Another report on the Saturday sub comparison, this time from Soundemon, a moderator at Canuckaudiomart. He appears to favour the EP600 over the other subs.
I had the pleasure of attending this sub shootout as well. It was a great opportunity to Listen to these excellent subs, and make some new friends. Great group of guys in attendance, all very serious about high end HT. Thanks again to John and his wife for hosting. Very classy people.
I made notes per test, per sub, but I've compiled them as to keep my post brief:
The Axiom EP600 I found to be the most "musical" sub, with good depth and the ability to convey quickness and detail the other ones missed. It had a little less impact and depth for a couple of scenes, but one thing I noted was in the laser firing scene in WoTW, the other subs would provide bass and the speakers would provide texture for the sound, the Axiom also had texture to the bass, which was quite impressive.
The DD18 I found had great depth and impact, but was a little to "clinical" and "dry" (difficult to describe exactly what I mean by "dry" sorry!) very good control of start and stop of bass notes, very little overhang, very tight. This one seemed to suffer the least amount of distress during the intense "pulse schene, but also had the least output.
The JL F113: This was a sub that I really wanted to like thruout the testing, as I'm a big fan of the W7 drivers. This sub had a good deep and smooth sound, and some really nice texture to the bass. a little less so than the Axiom, but much more than the DD18. I found the leading edge of bass to be very impressive with this sub, altho it also had a little more hangover at the end of the note than the others. Good impact, and great feel with this one.
The SVS PB13 The SVS had great intensity and impact, and seemed to have a little more volume or output than the others. for the music scenes I liked this one as it was good and tight, with a crisp sound to the bass. start and stop were very well controlled with very little hangover. the sound was pleasing and full. Thru the stress tests, there was alot of audible distress with this one, and it was difficult to say if it was the driver bottoming out, or port chuffing, or both.
All in all, each of these subs sounded great untill it bottomed out, and they all seemed to bottom out around the same volumes. For this shootout none of the subs could I say ran away with it, and none of them would I advise to avoid.
One comment I'd have is I wish we'd spent a little less time making them bottom out to the "pulse" schene, and a little more time listening to some more music, and maybe a couple of extra movie scenes. I'd also suggest that instead of listening at reference volume, where most of the subs did show distress, the volume be set so that the sub is sounding great, and we could compare this to the other subs, to see which bottom out, which show distress, and which play clean. Finding this "golden" volume for the room / sub would be a lenthy process tho!
