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Why would anyone pay $9k for a sub? Honestly…

They don't give away Funk Audio

Elite - System​

CA$17,500.00 - CA$120,000.00

or Wilson Audio.

Subsonic 4 series The price is so high that they don't list it anymore.

10 years ago, Thor's Hammer was 20-25K a pop.

I've seen custom columns that were 90K for 4 600lb columns. The 4 or 6 burl veneers were 12,000.00 usd 20 years ago. All JBL engineers did the interior and room treatment. I saw them in Aspin on a foundation job. The guy was adding a music room of all things.

I know just the outcrop foundation work was over 750K, and the room without furnishing was another 1.5 million.

Regards
And the Wilson had a Dayton Audio plate amp and what looked to be a Dayton driver :facepalm:
 
Just give me a couple of JTR RS1s ($3699) and I've got the all the specs covered and add a couple of lesser subs if the room doesn't play nice. To think they were selling the RS1 for $1100 cheaper a few years ago.
 
Do you know how much they would have cost if it was 100% DIY, i.e., not paying someone for checking the design and CAD drawing, not paying for CNC work, and not paying for the cabinet veneering?
Our subs would have cost about 20 million dollars and still not be done if they were 100% DiY…
I'm glad I picked up a pair of SVS SB-3000s before they discontinued the industrial metal grill. I hate the generic 70s cloth screens they use now
And they were cheap relative to how this thread's going
Lol - I sold a pair of SB3000s because I couldn’t get over those hideous metal grilles.
 
Dali especially seems to have no understanding of frequency response linearity, or the concept of controlled directivity.
While they cannot compete with our favourite brands in such terms I think they are not too bad on either if you consider the fact they are tuned to be listened not turned in (30° off-axis) and having a quite wide and smooth radiation, exemplary:

1772789438781.png


newplot (5).png
 
Their vertical directivity is also "exemplary"
DALI Rubikore 6 Vertical Contour Plot (Normalized).png
Truly showcasing what the brand is capable of with a $5K budget.

PIR is nothing to write home about either, both placed on-axis or toed out:
Estimated In-Room Response.png
Typical showroom sound with boosted treble.

A $120 bookshelf monitor has it beat or at least matched in THD:
Screenshot_20260306-104130_Chrome.png Screenshot_20260306-104124_Chrome.png
You could buy 20 of them for one Rubikore, and that included the cost of the Amp ffs.

That don't look too healthy either:
Compression of Transfer Function H(f) full.png

Compared to a well designed speaker less than half the price:
Compression of Transfer Function H(f) full (3).png

Like seriously, what is the redeeming feature?
 
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I always wondered about getting an SVS subwoofer say an SB-2000 Pro and just replacing the woofer with a Purifi one. The sealed enclosure volume can't be that far off between the drivers.

Edit: I asked Gemini, answer is here FWIW.
 
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Their vertical directivity is also "exemplary"
Typical though for non-coaxial floorstanders, not great, not horrible.

Typical showroom sound with boosted treble.
Yes, a bit a like B&W and opposite for example to KEF, and since the rise is after 3kHz it doesn't sound too bad to many, even Eric wasn't offended by it. Also the flatter PIR is also a result of its wider directivity which some prefer.

A $120 bookshelf monitor has it beat or at least matched in THD:
Their THD levels might look similar but on the Swissonic its dominated by the much more audible and disturbing third harmonic while its mainly 2nd for the Dali, THD is not a good metric if such is overseen.

Like seriously, what is the redeeming feature?
I would say the combination of relatively wide and constant directivity, relatively low high order distortion drivers, nice Scandinavian design and production in a European country for a relatively fair price.
 
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I guess it’s good to remind ourselves that this is a very subjective hobby, and people buy things because they can. If $9,000 is too much, how about $7,000 or $5,000 or $3,000 or $2,000? Everyone has their own safe zone for what they consider good value or a good price.
 
Four of them (for $6k) in each corner of the room will trounce this sub.
Why would you put a sub in a corner? I was told by a subwoofer designer that this is the last place you should ever put one.
 
Corner loading = "free" output courtesy of boundary gain, and it's much easier to tame peaks than deal with nulls.
 
All it neads is two to pass the direct SPL mark to far field and it's much more about tuning how good they will sound on their own including ELC integration, dumping harmonic and keaping fundamental peaks contained on drivers they appear (not propagating).
Now take a look at the music DSP preset of RSL Speedwoofer 12s, true to it's name.
That's a benchmark to achieve and when it's off the shelf and for a deacent price it gets hard to argue about.
Sorry RIL and SVS fun boys not even close.
I can do DIY pasive better behaving 500$ a pop with +12 dB output (half the money for driver and other half for closed enclosure to be maid by a friend carpenter, eventually little more (me breaching, stiffing and dumping box) and good Dynacord PA (with full range DSP) to run them. That's psy double louder or equal to 4x the distance. You won't get that much doubling commercial 12~13" drivers you will get +6 firs time and +3 every other time but really do you nead 124 dB SPL output at home? Probably not. I advise people to study Speedwoofer 12s tuning as it stands to what you will get from any good ported driver when you tune it properly. If you cut to impedance phase crossing you will get boundary preset result (for your mains also while port doesn't do anything anymore as it's not getting exided anymore) and when you Q 0. 71 extend it you get music DSP preset. Pay attention to what you get regarding THD (or higher peek) and time domain (you can get it very good 6~7 ms even on huge drivers).
In the end different people sell different things but do they menage to sell a lot of them and earn something is a different topic.
 
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Quoting Dr Toole ...
"Modest" does not mean the $100 special though, four garbage subs (meaning: recycled cardboard box with cheap 8" driver and a random hole pretending to be a port in it) will still not match one good one. They have to be decent.

While they cannot compete with our favourite brands in such terms I think they are not too bad on either if you consider the fact they are tuned to be listened not turned in (30° off-axis) and having a quite wide and smooth radiation, exemplary:
That is pretty bad for 5000€/pair. Those are not cheap speakers.
Full review link: https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/dali_rubikore_6/
 
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Are they still in business? I heard one years ago. It was very impressive and I couldn't get away from it quick enough. It made me feel nauseous.
Yes. Eminent Technology are these people:
 
What are your two higher performance subs? Mixing subs, meh.
I agree mixing subs can be a nightmare in most cases but even 4 identical subs are not a guarantee of success.

High performance subs are GSG DIY assembled subs with 18" Lavoce drivers and a Crown XLC 21300 (1,300 WPC @ 4 ohms). https://shop.gsgad.com/collections/...ies/products/roundover-full-marty-single-unit

Cost ~$2,000 for a pair including amp from ebay. Compared to the SVS SB 3000 there is ~20-30 dB less distortion and ~20-30 dB higher SPL and ~90 ms less group delay @ 20 Hz.
 
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