time ) but not really distorted. They cleaned up with a little more tweaking on the gain but lost a little output. I turned the box down, as I had intended and they seem to gain some of the lost output by being corner loaded.

2nd cd was Tantrics self titled disc. these little boogers did a good job on real music, and only suffered at higher volumes. I tweaked the gains a little more, because a bass disc isn't really a great example of real music( IMO ). I really like these little speakers, and intend to try my other pair ported...just need to figure out the best design for them. Any way, I'm rambling  

3rd disc was a few seconds of Rage Against the Machine, from their first cd. These little subs did a good job on the bass guitar from the opening track, and sounded really nice. they lacked a little bit( alright a lot ) of the impact on the bass drums that my larger systems have always had, but that is apples to oranges.

4rth and final bit of tweaking was done with Candlebox's self titled disc. I love a few of the tracks on this one, and for me seems to be a good indicator of midbass on several songs. They played pretty decent on this, and over all I would be happy to use them for certain applications.

These were fairly decent for midbass in this application, and lost a little bit on the lower frequencies. If you have room to enclose them, they may do well for a lower powered system midbass. For the application I installed them, well the truck owner is very happy, as his door mounted Sony 3 ways had no low end. He was able to fit a pair of these, and not lose any space behind his seat...though the pasenger side did lose about 2 clicks( it's his work truck, no big deal ). 

I still plan to play with these a little more in his set up, and will update any problems I come across. Also, if anyone has any questions or suggestions, let me know.


Also, if anyone good at modeling speakers can help me...is 0.72 large enough to port for a pair? PE reccomends 0.39 cuft per tuned to 35hz( if I am reading their chart correctly ). So I am wondering if I can fuzz it a little with his enclosure? Thanks for any advice.


Oh yeah, go EZ on me. I have never done a review before.


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## Soundsaround (Apr 22, 2006)

Great review!
Try some polyfill in that box, I swear by the stuff.
http://web.archive.org/web/20041027...gracaraudio.com/caraudio/resources/fiberfill/


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## Amish (Oct 2, 2006)

If these are anything like their bigger brother the W6 they have to be fun . I'm sure you'll be really impressed with a pair ported, a pair of W6s ported surprised the poop out of me. I agree, they appear to be well built - the W6s have taken a beating from me with 4x rated power and haven't flinched. Tang Band neo subs are neato!


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