I had my guys at Speaker Works bust out some enclosures in which to install the MA1200XL. A word of caution: The MA1200XL does not fit into a standard 12-inch subwoofer cutout. It is about 1/4-inch bigger in diameter than a standard 12-inch. Kevin told me that the MA1200XL's basket is a proprietary design, and it is a good-looking basket, but it would be nice if MA Audio had stuck within the size convention.
A couple of other tips when installing this subwoofer are as follows: I recommend that you use an extra length of wire in the enclosure so that the subwoofer can be placed upside-down next to the enclosure when you are hooking it up. The wire terminal screws are on the bottom of the frame and hard to get to unless you have the subwoofer turned over.
Also, be careful when you go to insert the MA1200XL into the enclosure. The MA1200XL has dual 4-ohm voice coils and the wire terminals are on opposite sides of the frame, with heavy-duty gold plated terminal blocks. These are nice and have a positive install feel but the speaker wire exits are perpendicular to the circumference of the subwoofer-in other words, the speaker wires stick out of the side of the frame. Now, this would not be a problem with most subwoofer frames, but the MA frame is very square in cross section. There is almost no taper in the basket and the protruding speaker wires are very easy to rip out of the connectors when you are installing the subwoofer in the enclosure if you do not route them between the frame spokes. Not a big deal, but it is something to help you save effort and allow you to learn from Speaker Works' experience.
Once I got the MA1200XL into its enclosure, I headed out to my Scorched-Earth Black Ford F-350 truck to finish up the installation and set up the listening test. I found that the MA1200XL worked best with the enclosure on the floor of the cab between the front and back seat, with the subwoofer facing the passenger side of the cab.
To power the MA1200XL, I used a Zapco C2K-9.0XD amplifier. The 9.0XD features a 24dB-per-octave crossover and will pump out a throbbing 2000 watts of power at 2 ohms mono. The front half of my reference speaker system consists of a pair of USD Audio B-62 WaveGuide separates. I am powering these with a Zapco Competition C2K-6.0X amplifier at 150 watts per channel. The built-in high-pass crossover filter was used to block the bass to the component system. These amps are fed via Zapco's Symbilink balanced line driver SLB-U. There are no other signal processors in the signal path.
Listening
I started my listening session with Seal's latest album IV, track one, "Get it Together." The upper bass response was humpy and a little boomy. Impact was good but the overall response was loose. The real deep notes (below 40Hz) were light in level compared to the bass at 40Hz and up. Imaging was not to bad. There was some pulling to the rear, particularly in the upper frequency range where this subwoofer is boomy.
Staying with male vocal, I dug out Lenny Kravitz's album Lenny, track five, "Believe In Me." This track has a great opening bass line, and a tightly recorded drum kit that will really exercise a subwoofer. Frequencies around 80Hz still bloomed on this recording, but it was not one note-ish like other subs that have a resonance bump. The MA1200XL is loud and delivers a fair amount of impact but is not in the same league for impact as some of the other high-end subs that we recently reviewed.
In a smaller enclosure the MA1200XL was tighter and has better impact than in the 1.1ft3 enclosure that I ended up using but the upper bass resonance got way out of control for sound quality. I ended up trying three different enclosures with the MA1200XL before I decided that the 1.1ft3 sealed enclosure worked the best. It really struck the best balance for sound quality and control.
Swapping rock for rap, I put in Will Smith's Born to Reign album, the title cut. The MA1200XL imaged better with rap music and the impact was still good. The release of the bass notes was sloppy but livable. While this subwoofer was not as tight or punchy as I was expecting, it did a really good job in reproducing the sound of each bass instrument. Linearity was not as good on the deep stuff as I would expect for a subwoofer with an MSRP of $275.00, but the MA1200XL appeared to be a loud subwoofer on sustained bass notes, and the later SPL results (see chart) will show this to be true.
I found what the MA1200XL really likes when I broke out my Boston Acoustics Music for Bottom Feeders demo disk. The third track is by Ramsey Lewis and it's called, "People Make the World Go 'Round." It opens with a lot of jump and energy from both a bass guitar and percussion. The MA1200XL was fat and rich on this cut. The upper resonance peak was smoothed out and the note shifts were good and with proper timbre. Some of the fine details were a bit muddy but the track was reproduced with great sonic integrity. To make sure that the MA1200XL was not just performing well on this track, I popped in Sade's Lovers Rock album to verify. Oddly enough, it appears that jazz is the preferred genre for this sub. Again, smooth, rich and thick on the bass line.
To finish off my listening test I put in the Bass Mekanik's V5.0 album, track six, "Dubalicious." The bass on this track is loud, strong, deep and moving. I like this track because of the variety of bass and its mix of sustained and punctuated notes. The MA1200XL seemed to struggle with the fast-paced base line. The articulation of the separate notes was muddy and the volume linearity from the really deep frequencies to the upper bass notes a problem. But the sound of the bass instruments and tones was enjoyable.
Conclusion
MA Audio has produced an awesome-looking subwoofer with the MA1200XL. While it has some control and impact deficits, it makes up for a lot of that by reproducing a tonally accurate bass line. It was a serious threat in the SPL readings too, where it came within 0.2dB of matching the Orion H2 12-in that I reviewed a few months ago for the unofficial CA&E SPL Crown. -V