The 4 Best Subwoofers of 2025

Top pick

The Rogersound Labs Speedwoofer 10S MKII offers practically everything one could want in a midpriced subwoofer, including the power necessary for action-movie soundtracks and the subtlety and precision required for great sound on music recordings. It incorporates a 10-inch woofer in a ported enclosure, driven by a 400-watt internal amplifier, and it measures a relatively compact 16 by 15 by 16.75 inches (HWD).

It’s one of the best-sounding subs we’ve ever heard. This is a relatively rare subwoofer in that it sounds punchy and precise enough to reproduce the chest-thumping, upper-bass snap of kick drum and thumb-slapped electric bass, yet it also maintains its composure—and shakes the couch—when asked to reproduce ultra-deep bass tones, such as the submarine-engine and depth-charge sound effects in the soundtrack to the film U-571. This combination of versatility and compact size is what made this design so popular with our listening panel—and with many professional reviewers and audio enthusiasts, too.

In our listening tests, the panelists praised the original Speedwoofer 10S for its ability to blend with the other speakers, and the new version, when set to the music mode, duplicated that achievement. Lauren noted that “it sounds like an extension of the rest of the system,” and Ron commented that “it has a clean transition from the upper-bass notes down to the low pipe organ tones.” I slightly preferred its sound to that of any of the other subwoofers we tested—it seemed to have a more natural and tuneful sound with music, even though some of the larger models shook the floor more.

Note that Rogersound also offers a less-expensive version, the Speedwoofer 10E, which looks almost identical but has a less powerful, less sophisticated amplifier. The two models measured similarly, and to us they sounded about the same with movie soundtracks. However, we thought the 10S MKII produced more tuneful and precisely defined bass notes when playing music, so it’s a more well-rounded choice. But if you like this form factor and just want to play movies, the 10E is the better value.

It’s versatile in both performance and connections. The 10S MKII offers two listening modes, which you access via the crossover-frequency knob on the back of the subwoofer. Turning the knob clockwise puts the sub in the music mode, which activates its built-in crossover. Turning the knob fully counterclockwise clicks it into the LFE mode, which bypasses the crossover and boosts the low bass by around 6 decibels, which gives your system a little more oomph when you’re watching action movies or listening to hip-hop or EDM recordings. Note that when the subwoofer is running at very high volumes, as it does in our CTA-2010 output measurements (PDF), the low-bass output of the two modes is the same.

The 10S MKII offers line-level RCA stereo inputs and outputs, which make it compatible with receivers that have a line-level subwoofer output. If your audio gear lacks a subwoofer output, note that the 10S MKII also has speaker-level input connections. (See our blog post on subwoofer setup for more information on these connection types.)

The 10S MKII also has a noise gate, which the manufacturer says reduces the hum problems common to powered subwoofers. It has a built-in wireless receiver, too, so you can pair it with Rogersound’s inexpensive wireless transmitter for even easier setup and positioning.

Its CTA-2010 measurements impressed us. In LFE mode, the 10S MKII put out 115.9 dB in the midbass and 108.8 dB in the low bass. Its low-bass output was higher than that of about half of the pricier models we tested, although the less expensive Monoprice SW-12 produced even more output. This ample deep-bass output makes the 10S MKII more fun to listen to than most subs at or below (and sometimes even above) its price range. And the way the 10S MKII is tuned makes its bass sound more powerful than that of the Monoprice SW-12.

Although the 10S MKII adheres to the “plain black box” visual aesthetic common to subwoofers, at least it’s an attractively finished and reasonably compact plain black box.

Here I have to add a disclosure: When I was working as a consultant prior to my employment at Wirecutter, Rogersound Labs paid me to measure the CTA-2010 output of some prototype subwoofers that it was developing at the time. I also gave Rogersound my CTA-2010 measurement results for the original Speedwoofer 10S at no charge (which the company then published on its website). Now that I’m on Wirecutter’s staff, I no longer do consulting work, but to avoid any potential conflict of interest, we relied on the opinions of our other listeners and on the objectivity of the CTA-2010 measurements when making our picks for this guide.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

At least one less expensive model technically outperforms it. Though the 10S MKII’s measurements are competitive for a sub of its size and price, the less expensive (but 42% larger) Monoprice SW-12 did produce more output in our measurements. However, in our listening tests, the SW-12 didn’t sound as full—and fun—as the 10S MKII did.

It doesn’t have an app or fancy digital features. This sub has neither an accompanying smartphone app nor any type of equalization or automatic room correction, but all the subs we’ve tried with those features cost considerably more.

It’s available only through the Rogersound Labs website. That means you can’t go to a different retailer if it sells out, and you’re 100% reliant on Rogersound for support. Unfortunately, this subwoofer seems to go out of stock often.