We were raised to be quiet, well-mannered Lutherans. But for Erik, there was nothing quiet about the gospel. In church, he sang as loud as he could. He didn't care what anyone else thought – he was reaching out to the Lord and it was our problem if it made our ears ring.

One Sunday, the rumbling bass and baritone voices in the choir sang, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," and Erik felt God's presence. That rattle and boom was God's voice literally vibrating his heart. We were still young but it decided everything: he would do the Lord's work and it would be loud.

He enrolled in seminary as soon as he could, spent some time in the Holy Land and discovered that a low-end 25 watt sub could not adequately convey the genius of either John Paul Jones bass work on Led Zeppelin IV or the sermons of that other John Paul. Both required an upgrade to a 125 watt Miller & Kreisel MK II sub.

God understood.

My brother must not have mentioned his acoustic theory of divinity when he was ordained because the Bishop assigned him to an elderly congregation in rural Washington State. The greeting committee could hear Pastor Erik coming from miles away – the sound of a booming bass floated across the raspberry fields and through the apple orchards. Things didn't quiet down after he parked his car in the church's gravel parking lot. Erik rejects silences with a roaringly good-natured laugh and a voice that would feel at home in the Super Dome. The senior citizens responded by permanently notching down their hearing aids.

Pastor Erik didn't mind - he just spoke louder and pointed out some immediate problems with the pretty, white steepled church. First, the 20 year old sound system was not up to the task of conveying God's word.

"This is the Word of God we're talking about," he said. "It needs dignity and a high power 12-inch subwoofer with a neodymium magnet and a vented enclosure."

The Church Elders blinked. Pastor Erik was not like their other ministers.

This young whippersnapper wanted to take this flock in a new direction. It didn't matter if they needed walkers, dialysis or a hip replacement to get there– they were going to hear and feel God's word.

He met any resistance with an out-pouring of Lutheran wisdom. Why spend thousands of dollars upgrading the sound system for a congregation of only 80 people? Because in 1541, Martin Luther himself said, "Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world." Pastor Erik watched his congregants closely and asked if they were willing to run the world's greatest treasure through a dusty old sound board that muddled the low range? Would Martin Luther want that?

The Elders decided to approve a budget of $9000 and Pastor Erik set to work.

His first move: bring in Jim Hall, an acoustician who has spent 42 years installing commercial audio systems in the Northwest. Hall and the Pastor huddled near the altar and laid out a battle plan. Hall wanted to deploy a four speaker TOA HX-5 variable dispersion system above the altar to ensure speech clarity. It's what he typically recommended for small churches.

"But it won't rock, will it?" the Pastor asked.

Hall was a little surprised – most churches were content with the HX-5 system. But this minister was sharp. He knew the HX-5 couldn't deliver the low end. The Pastor was asking Hall to push himself, to dig deep and that could mean only one thing: the FB-120B.

The 120B is a crunk-ready 600 watt sub guaranteed to strip the paint off the steeple of any church silly enough to order it. It's exactly what Pastor Erik was looking for.

The system took eight hours to install. They added a 16 channel Mackie 1604 VLZ3 mixing board, an EAW CAZ 1400 dual-amp for the HX-5 and an additional CAZ 800 amp interlaced with an Ashly cross-over for the sub. The final touch: two 1 inch tweeters over the choir.

"It's got to be the best system for a church its size in the Northwest ," Jim Hall says.

To test it, Pastor Erik grabbed the nearest CD he could find: a copy of Veggie Tales left behind by a pre-schooler. He pressed play and the voice of Larry the Cucumber boomed across rural Washington as if Abraham himself had just come down from the mountain to tell the world that he had a new hat and it was made of lettuce.

Pastor Erik heard the music and it was good. It didn't matter what the Cucumber was babbling about. The tune sent its shock waves through his bones and brushed across his soul like a divine wind.

Now and truly, God was in da house.

Joshua Davis is a Contributing Editor for Wired Magazine who wrote about deep sea cowboys and the world's largest diamond heist. (Both of which are being adapted for film.) He's also the lightest man to ever compete in the US Sumo Open.

The Price

$80

The Verdict

It looks better than it tastes..err...sounds.

I can't deny, my MacBook Pro's tinny speakers have never sounded better than when complemented by the BassJump. Through USB (and some unobtrusive bundled software), the BassJump mixes with your existing laptop speakers to give you a more balanced audio experience.

The tenor range, generally underrepresented by my MBP, is audible with the BassJump. The Beatles, especially, were hugely improved through the richer vocals and guitar riffs provided by the mini sub. Walking to the next room and closing my eyes, I decided my MacBook now sounded like a low-level iPod dock.

Still, the audio isn't especially clear. And despite the BassJump's name, it doesn't really give you bass. It's more like a midrange speaker that's still incapable of bumping R&B.

So while the BassJump certainly looks adorable and legitimately turns MBP music from unpalatable to sort of listenable, its low end capabilities can't match a real dedicated subwoofer. And its overall audio effect, while passable, would be thwarted by most any 2.1 speaker system in its price range. [BassJump]

Charming aesthetic

Quality build

Improves midrange audio but lacks brilliance

Lacks bass

Needs to be either cheaper or better

The KEF HTB2SE-W wireless sub combines two well-reviewed products (a KEF subwoofer and their 2.4GHz wireless transmission system) into one very expensive-looking (and costing) package.

Indeed, the sub actually includes dual 10-inch woofers (one is passive to enhance ambient bass) that can be configured to either sit on the floor or stand vertically—kinda like Sony has promoted with the PlayStation brand. But while the subwoofer doesn't need a line run to the receiver, it still needs power, of course.

The HTB2SE-W ships next month for $1200. And on a completely unrelated note, there's gotta be some charity out there that needs $1200 more than you need a fancy wireless subwoofer. [The Audiophiliac]

The subwoofer, which consists of two 3-feet deep and 31-feet long cavities, releases more than 110dB. Boy would I hate to be his neighbor—maybe that's why Coachella is in the middle of nowhere. Our guess is his insides have disintegrated by now.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

I worked 30 hours a week during college and more during the summer. I worked at some computer help desk in Boston, but I spent a great deal of spare time hanging out in a local car-stereo installer's garage, talking to them about what exact set up I should install. They weren't the cleanest or best installers, looking back, but they did recommend some kick-ass gear.

Two giant Phoenix Gold amps, I forget the designation, painted white with clear windows for viewing the ICs. One was attached to a three-way system for everything above bass; 5-inch drivers in the door, and the tweeters and mids in the side foot panels, aimed through the dash to bounce off the windshield of my shitty little Acura Integra, lowered and ricey before that shit was played out. (It was also white.)

The car-stereo guys let me cut the wooden mounts which would give the deep speaker in the narrow door frame. I actually remember the amp names now. That was a ZX450 and it was pushing 450 watts through four channels, two to the midbass drivers, and two to the high/mids. I ran the 8-gauge wires myself, too. The other amp was the more interesting story, a ZX500, run in mono for I think close to 1000 watts, driving an 18-inch across, 9-inch deep JL Audio 18W6 (which was discontinued, presumably, because it was insane). The sub was mounted where the spare tire should have been, in a custom-built fiberglass tub, which raised the floor of my trunk so that it would barely hold a suitcase, on top of the sub's grill and half an inch of MDF fiberboard.

The system was played through an Eclipse CD head unit without MP3 capability (this was 1997 or something) which was made by Fujitsu and was very clean. It had an anti-theft system which consisted of a 1-800 number that tricked thieves into calling it to reactivate once they'd tried to get in a few times, which would instead summon the police to your door if you were calling about a reportedly stolen unit.

The first time I powered it up, the car shook so violently the clip on wide angle rear view mirror fell off, and I had to close my eyes because my eyeballs were itching from the vibration. I could also feel the sub pulling the moving the air in and out of my lungs.

I played lots of Biggie Smalls through it, and some Tupac and Mary J Blige when no one was around, and it was pretty gross. I mean, I didn't have to ring the doorbell when I visited friends, they could hear it a block away.

It forever changed the way I listen to music, because I am definitely unable to hear music with the same nuance that I did before the car stereo. The car was so loud, so notorious on campus, I am surprised it took so long for the setup to get stolen. But it did.

I fell asleep on my couch with my car outside my parking lot, on the street, and when I woke up to go drive home for Thanksgiving, it was gone. I called my mom to say I would miss dinner, and two days later, the insurance company wrote me a check when the car showed up, stripped, in Newton, Massachusetts. I used that money to move to California and to buy a motorcycle, which would eventually snap my leg in three places.

Somehow, this post turned into a note about how stupid of a 20-something I was.

It occurred to me, yesterday, on a long drive, beating on my steering while like a snare drum and my dead pedal as a bass, how much faster I drive as I listen to music. (Even if now I drive a boring station wagon with a stock stereo.) I'm not a music nut, but who can deny how much better our lives when there is song in it?

Music is arguably the most powerful medium, despite its often subtle delivery. Perhaps its power comes from how it can be enjoyed passively, while enhancing the things you're focusing on. Things from work, to running, to sex, to sleep, to skiing, driving, or just spending time with friends. Video, words, pictures require your focus, but you stand attention to these things. Audio and music go with along with anything well. A soundtrack.

Over the last few decades, since the birth of recording, technology's changed how we relate to music. In ways that go beyond the white earbuds. Everything in the last twenty years has changed, from how we discover new songs, to how we buy (or steal) it, to how we carry or trade it, to the very fidelity of the recording (which seems not to matter too much to anyone except audiophiles—a dying breed).

The only thing that hasn't changed is how the music makes us feel, no matter what the volume.

So, this week's Gizmodo is dedicated to music and the technology that helps us enjoy it. Let us know what you think of the stories, and let us know if there's anything we should post.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

His barn/garage, filled with vintage sports cars like a 1969 Camaro and modern Aston Martin, is also home to over 6,000W of sound. You see, Whitworth likes to listen to his music for hours on end at volumes of 120dB, or louder than a "loud" rock concert, about 5dB away from pain and right in the range of hearing loss. I said, right in the range of hearing loss!!

So his barn is filled with six JBL Pro concert models (not consumer grade stuff, which would just break on him), two 18-inch subs and two more "half-fridge-size" Velodyne Digital Drive 1812 Signature Edition subwoofers, which each contain hardware for both upper and lower bass response. Of course, there's 6400W of amplification to support all that speaker power, but even still, this rig is technically only a stereo. There's no surround sound processing. [Electronic House via CrunchGear]

The "Real Total Horn" consists of two cavities, each three feet deep and 31 feet long, functioning as horns and driven by eight 18-inch woofers each. It releases more than 110 dB/1W/1 meter sensitivity starting from below 10 Hz aimed at the listening position. Let me tell you, there's not a better suited sound system in existence for producing an effective brown note.

And really, frequencies that low are barely audible, but I have no doubt that this thing will make action movies shake his living room way more than any other sub out there. I'm not sure I'd want to do this to my own home, but I'd certainly give it a test run. [Royal Device via DVICE]

The SUBstage200, a follow-up to the older SUBstage100, will have a 200-watt Class D amp on board and have bass response down to 32Hz. The price? $399 when it ships in July. – Jason Chen

Product Page for SUBstage 100 [Sound Matters via Chip Chick via Slashgear]

We've always been big Cerwin Vega fans, enamored of the speakers' punchy sound and high efficiency. In fact, a significant portion of your humble narrator's hearing damage can be attributed to this brand of shimmering and squeaky-clean loudspeaker.

To join this club, you'd better be major-league serious about your subs, though, because the 21-inch CVA-121 goes for $1,999, and its 18-inch CVA-118 sibling follows behind at $1,499. If the past is prologue, both are probably worth it. – Charlie White

21-inch subwoofer from Cerwin Vega [fosfor gadgets]

NHT Shows Verve For New Speaker System [Electronic House]

Rain Design announces iWoofer for iPods [iLounge]