brianw21

The measurements were taken "in-room" at 12ft. The mic was placed on a tripod and faced towards the sub. I acutally was taken aback at why the RSW didn't perform better. I talked to a few people who have the rsw, and they confimed my results. I moved that heavy RSW 10-15 times, to get what I got out of it. I was very pleased with the musical output of it, kick drums were crisp, and transients very clear. The rsw and HGS had very similar quality, but not below 30hz. Testing procedure: A mono output from a laptop running 10hz-100hz sweeps was plugged into the sub woofer. The gainw as set at 75% on the woofer. The volume was raised little by little until I could hear the sub start to give up. There is a clear point where the distortion becomes noticible. I backed it off a little bit to where the distortion was no longer noticible, then took the SPL measurements. It should be noted that all the subs were driven to this point. If the test range was moved up say from 30hz-120hz instead of the 20hz many of the subs would have performed much better. Home theater has content well below 30hz and I felt this wouldn't be fair to the consumer. It's much harder for subs to play that lower ocate cleanly, and loud. If I had to pick a purely musical sub, I would pick the RSW. If I had to pick a musical sub that would sound great in hometheater I would pick the HGS. If I had to pick a hometheater sub that would sound great musically I would pick the SVS. I personally have a hometheater room upstairs that is dedicated for that. I also have a setup in the living room for music. I would put the SVS upstairs and the RSW downstairs. I usually listen to my movies around 100db, I want a sub that will keep up with my KLF 30's. The svs did that, and did it clean. Remeber that no matter how technical you are, every person hears and percieves sound differently. Listen to the subs, and make you decision. Brian Weatherhead Secrets of Home Theater

Attached are the numerical results of the testing if anyone would like them. I too was disappointed with the rsw. I tried several configurations (such as those in the instructions) and none elevated the lower octave. I did have the rsw in one corner and SVS in another, played them at the same time... it was astounding. AS far as breakin, I had the RSW for a month. Each woofer was hooked up for a week and used as I normally would, then tested. This also gave me time to play with different settings on the woofers before the testing. Testing was done without a reciever, so the graphs reflect woofer and room response, with no external crossovers. It should be noted that most of the internal crossovers cannot be turned off. -Brian * Attached is the numerical results, in tab seperated.

I'm glad you liked the review. I contaced every manufacturer I could think of for this review (including Krell). Most of them returned my calls, but when I sent the list of the subs that had alredy signed onto the list, some became suddenly silent. Sunfire, Krell, . . I tried to get them all. The artlice started on the premise of $1000-$3000 price range, since a single SVS-Ultra was near the bottom, I asked for two. If you have any questions about anything feel free to ask...

I am planning on doing a comparison test of some of the big woofers out there. I would like to include Klipsch in the test, say their New Reference sub? 1. SV CS-Ultra 2. Velodyne HGS-18 3. Sunfire True Subwoofer Sig. 4. Earthquake MKIV-15 As readers would you suggest any other $1000+ subs for the comparo? Results will be written up for http://www.hometheaterhifi.com Brian Weathehread brian.weatherhead@wgint.com