AVSForum Members,
A true thanks for sharing your perspectives, interest, and knowledge about audio/visual equipment. I've learned a ton on these forums and hope our event will give back to the community. The event was an absolute blast and an eye opener to peek in and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes! For me, was one of those experiences where you thought you had begun to understand what is out there in the subwoofer market, but I found I was exposed to something totally beyond what I knew -- at which point I just admit I'm still a novice. Despite owning a lot of different subs over the years, I've never been exposed to subs of the quality that we heard during the meet.
Each person who attended the meet has been asked to write up their subjective impressions of each of the subs, I hope each will take advantage to share their experience demoing a few community favorite subs side by side - it's a cool experience very few people have! Unfortunately not all our attendees could be present all day long - some had other responsibilities that they had to step in and step out for. The collective ranking scores will reflect this, as there will be some subs with more scores than others ---yet despite the distractions I do believe we have valuable information and impressions to share for the subwoofer enthusiast community!
The attendees were:
•echaot - Jenson MS500
•Archaea - Jamo D7 and Yamaha CW218V (The Yamaha was powered by an external American DJ V3000 amp)
•Chirpie - SVS PB-12 +
•counsil - Epik Empire
•Luke Kamp - HSU VTF-15H
•Randy Bessinger - Seaton Submersive
•carp - JTR Captivator
•Jeff Permanian - JTR Speaker's owner - made a special trip down to Kansas City and brought down a Captivator to its new owner, carp, so it could be present for the testing. Jeff did NOT participate in the voting nor measuring. He was solely there to watch and did not influence ratings nor audition in any manner!
Note: A couple of these subs/amps combos may not be final revisions. For instance the new SVS PB-Plus currently sold by SVS is an entirely new sub than what we tested. The new PB-Blus is a new amp, new driver, new box design, and our testing obviously only is valid for the ~5ish year old design that Chirpie owns. If there are other examples of this then people should let me know. I believe the Captivator was using the 4000 watt amp that Jeff sells as a kit, and the Seaton was using the newest Amp and DSP for the testing as well.
Here is our planning thread -
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1328798
Day of the Meet!
We met at 10AM on Saturday Mary 14, the first step was just staging all the subs, in my room. With the exception of the Jamo, none of these subs were small. Nearly all weighed over 100lbs, and were all big boxes. My ~3500 cubic foot room quickly became quite cozy with eight extra subs, and all the extra equipment!
We decided as a group to state our expectations by actually giving the subs a "pre-audition" ranking. By that we intended to rank all the subs estimated final outcome. Good or bad? The hope was that this will help quell any idea of biases being hidden. It's all laid out there, up front. We didn't have the time to do a blind test as our event went until 10PM as it was!!! But the preconceived notions and expectations loosed up front will hopefully make the whole testing a bit more transparent to the reader. We also ordered the sub testing list in our expected ranking order. This order would ensure we didn't listen to an amazing sub first and then be absolutely bored to tears on a potentially lesser sub, thus giving less than our best attention to detail during the testing. Each person sat in the same chair for every demo making sure the comparison was as fair to each sub as possible. Here is a quick video of the room used for this sub shootout taken a few months back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSNz7tj1BVs&NR=1
Chirpie took some additional pics and perhaps video that should show the room a bit better - see his post.
Here is the seating chart:
- Left Main -- Projector/sub -- Right Main -
----------------~10 foot-----------------
--- Randy - Echaot - Luke - Archaea ---
----------------~2 foot-----------------
--------Chirpie -- Jeff -- counsil ---------
----------------~10 foot-----------------
Randy and carp alternated in the front left seat as they both couldn't attend the full day session.
Equipment settings:
For all tests:
•Electrical outlets the subs were hooked to were 20 amp dedicated circuits
•Onkyo TX-NR1007 receiver was used - Audessey, THX, and EQ settings were all disabled.
•Crossovers were set at 120hz across the board for both subs and speakers on the Onkyo. Main Speakers used were my modest Wharfedale Sapphire 89 towers.
•The Onkyo's built in level calibration test tone was used to match each subs gain to 75dB (matched to the mains) for the music tests using counsil's analogue spl meter. Winamp was used to play the individual mp3 clips that were trimmed using a free tool called mptrim. mptrim does not alter the mp3 at all except to trim out a section of a song. This is the track list exported into a single file - http://kiwi6.com/file/28ub13rh6w The receiver was set at -10dB on the volume dial for the music tests. This should be approximately -10dB from reference. For the music tests were were looking to see how the subs all sounded on a level playing field as far as volume. We graded them on Smoothness, Accuracy, Pleasure/Fun, and the ability to hit deep notes! The individual scores were totaled and averaged to determine a winner. For movie testing we increased the sub by +6 dB in the receiver settings (from -2.5 to +3.5) and left the gain on the sub alone (with the exclusion of the Yamaha, the Submersive and the Captivator. In these instances the gain on the subs was increased as well to show capability) Each sub owner was allowed to control the volume of his own sub so as to put the potential for damage by pushing limits in their own hands. In this section each of a series of movie clips was rated 1-5. The total scores were averaged to determine the winner. Obviously the groups selected winner in both music, and movies does not represent each person's unique individual opinion on the matter. There was some fun dialogue occurring after the Submersive and Captivator demos played for instance where there were advocates in both camps for which was "clearly" the better sub! People's opinions vary as you'll see in the individual score card posts!
•counsil, took the REW measurements at ground plane and seating position for each sub before each sub's music audition. In most cases nearly everyone left the room for these tests. It was a cold, windy day and on a few occasions a person or two would just stay inside and be quiet. Tune to his posts in this thread for details there on this process.
•counsil took spl measurements during all movie scenes and listed the max spl obtained (under the sub owners own tolerance for distortion or potential for damage)
Initial Subjective Rankings
Each person had one vote in this section. We ranked each sub from 1-8 in each category and we totaled the votes to come up with each sections winners. The higher the individual score the better the sub in that category. From the individual scores we came up with a "total" score. From the total score we established the overall ranking! Note the medal colors for 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each category based on total votes.
Here are the individual results, total score, and then the calculated rankings:
PreAudition Ranking: our unauditioned collective expectation of final rank
1. JTR Captivator
2. Seaton Submersive
3. HSU VTF-15H
4. Yamaha CW218V
5. Epik Empire
6. SVS PB-12+
7. Jamo D7
8. Jenson MS500
Scorecard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cosmetics/Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF) Ranking: (fit, finish, size)
1. SVS PB-12 +
2. HSU VTF-15H
3. Epik Empire
4. Seaton Submersive
5. JTR Captivator
6. Jamo D7
7. Yamaha CW218V
8. Jenson MS500
Scorecard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Build Quality Ranking: (inert, heavy, durable, construction quality)
1. JTR Captivator
2. SVS PB-12 +
3. HSU VTF-15H
4. Seaton Submersive
5. Epik Empire
6. Yamaha CW218V
7. Jamo D7sub
8. Jenson MS500
Scorecard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music List
The music demo list consisted of a short clip of each of the following songs. The original clips were played using winamp because it has a nice crossfading effect. Using winamp the playback has smooth transitions and continous music representing many different genres. I can provide the actual trimmed MP3's and the playlist in zipped format for anyone interested. Just PM me with your e-mail. If someone would host the clips for easy access that would be ideal. Here is a non crossfaded winamp output of the mp3's for someone just casually interested in the music we used to test these subs. http://kiwi6.com/file/28ub13rh6w
FINAL MUSIC RANKING:
The collective individual scores recorded and averaged during our testing revealed the subs ranked into the following order for finest overall music reproduction ability:
1. Seaton Submersive
2. JTR Captivator
3. HSU VTF-15H
4. Epik Empire
5. SVS PB-12+
6. Yamaha CW218V
7. Jamo D7sub
8. Jenson MS500
Movie Test Material
The demo disk created by scubasteve2365 was used during our subwoofer testing. The War of the World DVD was used in a repeating loop as well for those subs that really didn't get enough torture in the first tests. Energyfun compiled it for me and mailed it for the meet. Thanks to both for their contribution -
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1243227
FINAL MOVIE RANKING:
The collective individual scores recorded and averaged during our testing revealed the subs ranked into the following order for finest overall movie watching enjoyment:
1. JTR Captivator
2. Seaton Submersive
3. Epik Empire
4. Yamaha CW218V
5. HSU VTF-15H
6. SVS PB-12+
7. Jenson MS500
8. Jamo D7sub
My subjective opinions were left out of this first informational post, they are contained in a post later down the page.
A true thanks for sharing your perspectives, interest, and knowledge about audio/visual equipment. I've learned a ton on these forums and hope our event will give back to the community. The event was an absolute blast and an eye opener to peek in and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes! For me, was one of those experiences where you thought you had begun to understand what is out there in the subwoofer market, but I found I was exposed to something totally beyond what I knew -- at which point I just admit I'm still a novice. Despite owning a lot of different subs over the years, I've never been exposed to subs of the quality that we heard during the meet.
Each person who attended the meet has been asked to write up their subjective impressions of each of the subs, I hope each will take advantage to share their experience demoing a few community favorite subs side by side - it's a cool experience very few people have! Unfortunately not all our attendees could be present all day long - some had other responsibilities that they had to step in and step out for. The collective ranking scores will reflect this, as there will be some subs with more scores than others ---yet despite the distractions I do believe we have valuable information and impressions to share for the subwoofer enthusiast community!
The attendees were:
•echaot - Jenson MS500
•Archaea - Jamo D7 and Yamaha CW218V (The Yamaha was powered by an external American DJ V3000 amp)
•Chirpie - SVS PB-12 +
•counsil - Epik Empire
•Luke Kamp - HSU VTF-15H
•Randy Bessinger - Seaton Submersive
•carp - JTR Captivator
•Jeff Permanian - JTR Speaker's owner - made a special trip down to Kansas City and brought down a Captivator to its new owner, carp, so it could be present for the testing. Jeff did NOT participate in the voting nor measuring. He was solely there to watch and did not influence ratings nor audition in any manner!
Note: A couple of these subs/amps combos may not be final revisions. For instance the new SVS PB-Plus currently sold by SVS is an entirely new sub than what we tested. The new PB-Blus is a new amp, new driver, new box design, and our testing obviously only is valid for the ~5ish year old design that Chirpie owns. If there are other examples of this then people should let me know. I believe the Captivator was using the 4000 watt amp that Jeff sells as a kit, and the Seaton was using the newest Amp and DSP for the testing as well.
Here is our planning thread -
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1328798
Day of the Meet!
We met at 10AM on Saturday Mary 14, the first step was just staging all the subs, in my room. With the exception of the Jamo, none of these subs were small. Nearly all weighed over 100lbs, and were all big boxes. My ~3500 cubic foot room quickly became quite cozy with eight extra subs, and all the extra equipment!
We decided as a group to state our expectations by actually giving the subs a "pre-audition" ranking. By that we intended to rank all the subs estimated final outcome. Good or bad? The hope was that this will help quell any idea of biases being hidden. It's all laid out there, up front. We didn't have the time to do a blind test as our event went until 10PM as it was!!! But the preconceived notions and expectations loosed up front will hopefully make the whole testing a bit more transparent to the reader. We also ordered the sub testing list in our expected ranking order. This order would ensure we didn't listen to an amazing sub first and then be absolutely bored to tears on a potentially lesser sub, thus giving less than our best attention to detail during the testing. Each person sat in the same chair for every demo making sure the comparison was as fair to each sub as possible. Here is a quick video of the room used for this sub shootout taken a few months back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSNz7tj1BVs&NR=1
Chirpie took some additional pics and perhaps video that should show the room a bit better - see his post.
Here is the seating chart:
- Left Main -- Projector/sub -- Right Main -
----------------~10 foot-----------------
--- Randy - Echaot - Luke - Archaea ---
----------------~2 foot-----------------
--------Chirpie -- Jeff -- counsil ---------
----------------~10 foot-----------------
Randy and carp alternated in the front left seat as they both couldn't attend the full day session.
Equipment settings:
For all tests:
•Electrical outlets the subs were hooked to were 20 amp dedicated circuits
•Onkyo TX-NR1007 receiver was used - Audessey, THX, and EQ settings were all disabled.
•Crossovers were set at 120hz across the board for both subs and speakers on the Onkyo. Main Speakers used were my modest Wharfedale Sapphire 89 towers.
•The Onkyo's built in level calibration test tone was used to match each subs gain to 75dB (matched to the mains) for the music tests using counsil's analogue spl meter. Winamp was used to play the individual mp3 clips that were trimmed using a free tool called mptrim. mptrim does not alter the mp3 at all except to trim out a section of a song. This is the track list exported into a single file - http://kiwi6.com/file/28ub13rh6w The receiver was set at -10dB on the volume dial for the music tests. This should be approximately -10dB from reference. For the music tests were were looking to see how the subs all sounded on a level playing field as far as volume. We graded them on Smoothness, Accuracy, Pleasure/Fun, and the ability to hit deep notes! The individual scores were totaled and averaged to determine a winner. For movie testing we increased the sub by +6 dB in the receiver settings (from -2.5 to +3.5) and left the gain on the sub alone (with the exclusion of the Yamaha, the Submersive and the Captivator. In these instances the gain on the subs was increased as well to show capability) Each sub owner was allowed to control the volume of his own sub so as to put the potential for damage by pushing limits in their own hands. In this section each of a series of movie clips was rated 1-5. The total scores were averaged to determine the winner. Obviously the groups selected winner in both music, and movies does not represent each person's unique individual opinion on the matter. There was some fun dialogue occurring after the Submersive and Captivator demos played for instance where there were advocates in both camps for which was "clearly" the better sub! People's opinions vary as you'll see in the individual score card posts!
•counsil, took the REW measurements at ground plane and seating position for each sub before each sub's music audition. In most cases nearly everyone left the room for these tests. It was a cold, windy day and on a few occasions a person or two would just stay inside and be quiet. Tune to his posts in this thread for details there on this process.
•counsil took spl measurements during all movie scenes and listed the max spl obtained (under the sub owners own tolerance for distortion or potential for damage)
Initial Subjective Rankings
Each person had one vote in this section. We ranked each sub from 1-8 in each category and we totaled the votes to come up with each sections winners. The higher the individual score the better the sub in that category. From the individual scores we came up with a "total" score. From the total score we established the overall ranking! Note the medal colors for 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each category based on total votes.
Here are the individual results, total score, and then the calculated rankings:
PreAudition Ranking: our unauditioned collective expectation of final rank
1. JTR Captivator
2. Seaton Submersive
3. HSU VTF-15H
4. Yamaha CW218V
5. Epik Empire
6. SVS PB-12+
7. Jamo D7
8. Jenson MS500
Scorecard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cosmetics/Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF) Ranking: (fit, finish, size)
1. SVS PB-12 +
2. HSU VTF-15H
3. Epik Empire
4. Seaton Submersive
5. JTR Captivator
6. Jamo D7
7. Yamaha CW218V
8. Jenson MS500
Scorecard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Build Quality Ranking: (inert, heavy, durable, construction quality)
1. JTR Captivator
2. SVS PB-12 +
3. HSU VTF-15H
4. Seaton Submersive
5. Epik Empire
6. Yamaha CW218V
7. Jamo D7sub
8. Jenson MS500
Scorecard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music List
The music demo list consisted of a short clip of each of the following songs. The original clips were played using winamp because it has a nice crossfading effect. Using winamp the playback has smooth transitions and continous music representing many different genres. I can provide the actual trimmed MP3's and the playlist in zipped format for anyone interested. Just PM me with your e-mail. If someone would host the clips for easy access that would be ideal. Here is a non crossfaded winamp output of the mp3's for someone just casually interested in the music we used to test these subs. http://kiwi6.com/file/28ub13rh6w
- Realm of Excursion - 100Hz to 20Hz Sine Sweep
- Rockapella - Shambala
- Diana Krall - Peel Me a Grape
- Rascal Flatts - What Hurts The Most
- Cake - Sad Songs And Waltzes
- Van Halen - Hot For Teacher
- Counting Crows - Hanging Around
- Creed - One
- Linkin Park - Frgt
- Janet Jackson - Go Deep
- Michael Jackson - Thriller
- Britney Spears - Breathe On Me
- Snoop Doggy Dogg - Who Am I (Whats My Name)
- Dr. Dre feat. Xzibit & Eminem - Whats The Difference Between Me and You
- Mya - Getto Superstar
- Eminem - Business
- Nelly - Country Grammar
- Lil Jon - Get Low
- Lupe Fiasco - The Show Goes On
- Nine Inch Nails - The Four of Us are Dying
- Flux Pavilion - Got 2 Know
- Example - Kickstarts (Bar 9 Remix)
FINAL MUSIC RANKING:
The collective individual scores recorded and averaged during our testing revealed the subs ranked into the following order for finest overall music reproduction ability:
1. Seaton Submersive
2. JTR Captivator
3. HSU VTF-15H
4. Epik Empire
5. SVS PB-12+
6. Yamaha CW218V
7. Jamo D7sub
8. Jenson MS500
Movie Test Material
The demo disk created by scubasteve2365 was used during our subwoofer testing. The War of the World DVD was used in a repeating loop as well for those subs that really didn't get enough torture in the first tests. Energyfun compiled it for me and mailed it for the meet. Thanks to both for their contribution -
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1243227
- War of the Worlds - pod emergence scene
- Knowing - plane crash scene
- Master & Commander - ship battle in fog
- John Mayer - live recording of concert
- Ironman - suiting up and sonic boom
- Orphanage - erie house creaking
- THX Amazing Life clip
- Kung Fu Panda - skadoosh scene
- Tron - first enters the digital word and the club entrace scene
FINAL MOVIE RANKING:
The collective individual scores recorded and averaged during our testing revealed the subs ranked into the following order for finest overall movie watching enjoyment:
1. JTR Captivator
2. Seaton Submersive
3. Epik Empire
4. Yamaha CW218V
5. HSU VTF-15H
6. SVS PB-12+
7. Jenson MS500
8. Jamo D7sub
My subjective opinions were left out of this first informational post, they are contained in a post later down the page.