Subwoofers

Sort By:  Post Date TitlePublish Date
Adam Rayner  |  Jul 25, 2013  |  0 comments

SVS was once famed for making subwoofers only for lonely nerds who could get away with standing a bass tube bigger than their girlfriend in the corner of the room. Mostly because they didn’t have a girlfriend. And, while it does still make those bonkers bassmakers, SVS also offers two other forms of woofer – smaller and more cubical large-performance ported items and a series of compact, sealed woofers. The SB-1000 is from the sealed series and is SVS’ idea of as small as any sane person could go, bass-wise.

Adam Rayner  |  Aug 23, 2012  |  0 comments

There are few audio companies with a history as mighty as Tannoy. Like Xerox and Hoover, this is a brand whose very name became the description of an entire product category. Thus the ding-dong gongs at my holiday hotel were made, as my dad would say, through the ‘Tannoy System’.

Adam Rayner  |  Jul 29, 2012  |  0 comments

I’ve heard a lot of extraordinary sound in my time. Niagara Falls’ roar, the rumble of the geothermal heat release vent outside Reykjavik, and even a sonic boom from Concorde. All of which is why I adore REL, and the monstrous subwoofers it makes, so much.

Ed Selley  |  Mar 19, 2012  |  0 comments
You have to love the phrase ‘doing the doof-doofs’. A silly term for describing a clever technical process where a device, either a subwoofer or a system-tuning equaliser, has both voice and ears. The voice makes tone burst sounds that sweep from low to high (and go ‘doof-doof’) and the ears are the microphone, supplied with the Velodyne EQ-Max12 – part of a new range of mid-priced subs from the LFE brand. The Digital Signal Processor inside is a five-band parametric equaliser – and it strives to set the woofer to best suit not just your room, but exactly where you put and point it.
Ed Selley  |  Dec 13, 2011  |  0 comments
Wharfedale is one of the UK speaker brands that has been in my awareness for longer than most as it makes stuff that is generally better VFM than just about anyone. And that keen value continues today with this particular line of subs, the PowerCube. This woofer comes in 8in, 10in and 12in flavours and I reckon it’d be brilliant if it also came in a 15in or an 18in, as Wharfedale has packed some lovely stuff in here, but the price is kept low, despite recent increases in the cost of electronics from China.
Ed Selley  |  Dec 13, 2011  |  0 comments
Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing Adam Rayner finds that the power behind this sub belies its cute size

If you have a copy of Men in Black II or even Stuart Little II on DVD then you have the 2001-2002 Academy Award-winning animated short, The ChubbChubbs. Its stars are some impossibly cute, fuzzy things that look like ducklings with noses like piglets – yet they turn out to be scary monsters with huge teeth and a terrifyingly large appetite.

Ed Selley  |  Sep 02, 2011  |  0 comments
Coming up with a natty little subwoofer that can look like a radiator just isn’t SVS’ style. Neither is designing a tiny box with a bonkers amplifier to make it all but explode with power.
Ed Selley  |  Jan 19, 2011  |  0 comments
I love a purist. When I buy kit I want it to be the offering of those obsessive designers, who create trends that get the ultimate kudos of being copied. That’s why I love Velodyne – for its approach and its purity. A company run by utter bass heads.
Ed Selley  |  Dec 29, 2010  |  0 comments
Newish Swedish manufacturer XTZ only sells its subwoofers online in the UK. This practice often means good value, but as you can only audition the kit by paying a deposit for a two-week trial, it has to review well and beat most in its class, irrespective of price.
Adam Rayner  |  Dec 29, 2010  |  0 comments

Although I’m not as familiar with Paradigm as with some brands, I’ve now heard a bunch of its loudspeakers and have learned one essential thing. It uses lots of cone area in its kit, albeit by slapping lots of midrangers into the towers, or by cramming a 10in woofer into the sort of box most normal people would only use for an 8in.

Pages

X