Bass for music & movies?
Written: May 19 '00 (Updated Jun 13 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Flatness: |
|
|
| Overall Sound: |
|
|
|
Pros: Tight, controlled, bass with excellent extension
Cons: Not cheep and like most subs, hard to "Dial in"
|
|
|
| quigley13's Full Review: Velodyne 18" Powered Subwoofer FSR-18 |
Please realize before you read this review that subwoofer placement is what will make or break what your subwoofer sounds like. Placement close to a corner can cause the sub to sound bloated or sloppy. Placement in the middle of the room and at specific areas can make certain frequencies almost non-existent while boosting others. These are rules of thumb and can be broken, just realize that poor placement can make a great sub sound bad. Your room is also key, rooms that are a perfect cube (W=H=D) or have any two dimensions equal (W=H, H=D, etc) tent to exaggerate certain frequencies. There are ways to see how good your basic room dimensions are for the low frequency extremes (Bass) but I will not get into that here. Just realize that the room and the placement are of the utmost importance.
On with the review! I have compared this sub to many others in my search to find a sub that fits my needs. I like both music and movies so I needed a sub that would sound good rhythmically and be tight but at the same time have the slam available for film. In a perfect world, I would have one sub for each. I am not into throwing away money or floor space so I had to choose one sub for both needs. The Velodyne goes LOW and loud, I had no doubts that it would make a good movie sub. It continually throws out the bass in films. The “Napalm” scene in Apocalypse Now, the “Worm hole” scene in Contact, and many other demanding scenes are handled with the appropriate slam and extension. If you are looking for a sub to go loud and low please read no further, this sub delivers the goods.
Music is where I listen the most critically. It is also where I had the most difficulty choosing the sub for my taste. The Velodyne is amazingly subtle for a huge 18-inch cone. After careful placement, the Velodyne delivers smooth fast bass. If not properly placed of if the volume it up higher than is should the sub will show sloppy characteristics. It takes time and listening to get it dialed in, but it is worth it for the sound you receive. I particularly like the remote that comes standard with the sub. You can fine-tune the volume of the bass to what you are listening to at the time. You can also mute it altogether when you want the sub to be off. Build quality and appearance are top rate. I got the gloss black finish which looks great but shows dust and fingerprints. The back panel has enough inputs, outputs, and controls to keep most anyone happy and it even has a detachable power cord (To those of you that upgrade).
Other subs that I listened to extensively were as follows:
Bag End’s top consumer sub (Very extensive A-B)
M & K dual 12 THX (Extensive A-B)
McIntosh THX (Less extensively)
NHT SW2pi (Sub from another system in my place)
NHT SW3p (My main sub at the time)
To save wordiness in this review (It’s already wordy enough) I will say that the Bag End was a good performer in the music category but lacked the slam and the build quality of the Velodyne. For a while I thought the bag end had the upper hand on certain types of music but after careful level matching and placement tweaking, I found that not to be the case. For music quality alone, I found the Bag End and the Velodyne to be a toss up. When it comes to loudness, extension, build quality, appearance, back panel controls, inputs/outputs, and ease of use, the Velodyne won.
The M&K and McIntosh offerings were both good subs but I was not impressed as much during critical music sessions.
The NHT SW2pi is just not in the same league but it is a good little sub with a fair amount of bloat to its sound. Good less expensive sub for movie use and non critical audio.
The NHT SW3p was great for music. Fast and controlled bass albeit not the most extended bass available. It did not go as loud or low as the Velodyne.
All reviewing was done in my listening room (NEVER the store). Listening system is as follows.
Proceed AVP – preamp & DAC
2 Bryston 7B ST – main ch. Amp
1 Bryston 8B ST – center/surround AMP
Also used Krell KAV 300I for some reviewing – integrated amp
Pioneer Elite Laser Disk
Pioneer Elite DV-05 DVD
NHT 3.3 main speakers
NHT AC-1 center
Cables by Wireworld
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2000
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
quigley13
|
|
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Reviews written: 19
Trusted by: 42 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.