After a long, long wait of 4 years, I finally decided to purchase the Wharfedale SW-150 sub to supplement my M3s. The factors (or rather, lack of choices) that influenced my purchase were availability and pricing in India.
Firstly, my sincere thanks to JohnK for patiently answering all my queries and for his invaluable, pragmatic advice and keeping me rooted in my decision-making process.
I had a chance to compare 3 subwoofers in the demo room, all completely different and seemingly incomparable. But for the benefit of those of you, I thought I should mention my views especially since Wharfedale subwoofers seem to be in limited supply in the US and Canada. A side by side limited comparison of the following were done:
Polk Audio PSW 12 - US $400 - 12 inch driver-100W - Front firing port
Wharfedale SW 150 - US $400 - 10 inch driver - 150W - Down firing port
Paradigm PDR 8 - US $450 - 8 inch driver - 100W - Rear firing port
My tastes in music are eclectic. The dealer gave me the freedom to switch between the 3 subs at my own leisure. The main speakers used initially were a pair of Athena LS 100 but were later changed at my insistence to the Paradigm Cinema 70 satellites as the LS-100s had good bass levels themselves. I wanted to hear the subs handle most of the bass themselves to judge their abilities. The receiver used was the Yamaha RXV-361.
My first choice was the “Brothers in Arms” album from Dire Straits. All albums of Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler are mastered very well. The first 20 seconds of “So Far Away” feature just the bass and lead guitar. The Polk managed to keep up while the Wharfedale and the Paradigm played effortlessly. The SW blended perfectly rendering the music without any difference in tonality. The low end of the bass guitar sounded itself out into the soundstage so much that my wife couldn’t help noticing the smile on my face. The PDR was anyway a part of this system and sounded perfect in tandem equivalent to the SW150 though being a smaller sub.
I popped in Norah Jones’ “Don’t know why” next. This track has oodles of bass and pump organ in it. The PSW12 sounded a bit bloated. The SW150 propelled the bass beautifully yet keeping the mellow nature of the song intact. Again, the PDR8 sounded just the same as the SW150 at lower volumes.
The acid test (according to me) for the subs was Bon Jovi’s “Keep the faith”. The first half minute has high amplitude of the bass guitar playing at a stretch. The polk sounded horrible with this stretch. The driver never seemed to recover from one frequency to move on to the next. There was significant port noise and a poor reproduction of soundstage. The SW150 played ever so well with accurate, tight bass. This song highlighted how good the SW is for music. It blended with the mains accurately after setting the volume level. The PDR8 struggled just a bit at higher volumes but again, I was surprised at how good Paradigm makes even their little subs. A ported sub would have to represent these frequencies without delay. The SW and the PDR were great.
I’m certain that at this point many of you might be thinking that I could have gone for the Paradigm PDR 10. Much has been written about its abilities yet maintaining its value-for-money feat. But the PDR 10 costs about $570 here and I felt that the Wharfedale was sufficient for my needs, especially as I am a music lover.
I moved onto the movie effects next and tried “The Day after tomorrow” with the scene where the wave crashes into Manhattan. The polk by this time was almost out of my choice list and this scene proved it. The polk rumbled on with some more port noise at a few instances and loss of depth. The SW150 was again accurate and portrayed a good “roar” across the soundstage. But the effect was mellow. I might have expected more from a 10 inch 150W sub. There wasn’t anything missing except that it could have been more forceful. On the other hand, the PDR8 made it quite exciting at low volumes and packed a decent punch for its size.
The scene that clinched my choice for the Wharfedale was from “Pearl Harbor”. The lengthy portrayal of the Japanese fighter planes flying across the US soil at low altitude to reach Pearl Harbor had plenty of bass in it. The SW150’s woofer was effortlessly pounding out bass and so much of it. This was as “visceral” as I could have asked for. The planes felt real on a huge soundstage and the bass moved across the room in a sweep. This scene is seemed difficult because there are many planes flying across. The SW just put it all out there with authority for us to hear. Our chairs were vibrating and the glass of water on the table began moving. I never knew so much bass existed in this film. It was almost as if this movie flattered the SW.
I must add here that the PDR8 was keeping up almost as well as the wharfedale. It too gave an accurate representation of the planes flying across with so much bass from such a dinky little sub even though a touch of strain was evident.
Anyway, our choice was made now and we ordered the SW150 which took about 2 months to arrive in stock.
This was around July 2007. It was all excitement on the day the dealer called and asked us to pick up the sub.
Having brought it home and taking out the 13 kilo lump, I placed it in between the M3s and hooked up the sub to the preout of the stereo amplifier (50Wx2). I set the crossover to 75 Hz and volume to the 12.00 position. I do not have a high pass crossover for my M3s. I plan to assemble one soon or just get the Harrison FMods.
A point of note is that I have brick walls and marble flooring in my apartment. There are only thin curtains on one window no carpets anywhere in the house. So my room gain would be high.
I used my Thinkpad notebook as the source and first played the unplugged version of Hotel California. The sub rendered the bongos so well. The bass was very tight, went low and clean, without any port noise and slammed hard enough for my windows and wall paintings to rattle and move the spoon stand on the table in the dining room.
The best part was that it blended so well with the M3s as if they were made as a unit. Hardly any tonal or timbre difference and the sub just vanished. My neighbours came knocking and stayed for the song with their eyes wide open the whole time.
After the neighbours left, my wife left me alone with my new acquisition. I popped in a test CD and ran the test frequencies. The sub was able to play just enough sound down to 29 Hz keeping the 12.00 position on the volume knob. From 32 Hz onwards, there was an audible increase in the decibel levels with good clarity. This is in tune (pun intended) with what the manual and the website claim. I’ve seen that most Canadian and American made subs (HSU, SVS, Paradigm etc) claim to get down to 25-27 Hz out of their 10 inch subs although I haven’t heard any myself. So I’m not the best judge of what a good in-room LFE is.
I moved on to Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why”. The unit rendered this song beautifully. There was a whole new extension of the soundstage which wasn’t there with the M3s before. Norah’s voice and breath were filled in by the sub and. I unplugged the sub and played the song again. The M3s hold their stance so well that it is unfair to ask so much out of the little wonders. The sub supplemented the M3s with the missing LFE. Again, the emphasis I place is on the sub’s ability to blend in musically without a hint of difference in tonality. It vanishes into the soundstage neither muddling nor overstating itself.
Dire Straits’ “Private Investigations” sounded awesome. Forgive my usage of the word “awesome”. I find it too American specific (no offence to anyone) but it was indeed awesome. The sub thunders each time and goes completely quiet an instant later. Music is what this sub is all about. There was not a hint of port noise even when I replayed this song at ear splitting volume. The piano and guitars were presented clearly by the system.
A prolonged exposure to high wattage and excursions came up a week later on my daughter’s birthday. The kids insisted on loud, raucous trance, Indian and dance remixes. Right from Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t get you out of my head” to Dire Strait’s “Walk to life” to Indian instrumentals which featured instruments like the santoor, tabla, lehra and the likes. The unit played so well along with copious amounts of bass shaking the windows and pounding on people’s chests. The sub’s volume level was set at about 75% and it maintained its composure for 3 hrs at a stretch. The sub amp’s heat sink had a full time job and was too hot to touch at the end of the party. A few of the parents complained of too much chest pounding and asked me how the M3s played so much bass. Another testament to the sub’s ability to blend in and disappear.
The following week, we watched Cars a second time. We had seen the movie earlier when we had only the M3s. The races were a treat on the M3s and I was even then impressed. But I had no idea of the various low frequencies of the engine sounds present on the disc till I saw it again with the sub this time. Fantastic rendition of each and every different sound from the engines. The sub was able to segregate them so well and present them vividly enough.
Hoping for something better, I watched Transformers on it. Loads of low metallic frequencies and thuds of the autobots’ feet. While the bass was excellent again, it was not as firm and aggressive as it should have been. The recording was excellent and the bass too was but somewhere it did not slam enough. It was again mellow. Not earth shaking at all. I thought this could have been due to the sub’s placement but will not know till I experiment with the placement.
We then watched Star Wars – The Phantom Menace. The pod races have so much low end grunt which sounded great. No jarring or no port noise. Just good, clean, tight bass everywhere. Again, the slam was not as great as I might have expected.
Jack Snyder’s 300 too had the same effect. Excellent and expansive bass on the fight scenes, a good depth on the marches coming nothing out of place, Just tight bass but slightly less authority on the final slams.
The DVD of Metallica’s S&M with the San Franciso orchestra was fantastic. The M3s sang their hearts out and the sub romped home the instruments. The concert had tubas, trombones, horns, violins, violas for the bass section. The sub held his stance for the entire hour. No overplay on any of the bass instruments. Just a clean, neutral rendition with the M3s and keeping up with them on every crescendo and turning completely quiet an instant later. I could go into the details song by song but I feel I’ve ranted long enough.
I admire this sub for its musical abilities. I may not have calibrated it correctly in my room for movies but it feels a tad inadequate for movie effects. Its hard to point out any shortcomings though I might have expected just a bit more bass for its size. I will be doing some subwoofer crawls soon and will update this message in case of any new development.
The Wharfedale matches the M3s very well. It is a neutral sounding, clean, musical sub which brings home the music and is more than adequate for home theatre as well. I would recommend it to anyone with a preference for music. I however do understand that those in the US or Canada can always pick up a Paradigm PDR-10 or any of the HSU or SVS subs. But hey, I’ve put together an exclusive unit that has an Indian amplifier, Canadian Speakers and a British subwoofer which all work so well together and manage to rumble the building.
I may have missed out many aspects in this first review of mine. Advice, criticism and questions are most welcome.
P.S: I've been trying to insert photos into this message with little success. I keep getting an icon but no display. Will update as soon as I find out how.
