Swerv

edit: i just noticed you posted your impressions a few posts down as well. I'm in a dilemma of getting the RT12d or waiting and saving up some more for the fathom 113... unfortunately.. the canadian price seems to be around 5000$ msrp..... OUCH. its a shame most dealers in vancouver area are crap too.

Ear I sent you a "PM"

According to Toms' Graph the rf83s can do it at a little more than insignificant output by about 3 hz. This isnt saying a whole lot for the RT subs... unless I misinterpreted the graph... in any case both the results for the JL and the RT12 are really poor... I want another measurment on these subs.

Those results are extremely horrible, for both subs. I hope we see some more testing done. No offense to Tom but something is not right if the RF-83 tower extends lower than the RT-12d... those graphs are pretty wack

thanks for the recomendation

So if it had trouble going down to 20hz in a small room like you're saying, in a larger room forget it? It would be nice to know how deep it can go, the Soundbroker reports -3db at 17hz in an install he did recently over on avs forums, that seems really impressive - perhaps required some special room treatments or special room. I will be happy if i can get it to 20hz with some authority - doesn't have to be the same rediculous output as 30hz, but being -12dB down from 30hz would be of no use to me anyways... - Ed

Ear, interesting you mention that "some energy can be had near 20hz"... That was not the impression I got from other owners of the RT subs, Are you refering to the RT10-d or the RT-12d? I mean the mini RSW-10d was able to go down to 27ish hz with power, before rolling off . the flagship only goes as low as the RSW15? I dont follow, I would be very dissapointed in the RT-12d if it rolled off after 25hz. In any case I'll find out first hand soon enough when I get mine hopefully sometime the end of this week.

Tell me more about the RT sub Arthur!, where it excells, where it falls short... compared to your other subs, (more expensive or less). How is the ARC on these things, apparently its a breeze to use, but does it work well better than the EQ on the DD velodynes? I'm curious to see how the RT sub fairs compared to your RSW15, Aerial sw12, your B15 and any other high end toys you have gotten since I last heard about your list [] Thanks! (also have you heard the REL britannia line? if yes, how did you find them[:^)]) - Ed

I'm also quite interested in this. When I get my Rt-12d ill be comparing it to the rsw-10d and a local shop of mine which carries the REL B2 britannia series and the newer R series - As well as B&W subs and Velodyne. I'm still quite curious as to what the improvments between the two RT subs are also. My guess is you nailed it with the little bit more output and perhaps a few hz more extension.

grats on 8k EAR! lol

"And the fat salesman collapses a wooden floors,and sales." LOL! Yea that audition was funny. Oh and I forgot to add that the numbers were with the sub far enough away from wall, not in a corner and without the RS correction values added 5dB at 25hz or so. So in fact this sub is quite linear down to about 26hz or so, and with proper calibration and placement I dont doubt it could extend down to the quoted 24hz. Impressive for a unit this tiny.

I think it really depends on what you listen to. One could post over 100 pages of audio tracks with sub 30hz material, its there and its very easy to see with a program like spectra plus, or another spectrum analyzer.

My London Drugs Experience with the RSW10d I'll give a brief explanation here, I have been looking to get a sub for the past couple months to go with my main. One of the units I've auditioned at a great length so far and have more experience with is the RSW-10d from Klipsch. I have already made my choice but it didn't hurt to go and have another listen, this time even more prepared And ready to put the little sibling of the sub ill be getting through its paces. I called up a local London Drugs in my area, and asked if they had a unit on display ready to audition, and to roughly describe the room and its dimensions, as the one I had spent the most time with was at a downtown location with a really, really miniature room with 2 glass walls on each side. Not exactly the best place, as everything in the room resonates past a certain spl. Content with the description of the room and setup, I told the guy I'd be heading down with some DVDs and music to put the little guy through its paces. I head down and go to the back, I talk with a salesman there who mentions that the unit they have is malfunctioning, and emitting weird noises at low volume when playing back bass content. Somewhat surprised and disappointed I dont waste any time and ask if there is a proper setup at a nearby location. He makes a phone call and confirms that there is. So I head down to the new location and walk to the back again, this time to be greeted by a very large intimidating fellow, probably 6' 6 or so, and 300lb or more. I mention that Im the guy they phoned about from the other store. I go to walk in the audio room, but before I step or even take my jacket off he starts firing away with questions, like a police detective in the movies or TV. Similar tone and attitude, it had only been 15 seconds and I already didn't like this guy and had a bad impression. "What are you looking for exactly?" "What is your current sub, what is your setup?" "What is your room like, describe it." "Why are you auditioning the reference subs?" etc.. I can tell this was going to be a frustrating evening. Had I had the stamina and patience to leave and go to another store I would have walked out right there. I decided though, these clowns wasted enough of my time and that annoying salesman or not, I wasn't going to let that stop me from testing the limits of this sub. They had the subs setup against the large glass wall along the lengthy side of the rather large room. I could tell right away that this was a less than ideal position. A quick listen to U-571 confirmed, as the bass was anemic and non existent for all the subs. I asked him if I could relocate the sub to the other wall near, in between the mains a pair of RF62's.He hesitated, gave me a couple of excuses that I did not care for and proceeded to relocate the unit. I put in Master and commander, under attack chapter (4) and began my listening. I had set the settings on the sub to play (LFE direct, internal-xover off) so that I could hear the entire range of the sub after I stepped back and sat down from calibrated the unit to my liking, this clown walks over to the sub starts changing the settings and "locks" the keypad on the sub. I play along dumb Heh, a simple holding of the two arrows left and right for a few seconds unlocks it and I reset it to my liking later on before doing more tests.. He was really, really eager to know about my room and equipment and wouldnt stop asking questions. Anyway so the chapter starts playing and I could tell the towers were set to large, I ask him politely if he can switch the front channels to small but before I finish he fires "Why do you want them set to small?" at me. I explain that I want to hear the bass from the sub, not the mains, and that I want to hear its entire spectrum, not the 80 Hz crossover it was set to. He says " You dont need to set these ones to small, the sub is still doing the bass around 80hz" completely disregarding what I had just explained. After some more bickering and him telling me that I wont hear any difference he sets them to small. I put in War of the worlds, the pods emerge scene shortly after to listen for any leaks or weird noises coming from the sub playing those extreme LFE frequencies at high output. This time I ask if he can turn off the mains, like he turned the center off. He walks over to the receiver and presses the A/B speaker select button a few times to no avail and pauses, then says to me "Nope, sorry. I can't do that with this unit" I say, "Well why not just unplug the banana plugs from the speakers in the back." He hesitates for a moment and tells me that It cant be done since the Wires are carefully connected or some other BS. Ok then... At this point or around this point a lady(his manager) comes up to the glass door and motions to him to turn down the volume, she gives a frustrated look, and I turn it down before he opens his mouth. She mentions that merchandise was coming off the wall on the other side of the HT room and storms off. Throughout the audition I had pulled out my RS meter pad, and ruler to make some measurements and run some tests. He says what Im doing is a waste of time and that he has never used a RS meter to calibrate or test a sub; he only uses it for measurements of mains, to test the FR of a speaker/main. I tell him that the RS meter is grossly inaccurate and pretty much useless for accurately testing upper frequencies. That it is pretty much only good for calibrating the sub to the mains, and testing subs with the correction numbers. At this point he starts telling me that I shouldnt bother with measurements and should just listen since they dont mean anything. He asks "What are you looking for in a sub" I tell him the big five, 1.power/slam/punch, 2.extension/depth, 3.Loud and linear, 4.flat Response/decay/speed, and to have 5.low distortion levels. I tell him that I'm already quite familiar with this product, but I wanted to measure its extension in more depth, more specifically. Ah yes, the following 5 minutes were the most entertaining and Gee Wiz Bang claims out the *** I have ever heard. The first thing he says to me is "unless you have a room that is 38' feet long, you wont hear a 25hz wave he states." I laugh out loud, I explain to this clown that you don't need a 60 foot room to hear/feel 20 cycles but he is too stubborn to accept. We get into a heated debate, but he finally shuts up when I tell ask him where he has heard these children's fairy tails. Towards the end he gets bored I'm guessing and leaves me to listen to my music and run a few more tests before I depart from this insanity. Though this ordeal and experience was definitely something I never want to experience again, I did manage to get the information I wanted when it was all said and done, so it wasn't a total loss! the measurements of the driver surround which I was curious of are 20mm on the outer ring of the surround, from the base of the baffle to the peak of the rim(the diameter of the surround measured from the outside half of the triangular shaped surround) And approx 28mm/30mm on the inside half. All in all this looked like a very formidable unit capable of displacing grown up Bass in a tiny enclosure. I was able to push the unit to its limits with some sine waves played back, until the driver excursion wouldnt go any further, the surround was capable of more quite a lot more from the looks of it..., but this unit had reached its limit, amp wise/power wise or magnet wise perhaps. Maybe the flagship RT series would dare to push this drive unit even further. Not once in all of the tests at well over its max output did the sub distort audibly, bottom out or sound flatulent. It remained composed and took everything I gave to it. The one complaint I had was that this thing was so powerful it was rattling the grill which was securely fastened to the front of the passive radiator during "Jurassic lunch" stomps leading up to the crunch. I took some measurements from 4 feet, with my meter, and wrote them down: the sub was in about 12inches from the wall, active driver facing into middle of room passive against the wall. This room was roughly 22 feet by 16feet. With a reference volume of 107dB at 53 Hz: (Note this was not max output of the unit, it had more to go) 70 Hz @ 102db 67 Hz @ 103 63 Hz @ 104 56 Hz @ 104 53 Hz @ 107 50 Hz @ 109 45 Hz @ 108 43 Hz @ 108 40 Hz @ 108 37 Hz @ 108 34 Hz @ 107 32 Hz @ 102 30 Hz @ 103 28 Hz @ 104 26 Hz @ 101 24 Hz @ 99 20 Hz @ (not on the scale) In short, considering the crappy room layout, no EQ or proper calibration/placement, and superb knowledgeable staff made for a vomit inducing experience, at least I was impressed with how the sub sounded given the conditions. To be fair, all the other London drugs locations I have been to, the staff is all pretty much clueless, but at least they were polite and gave me the space and time I needed, just not this guy. So this post was not intended as a flame for London Drugs, just my experience at this one location with this one clerk! Ill post a review and pics when I pickup my RT-12d in week or so. Cheers, - Ed

Perhaps you can expand on this? 100dB is not loud for me, my little ultra 5.1computer sub can put out 110-115dbpeaks in a medium size room. Surely that was a type-o? I recall the RSW-15 being near the top of the pack on nousain's subwoofer list for max spl. If the RT-12d is only a few dB shy... I dont follow.

Oh my god... this thread is still around! o_0

Hi Jetjockey, those are some pretty bold claims, what other subs do you have experience with? Also which subs have you directly compared the Paradigm to? Thanks, -Ed

Hi Arthur, I just checked both my emails and did not receive anything. I sent you another PM. Thanks, - Ed

Ear have you had a chance to hear the RSW10d and the RT-10d side by side? What kind of difference or performance can I expect? Maybe a Klipsch mod can answer this one too. I know the RT-10d includes the mic for the auto room correction, but aside from the shape, little more power and extra radiator what is the main difference from these two units. I will add that I was mighty impressed with the RSW10d, I just don't get why they made the enclosure smaller!

Just heard this artist for first time today... they were playing it at the HMV downtown in Vancouver. I asked what it was because it was extremely good, very mellow and good rythym. Picked it up, quality is outstanding and a real nice demo, awesome vocals, guitar,key, and drums ! wow. fantastic... , outstanding even. especially the track "make you mine" http://www.abbeyroadsessions.com/donavon-frankenreiter.html

Arthur, I'm very interested, for financial reasons my sub purchases will be delayed until at least mid october. Maybe we can work something out. If this is something you need to jump on right away I understand, In any case, thanks! Thats a fantastic deal for the rt-10d. Drop me a email if you can, ed3dfx@hotmail.com Thanks, - Ed

Ohh that Dynaudio looks fantastic. I don't think it would dig much deeper than the REL but maybe pump out a few more spl? Tell me more about it... I'm intrigued =) What kind of price can i expect to pay for one of these sub300's. I'am leaning towards something more musical now... that will at least give me flat response to about 24hz in room. So I think I'm gonna try and steer clear of the TurboFAN type subs.

Interesting tidbit of info there. Slightly off topic but I just got some new stands... Was going to get the wooden 36" high Sanus ones from a local shop that retailed for 170, but I ran into the fellow that helped me test out the REL sub at another shop and he offered to give me these B&W metal stands for almost 1/2 of regular price! Listed at $210 in store he gave them to me for $120!!! I have also seen these exact stands at another shop for $250, so I'm pretty happy =). These are really heavy compared to many of the other metal ones I was looking at, and that doesnt include the stuff I filled em with. This is kind of my setup right now, the ultra sub is flat to about 32 hz in this room. I want something that is more musical, and will give me an octave lower (if that is possible for $1800 ) The seismic and VTF-3 sound like my best bet then... also you havent told me if you like the seismic 12 for music =) Here are the new stands, this is the previous setup: Here is a semi finished stand, about to add some weight(not that it needs it.) I got some what I thought was sand from the construction area just beside my building... Turns out it is Cement mix (before it is cement) It is quite heavy and more paste'y than regular sand. I put a bit of teflon tape around the inside bottom just in case to prevent any leaks. The stands alone weigh 36 pounds, with the filler each one is around 50-60+ pounds each And finally some playing around with the final setup... sounds great =) http://img143.imagevenue.com/loc528/th_42341_15_122_528lo.jpg

Yea I found a place in vancouver that carries HSU, so ill go check it out. I'm wondering if you have had a chance to check out the R series (205,305,505) I like the 505, but am skeptical of the performance. How musical is the seismic 12,and if you heard the VTF, what do you think of its unimpressive driver... looks alittle dated by todays standards. I'll be brining in my bookshelves to the shop that carries the REL this weekend to see how they blend. I'll post my impressions and bring a spl meter to measure the output of the REL.

I was very suprised with the rolloff also, the room was a weird shape, and medium size... the sub was corner placed (spl1000) and front wall was longer than the rear wall, so not a perfect rectangle. In any case both the totem thunder and the spl1000 were very subdued in deep bass. The spl1000 edging it out and pumping out more spl but not going much deeper than about 27hz without some serious rolloff at 25 it was inaudible for the most part. I have high hopes for the seismic 12... what is a price i can expect to get this little monster for? How does it perform for music? can I expect musicallity or is this going to sound similar to the spl1000, or 1200. As for the REL, I see what you mean. It was excellent quality bass but more of a light flavor than a real presence or foundation to the music. I dont think the R-205 would cut it for me unless i was in a really small room and didnt care for sub 25hz freq. So far I really liked the RSW10d and it seems a good compromise of power, musicality and reasonable depth. If it extended a few hz lower I would definately consider it. I will probably end up trying to audition the RSW10d in home, along with the seismic if i can. So I can A/B them

TheEAR, thank you for that post I laughed outloud when I read "Futurepoop" and "Boom Boom Canister" My thoughts exactly. I'm thinking so far the most musical and best performer Ive heard for music was the REL 505-R but that is severely over my budget even with some sort of a discount... Sigh. I forgot to mention but the REL subs were crossed over at 25Hz, does this not seem a bit excessive ? what is the point of having it reproduce a few hz of bass, as neither unit was pressurising the room at 20hz. They were non intrusive for sure, but I did not get a good sense of what kind of headroom they had to work with or what their limitations were. Also the place that sells the REL has no return policy because it was abused... they do offer a 1 year trade in policy that they can take back a purchase a full price to upgrade or something along those lines. I wish Klipsch made a unit the size of the energy 12.3 with the 12 inch versoin of the driver from the RSW10d and that amp... That would probably be perfect for what im looking for. And what do you mean about the klipsch subs cut lower? the crossover set to the lowest on them? Would this be advised as my bookshelves seem to roll off gradually after about 60hz. Another update little update: Today I went to a different shop to audition the Velo SPL1000-R , convinced that it was the unit or setup at the other location that led me to hear some anemic bass. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a quality diver in this unit powered by a massive amplifier, however this cannot overcome the laws of physics in its miniature enclosure... This sub as further tested today seems to have a highpass filter around 23-24Hz, very disapointing. As it doesn't even attempt to reproduce the lower footstomps in DTS- Jurrassic lunch as you can clearly see the cones moving violently with huricane like force on other subs this unite the movemnt was subdued until about 27hz and up... Overall This seems like an excellent powerful compact HT sub for frequencies 100 to 27Hz. I spend hours fiddling with controls settings tests measurments only to be more disapointed in its exension and lack of punch. This is a rumbler, seems to shake everything in the room but not produce much deep bass pressure or slam commonly found in klipsch subs. I gave the Totem Thunder $2300 CAD a whirl and It had clean bass,quality furniture like cabinet that was built like a tank, and a hefty high quality amp. This unit was good for music but no where near the quality of the REL for music, comparable to the RSW10d in terms of pitch and articulation. It was rythmic but lacked impact and slam. The extension on this unit was even worse than the Velo, rolling off sharply after 35hz. Kind of disapointing considering its price tag and 10" active and 2x 10" passives in a somewhat larger box than the SPL1000. The last one auditioned today was the Energy 12.3 So far this one is the best Bang for buck by far. It is a large one though, and has twin round ports on the underside, and a fairly hefty but not massive 12" driver. I'm thinking that I'm gonna be looking into getting subs in larger cabinets, this sub produced frequencies down to about 25hz effortlessly before gradually rolling off. It was as musical as the SPL1000R if not more... yet the bass was never anemic, there was palpability to it, and impact. Actually this unit had the most slam of all subs save for the RSW10d. In comparison to the velo DLS5000 which has a 15inch driver and a slot port on the bottom front, this unit was much better and produced much cleaner bass, but still not quite the quality of the Totem Thunder, the RSW and quite a far bit away from the REL. In terms of deep bass this one has the most of all subs I have auditioned so far. I think my next round of auditions are going to be much larger box subs, unforunately with the trend in sthetics these days... unless you go SVS or high end Velo, large boxes are getting harder to find it seems. I will try to include the HSU VTF-3 , and Seismic 12 if I can find a dealer.