I'm not surprised that the Velodyne didn't impress. I bought the CHT-12 several years ago even though I initially wanted to buy the CHT-15 (predecessor of the DLS-5000, I think) because it was bigger, and the top of the line (at least the CHT line), and more expensive. But the CHT-12 sounded much better so that is what I bought. At this point, I'm pretty convinced that I could have done slightly better with Axiom, or SVS, or Hsu, but I'm very happy with the CHT-12.

What I find curious is that both Velodyne and Axiom seem to have a line of subwoofers where the price and size are not necessarily proportional to performance. Is there some physics (cabinet size or something) that explains this?