Can you give us your impressions about all the other subs relative to each other?
You asked me this question a couple of days ago and I'm now able to respond having just posted this response at a couple of other sites.
Its always interesting reading everyone's impressions after a blind test. As has been mentioned several times any of these subs would be a terrific addition to a HT. But the session on Saturday was about comparing limits of high performance which should be expected given the relatively expensive price points of these subs. I knew running the subs close to or at reference levels after equalization in a tightly sealed treated room was going to test the limits. I've always believed side by side blind comparisons with demanding material reveal much more than can be gleaned through reviews, individual sub listening sessions and standard measurement techniques.
Typically I run multiple subs in my HT at listening levels -10 to -5 below reference. I've run duals, trios and quads at one time or another. For the last several weeks I've had the JL113, DD-18 and the FSR-18 at various locations and its no surprise to anyone reading that sound quality was much better with higher output than what the group experienced on Saturday. Because of coupling I'm able to level each sub -6db cold to match them combined 2db hot to the speakers. That provides huge headroom. Output for HT is highly desirable, but my taste leans to keeping sound quality high as possible which is the main reason I run multiple subs in an acoustically treated sealed room. Its too bad Asher was on call, as I know he is passionate about quality sound with his terrific audio system which includes dual FL113s. Like myself I know he is sensitive to distortion and artifacts.
One of the objectives was to find out more about the strengths and flaws of each sub and as the reports by Steve, Mark, Jesse and Ben show we found them. We all agreed that all these subs are fine performers when used at reasonable listening levels. As Steve remarked each one seemed to rise to the occasion depending on the track. Nevertheless, there has been a trend to more demanding bass heavy soundtracks so the performance bar has been rising for subs. For music reproduction other factors are very important such as reproducing clean, textured sound free of artifacts and distortion. Studies have shown that audibility of distortion is less of an issue at low frequencies yet everyone seemed to sense that the single subs were under stress during the demanding tracks. In a way, the session was also an interesting experiment into how people perceive distortion.
The Saturday session has also made me rethink my assumptions that sealed subs are the natural choice for music and ported subs for HT. The Ultra-13 really caught my ear with the way its ports superbly reproduced Jean Guillou's gigantic 32ft organ pipes when Jesse put on Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. And like Ben I thought the EP600 was consistent at capturing the texture and detail of the bass in most of the music scenes and providing a very balanced presentation for HT. Its DSP circuit and amp was keeping the sub on a more even keel by keeping its output and distortion within preassigned limits.
Though the guys didn't mention it we started the listening with Diana Krall singing All or Nothing at All from the Montreal Jazz Festival DVD, accompanied by only a standup acoustic bass. The EP400s were running at the time and I thought they really articulated the finger plucked acoustic bass clearly with alot of detail. I've said it before and I'll say it again, these little guys can play beautiful music and they demonstrated it again with Nathan East's aggressive bass licks in the Eric Clapton "Sessions with Robert J" DVD. To my ear the 400s sounded tighter, detailed, textured and more natural than the other subs including the JL113. Jesse remarked that it lacked punch but that's where its a matter of taste as I thought it was faithful to what an acoustic and electric bass sounds like. We didn't play the demanding movie soundtracks on Saturday though a few days earlier I put them to the test with Pulse at -5db and the 400s sounded heavily distorted and bottoming despite its protective circuits. Those transients were just too fast and too powerful for that 8" driver. Interestingly the EP600 larger driver with the same DSP design, didn't have that problem with Pulse. With WoTW the limiters were able to keep both subs artifact free.
Where my impressions were most different than the others was with the DD-18. I leave the servo setting on that sub at the max to keep distortion as low as possible, at the expense of output which is a tradeoff faced by most sub designers. That's the reason why Jesse and Steve thought the pulse reversed itself, the servo was kicking in very aggressively to keep the sub from distorting right as the women opened the door . It was also keeping the higher level harmonics which contribute to that all around you bass fairly low compared to the other distorting subs. The DD-18 works very well in a multiple sub setup but as a single HT sub it was interesting that the group favoured the higher output/distortion of the other subs. For my tastes, that sub was reproducing the cleanest, accurate bass but in doing so it wasn't as loud as the others. Interestingly all the other guys penalized it for having the weakest output but given my parameters I thought it performed as well or better as the other subs in the music scenes and with less compression and noise in the HT scenes. The reaction of some of the guys indicated that many people don't mind or prefer a reasonable amount of output that comes with higher levels of distortion particularly if its even order harmonic distortion . I suspect if I had turned the DD-18 servo down to its minimum setting to permit more distortion and output views may have been different. In any event if we had an award for cleanest, most accurate bass I would have put my money on the DD-18.
I have to admit to being a bit disappointed with the JL113 though unlike the others I knew when it was playing. While it was the steadiest performer with all the music tracks it wasn't outperforming all the others by any means and all the other subs took turns keeping up with the Fathom depending on the track. The Ultra-13 left the FL113 and all the other subs behind with the Mussorgsky organ track. I remarked earlier that the little EP400 sounded better than either with Clapton. On the Marcus Miller track I thought the JL113 was not as clear and detailed either the EP600 or the DD-18. At the start of the day I thought the JL113 was going to be the overall best performing sub but I could hear the sub distorting which I usually don't in the multiple setup. I thought it did the best job of reproducing the Master and Commander cannonball fusillade and the Pulse scene but its bass was not as immediate and visceral in the other movie soundtracks with the EP600 delivering the ray gun blasts in WOTW and the Ultra-13 delivering the earthquake in the ipod emerges scene.
Perhaps I'm being too critical with the JL113, because Pulse is arguably the most difficult HT soundtrack for a sub to reproduce faithfully. You really need multiple drivers/subs to do this one justice. None of the subs did it well and while the JL113 was audibly distorting more than the DD-18 and EP600 it was showing just how capable it was at keeping non-linearities to a minimum at high output levels while still responding rapidly to that powerful 16-18hz fundamental and the higher harmonics. This is one brute of a sub and it must have been the sub that my wife said caused a 3' x 6' light plastic dog fence to fall over in the room above the HT.
After the amp shutdown at Steve's a few weeks ago I was curious to see how the Ultra would perform with the replacement amp. And I'll say right off the bat that it performed very, very well with all the material except Pulse. I expected to hear loud chuffing from the tri-ports at -5db (DTS) which is the tradeoff for the tuning feature of this alignment. What I also heard was the telltale annoying non-linear distortion from amp clipping and possible bottoming of the driver though it was hard for me to tell with all the chuffing. At -10db at least the clipping stopped but the chuffing was still pretty bad which ended at -15db down. I suspect this may have been a result of something that was redesigned into the replacement amp but I'm not sure. Ordinarily that performance would have resulted in a curtain hook from me if not for the fact how well it performed overall, especially the Mussorgsky organ piece, in Master and commander and WoTW. The Pulse performance confirms to me once again that the Ultra-13 is one 1000w amp away from being an outstanding subwoofer.
Anyway, there are no right or wrong views here, merely impressions and opinions. As I stated earlier I suggest readers put more weight on the excellent blind test reports of Ben, Mark, Steve, Jesse and Asher who despite my repeated attempts to ply them with wine, beer and whiskey stayed true to the task at hand.
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