Dave’s Faves – JL Audio E-112 Subwoofer $2500

16.23h, 15.5w, 18.39d, 74 lbs, Black Ash

I must admit I’m typically not Mr. Subwoofer. I’m a 2CH guy and getting woofs to dovetail with “wing” speakers is easier said than done for a fussy audiophile. Guilty as charged! I change speakers a lot at home because it’s a gas and I want to know QUITE WELL what I’m recommending for YOU. I keep coming back to very fast speakers like Magnepans.

Yet, like everyone else who loves Maggies, for all they do well, you can’t help but miss the deep bass. When we add subs it is invariably a mixed bag. We’ve had some terrific performers for the money over the years. I’ve been happy to sell them in theater systems especially where you simply have to have one.

However, two channel is a different world. How do you properly integrate a sub without encroaching on the feather like detail of resolving speakers like Maggies? Please consider the big boys from JL Audio. They come at a price, to be sure. But you can’t take it with you so let’s have some FUN!

E-112 at $2500 in a nice black ash finish is the sweet spot for me. It has a good deal more gusto than E-110 ($1900). What’s $650 for the love of music?

E-112 features a GINORMOUS 12” woofer like nothing else you’ve seen before! It has a double spider design mounted within a ridiculously massive cast frame. This assembly weighs over 34 pounds alone. It is a city block deep (OK, 14 inches). This driver is so mammoth that it requires a special support mechanism in the rear of the cabinet. The excursion of this bad boy is just over three inches! You can barely see other subwoofers travel at all.

For comparison, I measured a 12” cast Paradigm sub driver we have from a few years ago. It is 5.5”d and 8 lbs. E-112 is in a different league entirely.

JL makes its subs {& drivers} in Florida to produce hurricane force if you demand it. You’ll see the other guys use substantially less well built drivers, typically stamped.

JL doesn’t just screw the 12” driver into an MDF cabinet like everyone else. E-112 has a metal face plate that the 12” woofer BOLTS into. And that assembly is bolted into a heavy MDF cabinet. The metal face becomes endemic to the thunderous mechanism. It is locked and essentially melded together. Also remember that the 14” monster sub is supported at the back of the cabinet as well. Everyone else screws their driver into the MDF and calls it a day.

E-112’s amp is a ferocious 1500w amp. The enclosure is sealed to assure tight control. Remember, E-112 is a sub for a die hard audiophile, not your typical ported, theater boomer. Of course you can use E-112 for home theater. But the icing on the cake is that you two channel hounds will appreciate E-112 for music.

Oh, bass management you ask? Yup. You can run cables, preamp to the sub inputs, and then run cables, sub out to your power amp- assuring your power amp doesn’t see any deep bass information. This will allow your wing speakers to sound better. Since the amps driving them won’t be encumbered with deep bass info that sucks power, and the drivers themselves won’t be troubled with the longer excursion that deep bass demands. The crossover in E-112 is plenty clean enough that it won’t intrude. This results in a win-win scenario.

You can also opt to use input cables alone. You don’t have to route your entire audio range
in and out of the E-112. Further, if you do this, E-112 has a filter to avoid trying to play frequencies above 130Hz. Most subs, run straight in like this, have no high pass roll off. They’re wasting power and excursion trying to play higher frequencies than are necessary.

JL Audio highly recommends running a pair of subs in two channel applications. They’re looking for optimum room loading to avoid booming node proclivities.

TAS:
“The qualities that have made previous JL Audio subwoofers exceptional- lack of bloat and overhang, coupled with tremendous power and authority- were evident in the new more affordable E-112. The pair of E-112s was quick and agile, reproducing transient information with no smearing of leading edge attacks, plus very fast decays. As a result, the subs didn’t dilute pace and rhythm, as many subs do. Ray Brown’s bass playing, on everything from his Soular Energy, to Duke Ellington’s Duke’s Big 4, to Bill Evans’ Quintessence, was reproduced with its driving swing intact.
Kick drum was startling in its impact and depth, and organ pedal points pressurized the room in the way that only subwoofers can. The E-112 goes low, plays loudly and does both at the same time without any sense of strain or compression of dynamic peaks. Adding the subs also made the soundstage bigger and more expansive (many spatial cues are carried by very low frequency information).
Two subwoofers drive the room more uniformly than one. Moreover, each subwoofer works only half as hard for a given sound pressure level, increasing dynamic headroom and lower distortion.”