Subwoofer Reviews

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Subwoofer Reviews
Audio Physic Rhea powered subwoofer
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 10, 2003  |  First Published: Sep 01, 1998  | 
"You can't get deep bass in your room," a reviewer from another magazine who'd never visited my room insisted recently on the phone. "Do you know how long a 20Hz bass wave is? It's 40 feet long, and your room is tiny."
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Subwoofer Reviews
Bowers & Wilkins DB1 subwoofer
Larry Greenhill  |  Feb 13, 2012  | 
Although many high-end audio products are described as revolutionary and as breakthroughs in design when new, most audiophile components now on the market have not changed our way of relating to such products in the way the iPad has done. Once in a while, a new audio product does move in that direction by enabling the audiophile to do install a product and optimize its performance in a different way.
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Floor Loudspeaker ReviewsSubwoofer Reviews
Celestion System 6000 loudspeaker system
Martin Colloms  |  Feb 03, 1996  |  First Published: Feb 03, 1987  | 
In the audio field, the British have traditionally thought "small," scoring hits both with their compact loudspeakers and with medium-priced amplifiers. The continued growth of the audiophile speaker market in the US, however, which favors larger loudspeakers, has at the same time stimulated the research and design of more powerful, excellent quality amplifiers. In their turn, these have placed increased demands on the speakers they drive.
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Stand Loudspeaker ReviewsSubwoofer ReviewsBudget Component Reviews
Era Acoustics Design 4 loudspeaker & SUB10 subwoofer
John Atkinson  |  Jan 28, 2007  | 
The first time I attended the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, in January 1986, I didn't get there until the second day of the Show. Still, by the beginning of the fourth and final day I'd managed to visit every high-end audio exhibit, and still had time to go back for seconds to the rooms that had sounded the best. Twenty years later, CES has grown so much that it's impossible for a single writer to visit even a quarter of the exhibits in which he might be interested. And even with the sort of team reporting Stereophile now practices, covering the Show has become an exercise in applied logistics for the busy journalist: "Should I wait for the free shuttle bus? Should I get a taxi—though I might get caught in Las Vegas's increasing traffic jams, or even just get stuck at the city's interminable traffic lights? Or should I take the new monorail—though that goes nowhere near the hotel in which [insert name of hot company] is demming its products?"
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Subwoofer Reviews
Genelec HTS4B subwoofer
Larry Greenhill  |  Nov 26, 2005  | 
Home theater has dramatically influenced the design of aftermarket subwoofers. Multichannel processors automatically provide a properly filtered low-frequency signal to drive a subwoofer, relieving the need for the sub to be shipped with a passive crossover network or an active electronic crossover. When Genelec offered one of their subwoofers for review, I decided it was important to try to evaluate such a product, even if it meant I'd have to scramble around to find a quality external electronic crossover.
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J. Gordon HoltStand Loudspeaker ReviewsSubwoofer Reviews
Genelec Studio Monitor 1031A loudspeaker & Studio Monitor 1092A powered subwoofer
J. Gordon Holt  |  Apr 11, 2019  |  First Published: Aug 01, 1999  | 
Which loudspeakers do audio professionals listen to? And why should we care? After all, it's not as if recording engineers are the kind of refined, sensitive, music-loving types who read Stereophile. As much as they may love music, many audio pros appear only to view the original sounds of musical instruments as raw materials to be creatively reshaped and manipulated. (Okay, there are exceptions. But recordists who care about the sounds of real instruments usually record them in real acoustic spaces rather than in studios, and use as little signal processing as they can get away with.)
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Subwoofer Reviews
Gradient SW-57 subwoofer
Steven Stone  |  Oct 11, 2010  |  First Published: Jan 11, 1994  | 

There are two kinds of audiophiles: those who own original Quad ESL speakers and those who don't (footnote 1). This review is for the former, although the latter may find it of some interest. The Gradient SW-57 subwoofer attempts to do for the original Quad (footnote 2) what Gradient's SW-63 (footnote 3) does for the Quad ESL-63: supply the bottom octave while relieving the ESLs of the strain of reproducing low bass.

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Gramophone DreamsSubwoofer Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #49: KEF KC62 subwoofer
Herb Reichert  |  May 18, 2021  | 
We have inherited an infinitely vast library of recorded musical art, the majority of which is well-recorded but has yet to be fully and completely reproduced. Countless times, I've played an album and thought, am I the first person ever to hear this recording sound this clear and microscopically detailed? Audiophiles understand that in order to be fully enjoyed, great recordings need the finest possible audio reproduction. Reciprocally, the finest audio systems are best enjoyed when playing great recordings. It's a horse and carriage thing.
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Gramophone DreamsStand Loudspeaker ReviewsSubwoofer Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #86: Harbeth P3ESR XD loudspeaker and Nelson subwoofer/stand
Herb Reichert  |  Jul 05, 2024  | 
After lifelike timbres and speed-train momentum, how a loudspeaker projects its energy into my room is the main thing that determines how my sound system feels as I listen to it. When I review loudspeakers, I try to notice the unique tone and force of their "voice" as they speak into my room. Do they stand too close, stick out their chests, and brag loudly in third harmonics? Or do they have small voices that force me to lean in to make out what they're saying?

With a miniature box speaker like my reference Falcon Gold Badge LS3/5as or the similarly sized Harbeth P3ESR XDs, which I'm auditioning this month, I have to sit very close to experience any of their direct, "off-the-cone" energy. If my listening position gets too far away or the speakers are positioned too far apart or too far from the wall behind them, the sound thins and loses body.

I didn't need to sit close to those 1947 Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre horns I used to use.

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Subwoofer Reviews
James Loudspeaker EMB-1200 subwoofer
Larry Greenhill  |  Sep 21, 2004  |  First Published: Sep 01, 2004  | 
Harry Partch (1901-1974), composer and inventor of musical instruments, delighted in generating deep bass. Finding most standard orchestral instruments wanting in that department, he built the huge Marimba Eroica, which he described on his A Glimpse into the World of Harry Partch: 27 Unique Instruments (LP, Columbia MS-20576):
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Subwoofer Reviews
JL Audio Fathom f110v2 powered subwoofer
Kalman Rubinson  |  Jul 28, 2020  | 
Some contentious issues will not be resolved in my lifetime: vinyl vs digital, tubes vs solid state, subjective vs objective, streaming vs physical media.

Also, subwoofers vs no subwoofers in a stereo music system.

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Subwoofer Reviews
JL Audio Fathom f113 powered subwoofer
Larry Greenhill  |  Sep 22, 2007  | 
Carl Kennedy, director of JL Audio's Home and Professional Sales division, leaned forward and quietly asked, "Would you like to review our Fathom f113 subwoofer?"
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Subwoofer Reviews
JL Audio Fathom f212 powered subwoofer
Larry Greenhill  |  Apr 20, 2010  | 
It's been over two years since I reviewed a pair of JL Audio's Fathom f113 subwoofers. Kalman Rubinson and I both gave the f113 top marks for delivering clean, powerful bass in a wide variety of full-range systems. At the end of the review period, JL Audio's Carl Kennedy told me that they wouldn't send me another subwoofer for review until they had developed one that outperformed the Fathom f113 (footnote 1). To this day, the Fathom f113 tops the subwoofer category in Stereophile's "Recommended Components."
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Subwoofer Reviews
JL Audio Fathom f212v2 powered subwoofer & CR-1 crossover
Larry Greenhill  |  Nov 02, 2016  | 
It was all so familiar. In "Music in the Round" in the January 2016 issue, Kal Rubinson praised JL Audio's latest subwoofer, the Fathom f113v2. He raved about its amplifier's higher power over the original f113, its beefier 13" woofer, its improved, 18-band Digital Automatic Room Optimization (DARO), and its significantly improved deep-bass response in-room.

It was familiar because the same thing had happened when Kal reviewed the original Fathom f113 in his May 2007 column. As he would again nine years later, he'd extolled the sub's high power, small size, built-in single-band Automatic Room Optimization (ARO) software, and "remarkably powerful and clean" deep bass. Those were also my reactions to the Fathom f113.

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Subwoofer Reviews
KEF KC92 powered subwoofer
Kalman Rubinson  |  Jan 02, 2025  | 
I was fascinated by Herb Reichert's adventures with the KEF KC62 subwoofer, so I borrowed one. Beautifully engineered, contoured, and finished and chock-full of cutting-edge technology, it would be welcome in any room and easily integrated into any system. However, it struck me as not just small but miniaturized, like the meticulously functional samples made for the traveling salesmen of a century past. Since its two force-canceling 6.5" radiators were the same size as or smaller than the midrange drivers in my main speakers at the time, I had low expectations and returned it without comment. That was in 2021.

I asked for a pair of KEF KC92s in early 2024 in the hope that these two relatively small subs would improve my system. Like the KC62, the gloss white cube with radiused edges and white diaphragms is an aesthetic match to our redesigned room, and the KC92 ($1999.99) is chock-full of the same cutting-edge technology.

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