Powerful solid punchy clean deep loud roomfilling bass

none

Here is my review.
Sony SA-WM40 vs. Acoustic Research AR112PS
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A little Tom Nousain style.
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Every Day you come across bass in your home theater system but there is one thing....you cant feel or hear that deep bass cause you dont have a subwoofer.
Thats why i'm bringing you this review on low budget subwoofers, the Acoustic Research AR112PS and the Sony SA-WM40, The AR112PS can be had for as low as $185 online and the SA-WM40 can be had for as low as $139 online.
Both subwoofers feature 12" cones and both have 120 watt amp acording to Acoustic Research & Sony.
Both subs are also ported and have back mounted amps, One striking look is on the SA-WM40 it's amp sticks out a couple of inches to save room for more volume in the cabinet.
While the AR112PS is a slot loaded downfire sub the SA-WM40 is a front fireing rear ported sub.
Both subs have volume knobs and crossovers, and speaker inputs & outputs, one thing that was different was that the AR112PS's lowest crossover point was 80hz while the SA-WM40 was 50Hz, the ARS112PS has a FR of 28-200Hz while the SA-WM40 has 20-170Hz, The size of the AR112PS is 16"H, 16"W, 15"D, and the SA-WM40 is 14"W, 16"H, 16"D, the SA-WM40 has a nice looking grille cover with a little Sony logo on the top. Both subs have auto-on off.
It was time to test them now in my 13' 20' room with 8' cellings, both subs were cornerloaded in the left front corner 1 foot from the front wall and 1 foot from the side wall.
I first started with the AR112PS i played some DVDs ( U-571 , Blade, Toy Story 2, The Matrix, Enemy at the gate and The Haunting ) the AR112PS covered all of those tracks with some omphh but sometimes durring low bass sweeps in the haunting the AR112PS would bottom out and when tunred +5 on my A/V reciever at loud volumes the AR112PS would distort and bottom out like crazy other then that the bass was deep ( extending down to about 30hz ) and playing well over 95dB before distortion was noticeable, the bass was clean but tended to be somewhat boomy and tubby, now going through the same DVDs as the AR112PS did it was time for the SA-WM40 to prove its point, During the haunting the bass was somewhat deeper then the AR112PS ( extending down to about 25Hz with clean output ) the bass filled the room well during all tracks the bass was much more solid then the AR112PS and whent way louder without distortion the bass was clean, smooth deep and loud not to mention verry solid and hard hitting the bass was verry puncy which means i felt the bass punch me in the chest.
Overall the Sony was the clear winner and it had its strong points : solid puncy bass, deep clean & loud, smooth sounding and verry tight, The AR112PS also had its strong points for being loud, clean and verry smooth.

SA-WM40 - 20Hz @80dB, 25Hz @94dB, 30Hz @103dB 35Hz @111dB
AR112PS - 20Hz @74dB , 25Hz @86dB, 30Hz @97dB, 35Hz @104dB
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Those were takin using a program called Spectra plus i hooked the Subs up to my computer using a A/V amp and recorded the SPL at 1 meter distince.

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AR

lots of bass, not verry tight.

to loud and boomey tested it for 20 days to break in the woofer and my Polk Audio PSW-250 went plenty deeper.

good sub for the price goes verry loud you must play around with this thing for best sound i have mine placed behind my coutch to shake my teeth apart

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Polk

Sony's great quality and for a price that is very reasonable. The low bass is thundering for movie and music listening, it makes my sound system much better!

Size might take up some space in a small room. Other than that, the sound is excellent and this is really nit picking.

Well, after purchasing the Sony DAV-S300 (DVD and speaker system) for my bedroom, I decided to purchase another subwoofer to fill the hallowiness of my sound while playing music. For movies, the DVD system was great overall. So I headed to Best Buy and grabbed the Yamaha's 100-watt subwoofer which stood vertically. It was a pretty good sub, but for the price of $230, I was really disappointed. It created unbalanced sound from the theater system and the 8-inch speaker struggled on some low's. So I returned it, and decided to buy the Sony SA-WM40. I was really shock that Sony sold it's 12-inch speaker subwoofer for a lesser price than a Yamaha 8-inch speaker subwoofer. Music was very good, the sound from the sub matched the high's from my cubes. I left my passive subwoofer and connected the SA-WM40 to an available RCA input of my Sony DAV-S300. Two subs are better than one. This has made my sound system so much better. Best Buy's best bang for $200, no pun intended.

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Yamaha's 100-watt 8-inch speaker subwoofer.

auto on, 12" sub

none to speak of

Ok, I was rambling through K's merch. checking out their clearance subs. (KLH crap) and was starting to leave and ran accross this pile of sony subs on the floor. I was not really looking to purchase a powered sub yet(just spent the $$ on an onkyo a/v reciever) but these pups were $129... After going home and researching what people had to say here and then a visit to our local 'high end' store where I listened to what they had to offer in my price range(Yamaha's with 8" subs for more $ ) I gave in and bought this sucker. I was totally impressed with the extra boost it gave my low end. I have Infinity speakers and thought they were perfectly fine on the bass side but with this sub my system truly rocks out like i've not experianced before. A little boomy? maybe so at higher volumes but being almost 40 now I am trying to preserve my hearing for my old age. I do plan on adding some polyfill and see if it punches a little harder but even if not i'm perfectly happy. It'll shake the house when watching movies or listening to cd's and my wife makes me turn it down when she's home.
Bottom line. For the price I pd and how I use it I couldn't go wrong. If you have more money than sense then by all means purchase the $2k stuff. If you're a workin stiff like me and want great sound on the cheap, check this pup out.

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first sub

Very Good sound for the money

None that I have seen yet

This is the first Sub that I have purchased and thanks to the reviews that I have read, I am really glad I waited. I almost bought a 15-inch Audio Source, but from what has been posted , I would have hated it. You buy it and then you have to fix it for the boominess. This one from Sony has proved itself. I do not have a large room for my HT and this sub really fills it with clean bass. I have not had it that long, but so far I am very pleased. I was afraid, as were some others in these reviews, about the quality of Sony but I am impressed.

Cheap, great bass, line out for connecting multiple subs

none to speak of for this price

If you want a sub for cheap, buy this. You could even buy two of these and still have a great sub for cheap. The line out is a cool feature that I don't see on many subs. One of these is all the bass you really need for a small to mid-sized room. The bass is strong and punchy at all volumes. Great sound.

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My system:
SAMSUNG TSK2792F 27" DynaFlat TV
PIONEER ELITE TSX-26TX THX Ultra-certified receiver
PIONEER ELITE DV-C36 Progressive Scan DVD Player
SONY SS-MF315 Front Speakers
SONY SS-CR490 Center and Surrounds
SONY SA-WM40 Subwoofer

Small for a 12" sub. Tight, clean, defined bass. Well built amp. Has already lasted longer than my JBL did.

None.

I had a JBL and its amp self destructed after about 6mths. I was thinking about replacing the amp but I read all of the reviews about this sub. I went to the local Hifi shop and previewed it against all their other subs. It performed quite well. There were better subs, but they cost 2 to 3 times what this one does. For the money, I have not heard a better sub. I only hope the amp holds up better than the JBL. It seems that or poor sound is the 2 biggest worries for low priced subs. Let's hope sony got this one right.

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Jbl 10" powered sub

PRICE!! Good performance, Signal detection for power on.

Not exactly pretty. None from funtional point of view.

Listened to numerous other subwoofers and this one sounded really good (even better than some in the $300 - $500 range) - 'in the store'. Bought it with the idea or returning it should it not 'fit in'. It sounds great. Have it connected to the Subwoofer Out (mono) via the supplied RCA cable.

Have not needed anything over 50% volume for music or HT stuff, and being in an apartment, am sure I would be cast out should I set it any higher. It seems a good match with the Sony MB105 speakers as satellites (including center channel) - which are really impressive in the mid and high range (expected for the type) but lack good low end base. It did not take long to find a cross over setting that filled any holes between the bookshelf speakers and the subwoofer.

Many subwoofers really seem to add to the whole HT experience, but seem not as good for music. This is not the case I found with this example.

So far very impressed!

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None

Consistant, deep, clean, musical bass. Price. Ease of setup/use. Build quality.

Having to convince your audio snob friends that Sony makes a worthwhile sub. But then they hear it.

I'm a true believer in the "you get what you pay for" law of home theater. but I may have just taken delivery of the exception. the Sony SA-WM40 12" 120 watt powered sub might very well be the best kept secret in home theater.

Did I mention it was $167 shipped

Now, I know what you're thinking. "A decent speaker, much less a sub from Sony?!?!?!?" It's true, I swear it. But don't take my word for it, check out the rest of these reviews. Better yet, do a search at the Home Theater Forum hardware forum. Somebody over there tested this thing (working from memory here) to 89db at 20hz! Granted, it is underported for that territory and was chuffing like crazy, but a $170 sub shouldn't be doing ANYTHING but flailing and smoking at 20hz.

It produces deep, clean, tight, responsive bass across the frequency range and is very musical. Mine is crossed over at 100hz (via the receiver) and sounds fantastic with music and even better with movies.

The cabinet has a real quality feel to it. The amp has yet to even get warm on mine and hasn't a hint of hum using the supplied composite cable. I just couldn't be more pleased.

My other sub (an 8" Energy) cost me roughly two and a half times as much, and while it's a good sub for it's driver size/wattage, the sony is better.

I know some of you purists out there will scoff, and that's fine, but if you are looking for that first sub or want to augment your system but don't want to invest an absurd amount into HT equipment, this sub IS for you.

My modest home theater:
61" Sony RPTV KP-61S75
Panasonic A-120U
Pioneer VSX-D509S
Energy e:XL-16 front and surround (birch)
Energy e:XL-C
Sony SA-WM40

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8" Energy that i purchased with a Take 5 system (bedroom now). Auditioned JBL 10" and 12", CV, Polk... Have heard ridiculously expensive subs, but that's not really a fair comparison.

Low deep bass..not boomy

Ignore the moron below who's reviewed this sub. It's obvious he's never been near this sub. A great sub for the money.

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BU120 JBl PB10 JBL PB12