Kenwood's KSC-WA62RC — The wOOx
Kenwood?s KSC-WA62RC, affectionately known as "The wOOx," was next at bat. After packing up the relatively heavy and beautifully-built BassLink, I have to admit that the wOOx's appearance was a major letdown. It?s very small, very light, and (dare I say it?) amazingly ugly. My initial reaction was to pack the wOOx back in its box, but my deadline was approaching so into the Cherokee it went.

Kenwood's KSC-WA62RC powered subwoofer (the "wOOx") hides surprising performance beneath its modest exterior.

The wOOx uses a dual voice coil 5-1/4" woofer, a 6-1/2" passive radiator, and a 2-channel (30 watts RMX x 2) amplifier to create bass. The wired remote houses all controls for the unit, including level adjustment, switchable low-pass filter (60, 80, 120, or 160 Hz), and a phase switch. It has no screw terminals, using a plug-in harness instead to make its power connections. As I hooked up the wOOx, I found myself wondering if this David and Goliath test was fair. Kenwood designed this unit with sports cars and smaller vehicles in mind — its compact size (15" x 4-1/2" x 8") enables it to fit into some mighty small spaces. Would it really be capable of filling up the wide open spaces of a Jeep Cherokee?

I set the gain on the wOOx about halfway up, and again relied on Buddy Guy for the all-important first impression. With the first couple of hits from the kick drum, the old maxim "Appearances can be deceiving" came to mind — the wOOx sounded surprisingly good. When I lowered the crossover point down to 60 Hz and adjusted the gain, its performance moved up a notch to really, really good. I asked some friends to listen to the system (without looking, obviously), and then to estimate the size of the subwoofer I was using. Most said it sounded like a 10" speaker, if that gives you an idea of the impact we were feeling. And the wOOx had a very musical sound — kick drum hits sounded natural and tight, and I heard no unnatural boom or dropout in the electric bass notes (the curse of a cheap sub).

The wOOx's wired remote control allows you to make quick, yet extensive adjustments to complement the music.

The wired remote is a flat out joy to use. With bass-heavy modern recordings, I set the crossover at 60 Hz and my system sounded big, clean, and fat. If I played an older disc with less impressive bass content (Beatles or Sonny Boy Williamson, for instance), I just moved the crossover up to 80 Hz and cranked up the gain a touch, and the sound filled out beautifully. And, if you drive a noisy vehicle or like to put the windows down, the wired remote makes it easy to add back the low end punch that's lost to road noise.

I lived with the wOOx for a week, and during that time, its limitations became clear. It had to work hard to fill up my Cherokee with clean bass, but it did a great job, even at high volume levels. However, if I clicked the system up a couple of notches higher than usual (I?m talking loud here), I could hear the little sub starting to freak out. But still, this subwoofer will supply just about any vehicle (short of a full-size van or giant SUV) with plenty of fat bass at a reasonable volume level — a remarkable achievement for a tiny little box with a 5-1/4" driver and 60 watts of power!