subwoofer

Subwoofers do bass, it's their thing. That's easy enough to understand, but even if you've picked out a great sub, there's no guarantee you'll wind up with great bass in your room.

Why's that you ask? Room acoustics are tricky to understand, and picking the right spot for the sub is key. I've covered this before in my Subwoofer Setup Guide blog, but this time I'd like to take a different approach--using two or more subs to smooth out bass-busting room anomalies.

"Standing waves" within the room can cause large … Read more

Danley Sound Labs' Matterhorn Subwoofer may be the world's biggest--at least I hope it is. The mother of all subs has 40,000 watts of power, and the whole thing is built into a 20x8x8 foot shipping container. I guess that makes it easy to return when you blow it up! It looks like too much of a good thing to me.

More is just more; it's not necessarily better. True, the more drivers a sub has the lower the distortion, but I think the Matterhorn may have passed the point of diminishing returns. Just kidding, the Matterhorn … Read more

Most people love surround sound, but can't stand all the messy wires required to make it work. Vizio's new Jive SV5.1 Enhancement kit attempts to solve that problem with a wireless subwoofer that's placed in the back of the room and feeds two rear speakers--eliminating the need to run wires from the front of your home theater to the back. The Jive SV5.1 integrates with your current stereo TV speakers, adding a center channel in the front, and the aforementioned wireless subwoofer and rear speakers in the back. While that's great in terms of … Read more

Remember how every stomp by the T-Rex in Jurassic Park caused a puddle of water to vibrate? Now you can replicate the same heart-pumping effects at home with the JL Audio Gotham G213 subwoofer. This no-holds-barred goliath packs a pair of oversized 13.5-inch drivers powered by a meaty 3,800W amplifier. That's easily more than three times the juice pumped out by an average A/V receiver found in Asia.

Unadulterated brute muscle aside, this beautifully crafted, glossy-black piece also has a built-in audio equalization function. Dubbed "ARO" or Automatic Room Optimization, it smooths out the … Read more

If you're of a certain vintage, you may remember an old TV commercial and print ad campaign from Maxell that featured gale-force winds blowing from a stereo. That's the first thing that came to mind upon viewing this weird subwoofer from Eminent Technology.

The "Thigpen Rotary Woofer," which the company bills as "the world's first true infrasonic home audio or home theater woofer," looks more like an electric fan than a piece of audio equipment. Here's what the propeller supposedly does: "If you want to hear and feel the 4-5 hertz … Read more

One-foot cube subwoofers are all the rage, but if you really want to feel the bass, size still matters. These three uber subs at last week's Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA) Expo in Denver, Colorado really shook me up.

Eminent Technology's TRW-17 Rotary Woofer ($12,900) will blow you away. Instead of a conventional woofer, it uses proprietary technology to create ultra deep bass, deeper than the largest and most powerful subs. Sure, it looks like an industrial strength fan, but the TRW-17's fluttering blades generate bass frequencies down to 1 Hertz (standard $1,000 … Read more

If I had a dollar for every time I answered the question--"I'm looking for a great speaker system, but I don't have a lot of money, what should I get?"--I'd have enough loot to buy SVSound's awesome SBS-01 satellite/subwoofer speaker package.

SVS sells directly over the Internet so the prices are affordable, and the systems come with a 45-day, full-refund return policy. So what's the catch? SVS' speakers and subs, especially the subs, are big muthas.

Take the 20-39 PC Plus subwoofer: it features a custom-built 12-inch woofer and a … Read more

We can remember a time when many car owners had removable radios, stereo receivers and tape decks that they'd stow in the trunk to thwart potential smash-and-grab thieves. And in our neighborhood, if you left a Blaupunkt system in the dash while parked outside overnight, you might as well have put a sign on the windshield announcing your stupidity.

So it seemed perfectly natural that the German musik meisters would come up with an in-car subwoofer that could easily be removed to take with you. The "Velocity 2Go" functions as a speaker while docked in the back … Read more

Embedding music systems in household furniture is hardly a unique concept, as we've seen it done in pieces ranging from headboards to fireplaces. But in most cases, you don't sit on the equipment.

That's why we were initially a bit dubious about the "Substage FlatMagic Active Subwoofer," which is described as "the world's first ultra-compact low-profile audiophile subwoofer solution"--meaning that it's thin enough to slide under a living room chair or sofa. Soundmatters, which will soon sell a new version of the skinny box for $399, says it was designed … Read more