Velodyne Introduces EQ-MAX, the First Cost-Effective Subwoofer to Combine Remote Controlled Auto-EQ and High Performance Bass Production

New affordable subwoofer series features one-touch remote control setup, built-in processing, and advanced engineering to deliver dynamic bass performance

Morgan Hill, Calif. – September 8, 2011 – Velodyne, the world’s leading manufacturer of powered subwoofers, has introduced the EQ-MAX Subwoofer Series, the first line of subwoofers at its price-point to feature remote control operation and built-in processing that enables users to maximize bass performance with the simple touch of a button. Available in 8”, 10”, 12” and 15” models, the budget-friendly EQ-MAX’s rich feature set and advanced technologies combine to deliver high performance bass without the typical complications of system calibration.

“The new EQ-MAX subwoofer series offers a combination of high performance bass, Auto-EQ and other features never seen at this price point,” said Bruce Hall, president of Velodyne Acoustics. “Made possible by Velodyne’s 28 years of subwoofer innovation, EQ-Max’s rich feature set and advanced technologies combine to deliver high performance bass, simply and affordably.”

Velodyne’s EQ-MAX subwoofers are easily integrated into any home entertainment systems thanks to the digitally controlled five-band equalizer. Users simply place the subwoofer in the preferred location, place the included microphone in the desired listening area and push the “EQ” button found on the included remote control. The built-in equalizer takes over utilizing Velodyne’s Digital Signal Processing (DSP), automatically calibrating the subwoofer to deliver optimum bass performance that is unsurpassed.

In addition to the “EQ” function, the EQ-MAX remote control lets users control all of the subwoofer’s functions with visible feedback on the front panel. The remote allows users to switch between a number of presets; set the sub to “Night Mode” to limit the output; illuminate the front display of the subwoofer; access phase adjustment to get the best possible match between the subwoofer and speaker system; and mute the subwoofer.

At the heart of the EQ-MAX series is Velodyne’s newly designed, efficient, digital “Class D” amplifiers, which feature a switching-mode power supply. These amplifiers nearly eliminate the issue of wasting energy as heat, keeping bass peaks clean and dynamic. This easily enables the EQ-MAX to reproduce difficult, ultra-low frequencies such as explosions, pulsing drumbeats, or classical organ pieces.

EQ-MAX’s powerful Class D amplifiers are complimented by four custom designed “Extended Excursion” drivers developed by Velodyne. These drivers are engineered with vented pole-pieces that increase power handling and assure long-term reliability and performance. The subwoofer’s large, dual layer copper wound voice coils are specifically matched with massive magnets (4.66lbs – 10.14lbs) to provide dynamic bass listeners can actually “feel”.

Velodyne’s unique Distortion Limiting System is another key to EQ-MAX’s superior sound performance. With digital precision, the subwoofer achieves maximum output from both the amplifier and woofer motor construction without the risk of overdriving; resulting in deeper bass extension, bigger impact and less distortion.

The subwoofer series includes an adjustable 40Hz-135Hz low pass crossover that allows the sub to match any home entertainment system speakers. Velodyne’s “Subwoofer Direct” feature allows the EQ-MAX series to play the output of the LFE channel of a 5.1 or 7.1 channel receiver unaltered, assuring listeners the highest level of system performance without any degradation.

EQ-MAX’s cabinets are engineered using a down-firing ported design, minimizing the audible distortion known as “port noise”, while maximizing bass impact. Designed to blend beautifully into any setting, the EQ-MAX series is ideal for in-room or custom installation applications.

Retail pricing is set as follows:

EQ-MAX8 – 8” model – $479

EQ-MAX10 – 10” model – $579

EQ-MAX12 – 12” model – $679

EQ-MAX15 – 15” model – $979

For more information on the Velodyne EQ-MAX subwoofers, visit http://www.velodyne.com.

About Velodyne

Velodyne Acoustics, Inc., founded in 1983, is universally recognized as the leading manufacturer of high-performance, low distortion powered subwoofers at all price levels. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, the company’s technically innovative audio products are available through a select group of authorized dealers, custom installers, and distributors worldwide. For more information visit www.velodyne.com.

New R Series Incorporates KEF Blade Technologies to Produce Performance Approaching Reference Series Standards at Much More Accessible Price Points

Marlboro, N.J. – September 2, 2011 – To help celebrate its 50th Anniversary year, KEF, the renowned manufacturer of innovative, reference-quality loudspeakers, has introduced its R Series range of high-performance speakers. Featuring many of KEF’s latest innovations in premium high fidelity and home entertainment loudspeaker technology, the R Series seeks to make higher-end audiophile standards of sound reproduction more affordable. Fluent new Uni-Q® driver arrays combine with new bass drivers and several additional innovations to create a rich, spacious sound image of such accuracy that it approaches the benchmark standards of KEF’s legendary Reference Series.

Attendees to the KEF America booth (#3351) at CEDIA EXPO 2011 will have the exclusive first-look at the all-new R Series from KEF in the U.S.

“The new R Series strikes the perfect balance between superb sound quality and affordability,” said Alec Chanin, president of KEF America. “The series incorporates many of the same technologies developed in our ground-breaking KEF Blade to offer those who appreciate great audio excellence a loudspeaker range that comes close to the performance of our Reference Series.”

The new Uni-Q MF/HF driver array ensures that midrange response is fast and clean, thanks to a braced magnesium/aluminum alloy cone, with KEF’s Z-flex surround smoothing the transition to the front panel and a sturdy, decoupled, die-cast aluminum chassis that prevents resonance being transferred to the cabinet. At the acoustic center of the midrange cone is the same sophisticated vented tweeter that endows the KEF Blade, the world’s first Single Apparent Source loudspeaker, with such pure HF response. With a large neodymium magnet and a computer-optimized dome structure so stiff that it operates pistonically over its entire working range, the upper registers are articulated with precision. To capitalize on Uni-Q’s point source characteristics, KEF’s “tangerine” waveguide helps to disperse the higher frequencies evenly across a wider angle to flood the room with an intricate and natural soundfield. Operating together as a single, perfectly integrated voice, the array as a whole delivers an accurate sound of great clarity.

The new bass driver is equally impressive. The combination of a massive vented magnet assembly and a large, lightweight aluminum voice coil driving a light, stiff and strong hybrid cone assures clean, deep and uncompressed bass output with excellent dynamics and power handling.

Inside the cabinets—available in a choice of classic, highly polished Piano Black and satin real wood veneer finishes in Rosewood or Walnut—every component manifests KEF’s technology prowess. Computer-designed crossovers allow the level of each driver to be fine-tuned for a smoother, flatter response. Constrained layer damping panels prevent cabinet vibration from muddying the mid-range and bass. Even the airflow through the reflex ports is managed using computational fluid dynamics to optimize acoustic integrity.

With nine elegant models including three floorstanding, two bookshelf speakers, two fully-specified and timbre-matched center channels, dipole surrounds and a powerful twin driver, 500 Watt subwoofer, the all-new R Series represents a decisive step forward in the enjoyment of music or movies. By incorporating the high end technologies of KEF Blade in a classically elegant format, R Series gives serious audiophiles surprisingly accurate reproduction that, in keeping with founder, Raymond Cooke’s philosophy ‘neither adds to nor subtracts anything from the original recording’. The range is a fitting tribute to KEF’s 50 years of innovation in sound.

The new KEF R Series will be available in October 2011.

The R Series range includes:

Floor-Standing Loudspeakers

R500 – Three-way floor-standing speaker; Uni-Q driver array consists of 1” HF, 5” MF; Two 5.25” LF drivers. Retail: $1,299.99/each

R700 – Three-way floor-standing speaker; Uni-Q driver array consists of 1” HF,  5” MF; Two 6.5” LF drivers. Retail: $1,799.99/each

R900 – Three-way floor-standing speaker; Uni-Q driver array consists of 1” HF, 5” MF; Two 8” LF drivers. Retail: $2,499.99/each

Bookshelf Loudspeakers

R100 – Two-way bookshelf speaker; Uni-Q driver array: 1” HF, 5.25” MF. Retail: $1,199.99/pair

R300 – Three-way bookshelf speaker; Uni-Q driver array consists of 1” HF, 5” MF; One 6.5” LF driver. Retail: $1,799.99/pair

Home Theater Loudspeakers

R200c – Three-way center channel speaker; Uni-Q driver array consists of 1” HF, 5” MF; Two 5.25” LF drivers. Retail: $999.99/each

R600c – Three-way center channel speaker; Uni-Q driver array consists of 1” HF, 5” MF; Two 6.5” LF drivers. Retail: $1,499.99/each

R800ds – Three-way dipole speaker; Contains two Uni-Q driver arrays, consisting of two 1” HFs, two 5.25” MF. Retail: $1,799.99/pair

R400b – Powered subwoofer; Driver array: 9” LF. Retail: $1,699.99/each

High performance DS-10 subwoofer overcomes high levels of distortion; features remote controlled Auto-EQ

Morgan Hill, Calif. – August 31, 2011 – Velodyne, the world’s leading manufacturer of powered subwoofers, has introduced the new Digital Servo-10 (DS-10) subwoofer, a sophisticated, self-incorporated system that delivers accurate, powerful bass surpassed only by Velodyne’s award-winning Digital Drive^PLUS series.

“An elegant, easy and accurate subwoofer, the new DS-10 was built to be as small as physically possible, yet deliver musical accuracy and visceral, ultra-low bass that listeners actually feel,” said David Hall, founder and CEO of Velodyne. “The Digital Servo-10 truly raises the standards by which subwoofers will be measured.”

At the heart of the DS-10 is a cabinet with a furniture grade satin black finish; a massive 19.3 lb. magnet structure; a die-cast aluminum basket; a 1250 watt RMS (3000 watts Dynamic Power), 97% efficient, patented ERS Class-D amplifier; an ultra-stiff Kevlar–reinforced cone; a proprietary 3” dual tandem multi-layer voice coil; and Velodyne’s patented Digital High Gain Servo system that corrects cone movement almost 16,000 times a second to lower distortion to well below audible levels (less than 1%); all tuned, and all controlled by a high speed DSP processor.

The first major challenge to accurate subwoofer performance that the DS-10 solves is overcoming shockingly high levels of distortion (as much as 30%) that make most subwoofers muddy, boomy, and lacking in definition and clarity, especially at higher playback levels. Velodyne’s exclusive digital accelerometer-based Digital High Gain Servo (HGS) technology lowers distortion at all frequencies and playback levels to less than 1%.

The Digital Servo-10 subwoofer features Velodyne’s Digital Drive room management technology to overcome anomalies in typical subwoofer frequency response due to a room’s shape, size and features. Just place the included microphone at the desired listening position and press the EQ button on the remote control and the Digital Servo-10 sub will correct for bass interactions caused by its position and your room itself using its eight bands of EQ.

Additionally, Velodyne’s Digital Servo-10 subwoofer can be used in the manual mode using Velodyne’s Digital Drive room management technology. This allows the subwoofer’s in-room frequency response to be measured using a calibrated microphone and viewed graphically on any standard TV. The on-board 8-band digital graphic/parametric equalizer can be used to optimize the subwoofer’s performance for any position in any room. The Digital Servo-10 also offers complete control over filter frequencies (both subsonic and low pass crossover), slopes, phase and polarity, which allows perfect matching of the subwoofer to any speakers in any environment.

The DS-10 is remote controlled and comes with factory presets for different music sources and movies. Presets can be changed to maximize the subwoofer for music, movies or games; switch to the neighbor-friendly “Night” mode; adjust the crossover; or simply change the volume and the front panel LED read-out responds to verify your action. Unlike its competitors, the Digital Servo-10 subwoofer comes complete with everything needed to set up and enjoy the subwoofer: a calibrated microphone, cables, a built-in signal generator and remote control.

Velodyne’s DS-10 will be available with an MSRP of $1,999.00 .

The DS-10 will be one of many new home theater products from Velodyne on display at the Velodyne booth (#1705) at CEDIA EXPO 2011, held September 7-11 in Indianapolis, Ind.

For more information on the Velodyne Digital Servo-10, visit http://www.velodyne.com.

About Velodyne

Velodyne Acoustics, Inc., founded in 1983, is universally recognized as the leading manufacturer of high-performance, low distortion powered subwoofers at all price levels. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, the company’s technically innovative audio products are available through a select group of authorized dealers, custom installers, and distributors worldwide. For more information visit www.velodyne.com.

Based on our exhaustive testing, it’s clear that Velodyne’s new Digital Drive Plus series of subs deliver as promised and even exceed some of their own output claims made to us. You stick a robust 15″ driver in an inert sealed enclosure with a hulking power amp and masterful servo and compressor, and you’ve got the receipt for good subwoofing which very few sealed competitors can compete with both in sheer output and pristine fidelity. The DD-15+ has proven to be a worthy successor to the venerable DD-15 that started the whole Digital Drive series nearly 8 years ago. The hefty price tag is about the only downside to this fabulous product which the end user must decide if it’s worth forking over the cash to don the Velodyne name in their theater room. If I were their competition, I’d be worried that Velodyne has just put most of them in checkmate with this very impressive line of well engineered Digital Drive Plus subwoofers. Highly recommended!

Continue Reading @ Audioholics

The Rythmik Audio FV15HP subwoofer sports a 15″ high excursion servo controlled driver mounted in a large vented box with a powerful 600 watt (continuous output) rated amplifier. Powerful, rich, deep and solid with true 20Hz extension is how I would describe the bass output of this sub. Rythmik Audio has a very talented engineering staff that produced a truly great high caliber subwoofer product at a very affordable asking price. I would recommend a pair of these subs for any upscale home theater environment where seat to seat bass consistency and ultimate output are paramount concerns. It’s loud, clean, and fast… and for most – that’s going to make this an extremely hard sub to beat.

Continue Reading @ Audioholics

Read Consumer Reviews of the Rythmik FV15HP Subwoofer at AudioReview.com

Write a Review of the Rythmik FV15HP Subwoofer at AudioReview.com

1. Klipsch KSW-12 2. SVS PB10-NSD 3. SVS PB12-Plus/2 4. SVS PB12-NSD

Top Ranked Rythmik Servo Controlled Subwoofers

F15HP Rated: FV15HP Rated: Direct Servo F12 Rated:

“Subwoofer” – it’s like a magic word around here and makes all of us audioholics have little dreams of black boxes that cause our walls to crack, dishes to rattle, and rock our children to sleep… from the other end of the house. Some people think a good subwoofer will go down to 2 Hz, cost $200 and live in a box the size of a small laptop computer. Others go for size, wanting nothing less than a small refrigerator that will smack them around like a rag doll. We prefer a slightly more balanced approach, so when Emotiva announced their affordable Ultra Sub 12, we were intrigued. A 12” high quality driver mounted in a modest sized sealed enclosure with a meaty power amp for under $500 sure sounded like a winner to us. Could their magic black box deliver good bass and punch at an affordable price? Read our review to find out.

Continue Reading @ Audioholics

Read Consumer Reviews of the Emotiva Ultra 12 Subwoofer at AudioReview.com

Write a Review of the Emotiva Ultra 12 Subwoofer at AudioReview.com

1. Klipsch KSW-12 2. SVS PB10-NSD 3. SVS PB12-Plus/2 4. SVS PB12-NSD

XPA-5 Rated:

XPA-3 Rated:

UPA-5 Rated:

Adjusting the controls on a subwoofer for best performance takes time and patience. It is always interesting to see ads for used subwoofers appear on the Web stating “only a week old” or “barely broken in”. These almost always identify a dissatisfied owner. I would bet that the owner did not take the time to 1) play a lot of music to break in the woofer driver; and 2) set the low-pass frequency and subwoofer volume controls correctly for optimal performance. I have set up about a dozen different subwoofer models, including a few that I built, in my systems over the years. I suggest that if you can determine the final settings by ear in less than two weeks then you are an unusually gifted subwoofer installer. The Velodyne Optimum-12 subwoofer makes this task far easier than many other subwoofers.

Velodyne has been making powered subwoofers for over 25 years. The upper models in the extensive product line use a servo (feedback) circuit that corrects non-linear errors which significantly reduces distortion while protecting the driver and amplifier if the performance limits are exceeded. You can’t blow them up by playing the 1812 Overture at high volume levels or by inviting King Kong into your living room. The new Optimum series replaced the well received SPL Series and sits just below the top tier Digital Drive models in Velodyne’s product line. The Optimum-12 has a list price of $1800 and is available in piano black or gloss cherry finish. I have the latter finish and find it very handsome, the reddish cherry contrasting elegantly with the black fascia. The Optimum series also includes 8″ and 10″ models. Among many other features, they include a 7-band equalization and room correction system with a set up program that is completely automatic. When you initially install the sub, connect the supplied microphone, push a button on the sub, and in a couple of minutes the sub adjusts its frequency response and corrects for anomalies in your room’s bass acoustics. It just doesn’t get any easier.

Adding to the feature list is a digital readout of the current low-pass crossover frequency setting. This setting is changed with a knob on the back of the sub. The display can also show the sub’s volume setting. These numerical indicators are hugely valuable to me as I can make note of these settings, change other components in my system, and very easily go back to a previously installed preamplifier or main speakers by simply dialing in the old settings. It takes just a minute to have perfect settings again. Since a difference of just one Hertz in the crossover frequency setting or just one number in the volume setting can ruin a perfect blend with the main speakers, these digital readouts are, at least for me, “must have” features. (Digital readouts in a subwoofer? Yes, I’m spoiled!) Another very helpful setup tool, included with Optimum subs, is a remote control that can change the volume of the sub, select mute, and adjust the phase from your listening seat.

The Optimum-12′s small remote control has several other useful features, such as enabling you to turn off the display or quickly check settings. The frequency response is 21-120 Hz (+-3dB). The 12” driver has a huge 21.6 pound (9.8kg) magnet which is driven by a 1200 Watt RMS cool running internal power amplifier. The overall weight is a manageable 49 pounds, and the size is a compact 15.25”H x 14.9”W x 18.5”D. It has a signal-sensing auto turn-on feature so you never have to bother to turn it on or off. Velodyne offers a confidence inspiring 5 year warranty on the driver and a shorter 3 years on the electronics. The removable grille is best left off for critical listening.

The subwoofers – I used these in pairs – for comparison are the $2800 JL Audio fathom f112. Other components included Marantz MA-9S2, Nuforce Reference 9 V2 SE and the new, incredibly musical Jones Audio PA-M300 amplifiers; Dali Euphonia RS-3, Merlin TSM-MMe and YG Acoustics Kipod stand mounted speakers; various preamplifiers; a custom Windows 7 computer using the outstanding Prism Orpheus Digital Interface; SOTA Cosmos IV turntable with a Triplanar VII u2 tonearm and Miyajima Shilabe moving coil cartridge. Interconnects are Mogami; speaker cables are Element Apollo and Audience Au24 e; power cords included Audience PowerChord e, Element Stealth “es”, PS Audio PerfectWave AC-10 and AC-12.

• Tiny cabinet dimensions
• Intuitive, interactive front panel displaying volume, presets, crossover and phase
• Automated, one-button, 7-band EQ room correction system
• DSP digital control
• Remote control with four one-touch customized presets
• 2400W dynamic power / 1200W RMS

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