Subwoofer Comparison

[Gene DellaSala]

Nice effort here. I think it would be great if we can all pool our measurements of products and put into a spreadsheet like done here. I would also like to suggest considering to assign a Bassaholic room size rating. Both myself and Josh Ricci put forth considerable effort into a better approach to averaging SPL like CEA 2010A recommends. It also allows the layman to equate a tangible value to performance since dBs can sometimes be hard to grasp.

Here is my article on the Bassaholic Room Size rating.

https://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/subwoofer-room-size

I tried to attach our latest subwoofer spreadsheet to show how we tabulate the data we collect on subs we review and measure but this site won't let me attach excel spreadsheets.

You can download our latest spreadsheet at the bottom of the page of this review:
https://www.audioholics.com/subwoofer-reviews/svs-pb-2000-pro-1

Notice the tabs that give different metrics, including the room size rating. Hope this helps.

 

[sweetchaos]

Nice effort here. I think it would be great if we can all pool our measurements of products and put into a spreadsheet like done here. I would also like to suggest considering to assign a Bassaholic room size rating. Both myself and Josh Ricci put forth considerable effort into a better approach to averaging SPL like CEA 2010A recommends. It also allows the layman to equate a tangible value to performance since dBs can sometimes be hard to grasp.

Here is my article on the Bassaholic Room Size rating.

https://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/subwoofer-room-size

I tried to attach our latest subwoofer spreadsheet to show how we tabulate the data we collect on subs we review and measure but this site won't let me attach excel spreadsheets.

You can download our latest spreadsheet at the bottom of the page of this review:
https://www.audioholics.com/subwoofer-reviews/svs-pb-2000-pro-1

Notice the tabs that give different metrics, including the room size rating. Hope this helps.

Thanks Gene.
I've actually tried to implement the Bassaholic rank, but for some reason, my calculator was about 75% successful. Meaning, something was off.
I'll send you a message to figure out the discrepancy.

 

[sweetchaos]

I finally figured out Monoprice's Monolith M-215 CEA-2010-A discrepancy!

Background:
Monoprice's website for M-215 shows:

Spoiler

But they don't specify whether this is 2m Peak SPL or 2m RMS SPL, anywhere!

Then, I saw Audioholic's article talking about the Monolith, and it showed:

Spoiler

This tells me that the THX 15" is showing 2m RMS SPL.
Which means that M-215 is also showing 2m RMS SPL.

UPDATE:
Added to my spreadsheet!

 

[sweetchaos]

Observation:

Since I've been tracking subwoofers for several years now, I noticed that the latest version of Brent Butterworth's spreadsheet no longer includes SVS PB-1000. Whereas I had copy of the spreadsheet that I've downloaded in Dec 2019 that has it.

Brent's spreadsheet from Dec 2019:

Spoiler

I've added this data to my spreadsheet:

Spoiler

I don't know why he no longer includes the data for SVS PB-1000, whereas he did originally.
Of course, I'm including it in the database for everyone's benefit.

 

[sweetchaos]

Interesting stats after ~1.5days of launching:

Spoiler

I think it's picking up traction...

Look at all the people looking at the spreadsheet:

Please post more models for me to add. Thanks!

 

[Vasr]

I haven't looked at sub measurements in any detail but is there any metric for quantifying when people say the response is fast for a sub? I don't mean processing delay here. But the ability for the driver to reverse direction, etc when playing. This seems to be noted as an issue with matching planar speakers. I don't know how real this issue is or whether there is a wide range in performance along this dimension to make a difference.

 

[Sancus]

Some corrections:
Wharfedale SW-150 is a 10" driver, not 15.
Monitor Audio MASS is a 8" driver.

The Pro Audio Technology LFC-14sm looks like the smallest sub using a 15" driver in the sheet! I'd love to see measurement,s though I couldn't find anywhere to buy it lol. Also very interested in seeing the Power Sound Audio S1512 and Rythmik E15HP measured.

 

[Gene DellaSala]

Thanks Gene.
I've actually tried to implement the Bassaholic rank, but for some reason, my calculator was about 75% successful. Meaning, something was off.
I'll send you a message to figure out the discrepancy.

I sent you a PM but will also reply here:

Yes basically you do the following: Translate CEA 2 meter outdoor groundplane peak SPL data to 4 meter corner-loaded in-room (1/8th free space) by adding +6dB (+9dB for RMS values).

Make sure you know if you're working with RMS or peak SPL data from CEA2010. We report 2m RMS for our CEA data so you have to add +9dB to get the inroom output to determine the Bassaholic rating. We rate -6dB at 25Hz and you add + 6dB to go up to the next room size with the exception to the Extreme room size rating requiring +8dB more SPL than the large rating. We don't want to make this too easy on the manufacturers

Hope this helps.

 

[richard12511]

I haven't looked at sub measurements in any detail but is there any metric for quantifying when people say the response is fast for a sub? I don't mean processing delay here. But the ability for the driver to reverse direction, etc when playing. This seems to be noted as an issue with matching planar speakers. I don't know how real this issue is or whether there is a wide range in performance along this dimension to make a difference.

Group delay is maybe what you're looking for. Databass shows group delay, impulse response, spectogram, and waterfall plots in their "Time Domain" measurements. Most great subs will have inaudible time domain deficiencies.

Distortion also contributes to how tight a sub sounds (ime), though most great subs will have inaudible distortion.

Finally, extension (or lack of) contributes to perceived speed ime. Lower frequencies are longer and slower to develop, so they tend to sound slower. I've tested this by adding high pass filter, and it subjectively "tightens" the bass.

By far the most important factor for speed(imo) is the room, and the room EQ. Bringing down the room modes with EQ really tightens the bass.

 

[Vasr]

The issue of the "speed" of a sub is raised when matching to a main speakers (not how it sounds on its own) and unrelated to room modes (so not to be confused with it).

For example, I keep coming across statements that REL subs are fast. I don't know if this is true and if so what metric this is captured in and whether it differs significantly from other subs enough to make a difference. Magnepan bass panel was supposedly designed to match better with the "fast response" of the planar speakers. Again, I don't know how real this is and if real what metric measures it.

SVS makes this statement in discussing driver sizes

Accuracy, speed in transients and the ability to blend seamlessly with full range speakers are also critical factors when judging the performance of any sized subwoofer

https://www.svsound.com/blogs/subwo...rengths-and-pitfalls-of-big-subwoofer-drivers

The main question is if there is more than SPL levels, Distortion and FR that determines how well a sub integrates with the type of main speakers you have, especially with different speaker designs like cone or planar.

 

[warthor]

I think warranty information is highly valuable when deciding on which subwoofer to purchase. The reason being the warranty duration varies significantly between vendors. Some premier speaker vendors (KEF) have "sub" par subwoofer warranties for example (2 years on electronics). The second reason a long warranty is so valuable is that you have electronic components in subwoofers so they are more likely to break down compared to passive speakers.

 

[sweetchaos]

Improvements:
- Added size (height, width, depth) and volume in metric. This is just a simple conversion from inches. This was not taken from mfg website.

My next thought was to:
- Somehow colour coordinate prices of subwoofers.
1. US$ from mfg's website
2. US$ from typical reseller's website (sweetwater.com, bhphotovideo.com, adorama.com, bestbuy.com, guitarcenter.com)
3. US$ from amazon.com
4. US$ from international seller, with price converted to US$
Good idea or unnecessary?

 

[Kachda]

Very nice work. I wonder if there’sa formula to calculate a rating based on extension, spl and flatness. The one could divide the price by it to get an idea of value.
Eyeballing it, the monoprice 10” looks like a lot of value for money for a small room.

 

[MZKM]

Very nice work. I wonder if there’sa formula to calculate a rating based on extension, spl and flatness. The one could divide the price by it to get an idea of value.
Eyeballing it, the monoprice 10” looks like a lot of value for money for a small room.

Keep in mind that CEA2010 doesn’t show flatness, it just shows compression. A sub could be super linear at 90dB, but at 110dB for >30Hz, the <30Hz could be 100dB.

I think the “simplest“ thing to do is just allow people to filter, like I have for speakers. The only downside is that people need to have a Google account. You make a separate spreadsheet that imports the data from the main one (=ImportRange(), it auto updates too) and use =filter() & =RegexMatch() code to filter based off user input.

Since max SPL for a sub is an unknown value for people, incorporating Gene’s bassaholic rating is good. One can simply calculate the bassaholic rating for each and let people choose from a dropdown. More extreme would be to have people enter the cubic volume of their space (you can also allow for imperial & metric, just takes some slight working with the code, same with subwoofer dimensions), this is what I do for speaker dimensions in my spreadsheet (though you enter the max dimensions you want, not the minimum).

 

[warthor]

Interesting stats after ~1.5days of launching:

Spoiler

View attachment 113601

I think it's picking up traction...

Look at all the people looking at the spreadsheet:
View attachment 113602

Please post more models for me to add. Thanks!

Thanks for your hard work on this spreadsheet. I think it will be very valuable. I am in the market for a subwoofer upgrade at the moment, so it was quite timely. (Sidenote: I am saddened by the fact we don't have the measurement data for PSA subs though! PSA is very highly regarded by a number of audio groups).

A number of people have mentioned adding a value metric. I think the best way to add a value metric is to incorporate Audioholics bassaholic rating. Select the subwoofer with the lowest price at each bassaholic rating (four total value subwoofers). This would be a quick and easy way for a buyer to identify the best value for their room size.

The benefit of doing this is that there would be subwoofers across the price span (small to extreme), and that there are just a few recommendations which is really nice with such voluminous data.

You could also have a small, medium, large, extreme, for ported and sealed subs.

Just some thoughts.

 

[engio]

Thank you so much, what a great job! I wish this existed last year when I bought my sub.


Just a note if anyone is in Europe like me: it would appear (but please do prove me wrong) that the only sub with decent (100db) output at 20hz with honest pricing is the SVS PB1000 (549€). Every other higher or similar output sub is either unavaiable here or outrageously expensive (like 1000€ for a 500$ sub).

This makes me happy because it confirms my own research (yay!) but also quite sad as there is literally no competition.

 

[sweetchaos]

Very nice work.

Thanks for your hard work on this spreadsheet. I think it will be very valuable.

Thank you so much, what a great job! I wish this existed last year when I bought my sub.

Thanks everyone. Glad to hear it was worth the effort.

Stay tuned, something exciting is coming!

 

[sigbergaudio]

I think this is really great work and a great list (thank you for including our subwoofers!). There is however a few problems with a list that focus on CEA2010 as the main "quality measurement". There's probably not much data out there to improve this, but it can be worth noting / understanding. One thing that can perhaps be added is the manufacturers stated frequency response (and stated deviance i.e -3dB or whatever). Will obviously be quite a lot of work for such an extensive list.

A few limitations as I see them:

• CEA2010 does not present practical bass extension at moderate volume levels (roll-off at maximum level will be significantly higher for most if not all subwoofers unless they artificially limit the maximum volume at higher frequencies, which admittedly quite a few do)
• CEA2010 does not say anything about frequency range or how linear the frequency response is within this range.
• CEA2010 does not say anything about distortion at more moderate playback levels (this is not necessarily linear and can't be deduced from the CEA2010 measurement).
• In other words CEA2010 says something about maximum SPL before it breaks down, but not much about the overall sound quality or capabilities before you reach that point.

Full disclaimer: The point I'm trying to make here is that it's more to the story of subwoofers than SPL per dollar. Expensive, moderately sized subwoofers like the ones we build will naturally draw the short straw in what is essentially an SPL vs price competition. Thus it would of course be fair to say that this is a comment that can't reasonably be called objective without others chiming in and agreeing, but I thought it was worth raising.

 

[sweetchaos]

I've been a huge fan of Audioholics' Bassaholic rank, ever since I've heard about it.

It's explained in more details on Audioholics.com, but I'll give you a quick summary.

Who created this protocol/rank?
Approx 10 years ago, Gene DellaSala (of Audioholics) (member @Gene DellaSala), along with Ed Mullen (of SVSound), Paul Apollonio and Josh Ricci developed this protocol.

What is it?
Explanation from website:

Based on the subwoofer's max CEA output vs frequency and distortion capabilities we measure, it is our goal to provide a reasonable estimate of just how large a room the sub will be suited to play in.

How did Audioholics classify a room size?
Explanation from website:

Most home theater spaces are considered to be small when compared to an actual commercial movie theater. However, the goal for a small listening space is no less important for a large listening space. You want to be able to hit reference levels with little to no distortion or compression. The bigger the room, the louder the speaker or subwoofer needs to play to hit reference levels. We have broken up room sizes into four categories which, based on feedback from industry professionals, seems most appropriate.

Is the reference level of a subwoofer the same as the reference level that Audioholics' Bassaholic refers to?
No...here's the explanation from website:

The standard calibration "Reference Level" (RL) is 75dB at the listening position. The goal is to ensure the system calibrated at 75dB can hit clean 105 dB peaks for each of the speaker channels and 115 dB peaks for the LFE channel. Note that the LFE channel is boosted 10 dB over the speaker channels. Technically speaking, most people redirect the bass from other channels to the subwoofer, which in conjunction with LFE could in theory ask the sub for a 123dB peak signal. However this is NOT a common scenario and most people don't listen at reference levels (especially if they value their long term hearing). It is much more common for A/V enthusiasts to listen between -15 to -10db from reference. Thus a 115 dB peak at the listening seats in-room is a more realistic benchmark goal for large rooms. To really stand out, a sub must hit the 123dB mark to earn our "Extreme Bassaholic" rating.

Here's the classification of room sizes:
Explanation from website:

Room size (ft^3):
Small < 1500 ft^3
Medium 1500 ft^3 to 3000 ft^3
Large 3000 ft^3 to 5000 ft^3
Extreme > 5000 ft^3

To calculate it, just take your Height (ft) * Width (ft) * Depth (ft) of your room size, with all doors/closets/windows closed.
If you room is oddly shaped, then add all volume dimensions.
If your room opens to the rest of the house, with no doors, then you broke the internet and have an infinite loop problem.

For Metric Users:
Let's convert to metric as well (where 1 ft^3 = 0.0283168 m^3).

Room size (m^3):
Small < 42.47 m^3
Medium 42.47 m^3 to 84.95 m^3
Large 84.95 m^3 to 141.58 m^3
Extreme > 141.58 m^3

How is the Bassaholic rank calculated?
**You don't have to do this, as I did it for you. This is simply the explanation**
Explanation from website:

Translate CEA 2 meter outdoor groundplane peak SPL data to 4 meter corner-loaded in-room (1/8th free space) by adding +6dB for Peak values (or +9dB for RMS values).

Since all of my data is in 2m Peak SPL, I simply added +6 db to my shown values to calculate the Bassaholic Rank.
You won't see these columns, since they're hidden (and they don't provide you with anything useful, until we calculate the actual rank).
So, we have the new dB values and categorize them according to the room size
Explanation from website:

-If the 4 meter 1/8th freespace SPL equals/exceeds 123dB then the sub is suited for "Extreme" room size
-If the 4 meter 1/8th freespace SPL equals/exceeds 115dB then sub is suited for "Large" room size
-If the 4 meter 1/8th freespace SPL data equals/exceeds 109dB then sub is suited for "Medium" room
-If the 4 meter 1/8th freespace SPL data is below 103dB then sub is suited for "small" room

This information can be also represented by this table.

Gene informed that each frequency 25hz and (31.5 to 63hz) should be checked against this criteria, so 25hz,31.5hz,40hz,50hz,63hz.

Based on all the information, I created my conditional formulas (disclosed below):
Small:
=IF(AND(25hz<103,31.5hz<109), "Small", "")
Small/Medium:
=IF(OR(AND(25hz<103,31.5hz>=109), AND(25hz>=103,31.5hz<109)), "Small/Medium", "")
Medium:
=IF((AND(25hz>=103,31.5hz>=109,40hz>=109,50hz>=109,63hz>=109)), "Medium", "")
Large:
=IF((AND(25hz>=109,31.5hz>=115,40hz>=115,50hz>=115,63hz>=115)), "Large", "")
Extreme:
=IF((AND(25hz>=117,31.5hz>=123,40hz>=123,50hz>=123,63hz>=123)), "Extreme", "")

A few observations:
1. My success rate of calculating Bassaholic rank is about 82% with the actual Bassaholic rank. Meaning 18% of my calculated rank didn't match the actual rank. Where it failed, the discrepancy was almost minor (within +-1dB). Which leads me to believe a human approach was used for the final rank's decision.
2. In a few rare cases...the formula would fail to calculate both small or medium rank. When I looked at it, it was mostly because sometimes a value of 25hz or 31.5hz was above/below the threshold values. To take this into account, I created a Small/Medium category. So you know that this subwoofer is between the two room sizes. Note: this only happened for 13 of 269 current CEA-2010-A data points. In other words, this happened only 4.8% of the time. So this is nothing to worry about.
3. Since I was matching each frequency (25hz,31.5hz,40hz,5hz0,63hz) against the threshold values, this wouldn't work for the Small room, since higher frequencies than 31.5hz (in other words, 40hz,5hz0,63hz) would always be above 109 db. To make it work, I shorted the code (I've shown above) to just look at 25hz and 31.5hz.

Here's actual vs calculated rank (using Audioholic's CEA-2010-A data, of course):

Spoiler

Having calculated the Audioholic's Bassaholic room rank, now gives you a good idea on the capability of a subwoofer to hit reference levels for a given room size.

I'd like to thank Audioholics for coming up with such a useful protocol.

I've added this information to the spreadsheet, tab "Bassaholic".

 

[Colonel7]

I've been a huge fan of Audioholics' Bassaholic rank, ever since I've heard about it.

It's explained in more details on Audioholics.com, but I'll give you a quick summary.

Who created this protocol/rank?
Approx 10 years ago, Gene DellaSala (of Audioholics) (member @Gene DellaSala), along with Ed Mullen (of SVSound), Paul Apollonio and Josh Ricci developed this protocol.

What is it?
Explanation from website:


How did Audioholics classify a room size?
Explanation from website:


Is the reference level of a subwoofer the same as the reference level that Audioholics' Bassaholic refers to?
No...here's the explanation from website:


Here's the classification of room sizes:
Explanation from website:


To calculate it, just take your Height (ft) * Width (ft) * Depth (ft) of your room size, with all doors/closets/windows closed.
If you room is oddly shaped, then add all volume dimensions.
If your room opens to the rest of the house, with no doors, then you broke the internet and have an infinite loop problem.

For Metric Users:
Let's convert to metric as well (where 1 ft^3 = 0.0283168 m^3).


How is the Bassaholic rank calculated?
**You don't have to do this, as I did it for you. This is simply the explanation**
Explanation from website:

Since all of my data is in 2m Peak SPL, I simply added +6 db to my shown values to calculate the Bassaholic Rank.
You won't see these columns, since they're hidden (and they don't provide you with anything useful, until we calculate the actual rank).
So, we have the new dB values and categorize them according to the room size
Explanation from website:


This information can be also represented by this table.
View attachment 114016

Gene informed that each frequency 25hz and (31.5 to 63hz) should be checked against this criteria, so 25hz,31.5hz,40hz,50hz,63hz.

Based on all the information, I created my conditional formulas (disclosed below):
Small:
=IF(AND(25hz<103,31.5hz<109), "Small", "")
Small/Medium:
=IF(OR(AND(25hz<103,31.5hz>=109), AND(25hz>=103,31.5hz<109)), "Small/Medium", "")
Medium:
=IF((AND(25hz>=103,31.5hz>=109,40hz>=109,50hz>=109,63hz>=109)), "Medium", "")
Large:
=IF((AND(25hz>=109,31.5hz>=115,40hz>=115,50hz>=115,63hz>=115)), "Large", "")
Extreme:
=IF((AND(25hz>=117,31.5hz>=123,40hz>=123,50hz>=123,63hz>=123)), "Extreme", "")

A few observations:
1. My success rate of calculating Bassaholic rank is about 82% with the actual Bassaholic rank. Meaning 18% of my calculated rank didn't match the actual rank. Where it failed, the discrepancy was almost minor (within +-1dB). Which leads me to believe a human approach was used for the final rank's decision.
2. In a few rare cases...the formula would fail to calculate both small or medium rank. When I looked at it, it was mostly because sometimes a value of 25hz or 31.5hz was above/below the threshold values. To take this into account, I created a Small/Medium category. So you know that this subwoofer is between the two room sizes.
3. Since I was matching each frequency (25hz,31.5hz,40hz,5hz0,63hz) against the threshold values, this wouldn't work for the Small room, since higher frequencies than 31.5hz (in other words, 40hz,5hz0,63hz) would always be above 109 db. To make it work, I shorted the code (I've shown above) to just look at 25hz and 31.5hz.

Here's actual vs calculated rank (using Audioholic's CEA-2010-A data, of course):

Spoiler

View attachment 114014

Having calculated the Audioholic's Bassaholic room rank, now gives you a good idea on the capability of a subwoofer to hit reference levels for a given room size.

I'd like to thank Audioholics for coming up with such a useful protocol.

I've added this information to the spreadsheet, tab "Bassaholic".

Monoprice 10" THX appears twice. Does this mean it's on the borderline of medium and large?