LOW DEEP BASS, POWERFUL , CLEAN

NONE YET!

OK, I HAVE ONLY HAD THIS SUB 4 DAYS NOW AND HAVE TO TELL YOU ,OUT OF THE BOX THIS THING SOUNDED DAMM GOOD.NOW I KNOW I COULD BE REALLY LUCKY AND IT MAY JUST BE THE ROOM. I READ ALL THESE REVIEWS FOR LIKE 2 MONTHS , AND FINALLY DECIDED ON THIS SUB. I HAVE TESTED MANY SUBS,(INFIN,POLK,VELOD,)AND NONE SOUNDED AS GOOD AS THIS ,AT LEAST SOME FOR THE MONEY. THE OTHERS SOUNDED A BIT BETTER , BUT AT THE $800 RANGE AND UP.
I THOUGHTH I WOULD HERE A BIT OF A LOOSE SOUNDING SUB , OR THE BOOMYNESS,I DIDNT. I HAVE NOT SPENT ALOT OF TIME TWEEKING YET , HOWEVER I DID DO JUST SOME OF THE BASIC ADJUSTING OF THE CROSSOVER, GAIN, AND LINE OUT ON MY RECIEVER. TRIED 2 DIFFERENT POSTIONS , AND BOTH SOUNDED GREAT. ONE SLIGHTLY BETTER THAN THE OTHER. IT WAS A SINCH TO SET UP AND LOOK FOWARD TO REALLY GETTING INTO THE EXPERIMENTAL/TWEEKING SIDE OF THINGS. CONSIDERING ALL THE REVIEWS HERE AND THE FACT THAT I JUST GOT GREAT SOUND FROM THIS SUB , W/ OUT ANY TWEEKING , I WOULD STRONGLY RECOMEND GETTING THIS SUB. WELL WORTH IT !!!
GOOD LUCK
TP

Similar Products Used:

INFINITY,BOSE,POLK,H/K,PANASONIC

great value, good sound quality when adjusted properly

needs tweeking and/or modification according to fellow posters, I tend to agree

I hate to see that so many people complain about "boomy" sound. If you are such an audio enthusiast, you have good quality fronts and set the frequency cut-off at 50Hz. There is no need for a subwoofer to produce sounds at much higher frequency, especially above 100Hz. Your regular woofers, even in a bookshelf speaker can do it.
That brings an issue. When you read the manual, Sony mentions setting the cut-off all the way up when using Digital dolby encoding. What is this all about?
Anybody has a clue?
Thanks.

Power output in the lower frequencies

BOOOOOOM! And I dont mean the good boom either......

When I first got this sub, I was pretty impressed. That isnt saying much, because the only other home sub I'd listened to before was a cheap little pioneer job that came in a mini system. But, the more I listened to it, the less I liked it. Recently, it has just done nothing but severly irritate me. I couldnt turn this stupid thing up to even moderate levels without the booming and the bottoming out of the driver (nothing more irritating than that click) driving me nuts. So I unhooked all my speakers save the sub, and started playing with the cutoff and power settings. Now that the power is near max, and the cutoff is near minimum (just over 1/4 on the dial) I'm finally a little happy with this thing. Seems when the driver isnt stressed too much by the higher frequencies it happily churns out powerful bass. Hell, if I could have it my way this sub wouldnt even be ABLE to produce frequncies above 75Hz. Maybe that's why this sub has been getting such glowing reviews when it comes to HT, but the music side has been lacking. My reccomendation? Pump this baby as much power as you can give it and turn the cutoff down until it stops sounding like crap.

Cheap, loud, neato.

looks like woofer gets overpowered easily?

im happy with this sub for the price but it doesnt really work the same as the sub i have for my computer. I also dont think it was made to. I havent had a chance 2 bring my actual bookshelf speakers up 2 my dorm 2 try the whole system i have with it, but it is pretty cool. I would rather have this than spend 300+ on something else. the 8" subs in my bookshelfs will probably give enuf drum bass for music so its all good. I am thinking about putting a diffrent driver in there because the stock one seems kinda *crappy*(edited).

Similar Products Used:

i have 2 10" JBL DVC subs in my car

Cheap, loud, neato.

looks like woofer gets overpowered easily?

im happy with this sub for the price but it doesnt really work the same as the sub i have for my computer. I also dont think it was made to. I havent had a chance 2 bring my actual bookshelf speakers up 2 my dorm 2 try the whole system i have with it, but it is pretty cool. I would rather have this than spend 300+ on something else. the 8" subs in my bookshelfs will probably give enuf drum bass for music so its all good. I am thinking about putting a diffrent driver in there because the stock one seems kinda *crappy*(edited).

Similar Products Used:

i have 2 10" JBL DVC subs in my car

(I'M ACTUALLY REVIEWING THE SAW-M20 B'C THERE'S NO SITE FOR IT)..... Very powerful for it's size, small good for placement, plays very low, improves home theatre 10X by far, especially nice for small rooms maybe even medium rooms, couldn't ask for any better

receiver over powers sub at hi levels so i have to turn sub volume down, atleast i never have to touch the cutoff freq.

I'm a completely satisfied customer on my purchase of this sub. My others were either too weak, or had terrible quality. The Yamaha was too big, not enough power as rated, hard to place, and gave a headache from having to turn up receiver jus' to get that sub going, which was too much for $200. I took it back and got the SAW-M20, for $100 less, no more headaches or bleeding ears, smoothe hard hitting bass. I may not know the fine tunings down to the minor details like audiophiles, but I know when good money is spent for satisfaction. I planned on using this sub until I was able to buy a Polk or Infinity, but surprisingly I plan on staying with this sub for as long as possible w/o a question. I also planned on getting the SAW-M40 for the longest time, but for what I have now I've saved money, and 'am totally grateful for this fine product. Thanks Sony, keep it coming!! But please do better on your DVD players.

Similar Products Used:

RCA 20Watt floor firing 6.5" driver (forgot model).. Audio Source 50Watt floor firing 6.5" driver.. Yamaha 150Watt front firing dual 8" drivers, single ported, model no. YST-AW150

Value, Size, Tweakability

Low hZ extension

This is not an SVS ! If you can over that, then you can have a great time with this sub. It will do very well for the average HT, even w/o tweaks. Room positioning and SPL balancing to REF will get you much better performance. For the price, it can't be touched.


Matt

Stong low solid clean bass

Your friends think it will suck cause it's a sony but when they hear it they all want one, thats a good thing

This is a verry good sub not just a good sub but a VERRY GOOD sub for its price it's a steal.
My brother and me compared the Sony SA-WM40 to his much bigger more costly Klipsch KSW-15, we played many dvds and a funny thing accured to me that you could not tell the difference between the two subs inless there was ULTRA DEEP bass that you rairly come across on DVD's, Most DVD bass cuts off around 25Hz to 30Hz which the sony cuts off fast around 20Hz while the klipsch could do 20hz but it could not do it super loud,
I think its great how you could not tell a difference between a $300 sub to a $900 sub ( canadian dollers )
The sub plays verry clean a ultra deep and it goes loud and has verry punchy bass.

Similar Products Used:

My brothers Klipsch KSW-15.

Good starting material yields kick@ss sub.

Not much after mods

Ears is right, Craig is too.....Needs Modification !
The stock box does sound boomy, rumbly and loose. I think this is due to no insulation, corragated speaker and light speaker material.

This thing kills KSW-12,Dynas and as good as the best in this size range.

Heres what I did:

Replaced the driver with a Fosgate "Punch" model RFZ1812 that I already had. I did have to widen the hole as the other guy stated...same screw holes though. I don't care if its shielded or not.

I stapled the acoustic foam on the walls with a little Dynamat underneath. With the sub level output at max on my reciever I run the sub volume at 1/4...But I can run it all the way if I could stand it.

Oh Yeah, try this...tap on each speaker as you have it lying in the box opening and make your own decision about the driver mod...you'll here what I'm talking about

This thing is Tight, Low & Powerful now !!!

P.S. I run all my subs at 50hz cut off otherwise you get crap even from the $3k models...its trying to reproduce too many sounds in the sub-base range...Freq Ranges above say about 75 are what good front speakers or for

Similar Products Used:

Many..over-rated names !!!!

Enough bass to shake me, my room, and most of my house :)
Of course, price is a MAJOR strength of this system

Great for gaming/dvd, but for music, I would like it to be a bit better

Well, since you guys are talking about modding, and modding the case is exactly what I want to do, maybe you can give me some info. I have the SAWM40 hooked upto a system hooked upto my computer, and when you feel the bass of a rocket launcher or a shotgun in a game go straight through you and shake you, THAT is one helluva experience! For music though, that's where I would like to see some improvement. For games, it's not an issue, because the bass doesn't have to be as accurate, just loud and clear, but for music, I find the SAWM40 to be WAY too boomy at decent volumes, so I'm left to use my other speakers with the sub off (or at the very least, on, but not as too high a volume). I was going to go the polyfill route, but I don't know how much that could really help me out. But the idea of replacing the driver is an interesting one. If I were to replace the driver, I would be looking for one that can perform at least as well as the SAWM40's driver for games/dvd, but one that would be a lot tighter and more accurate for music. The one suggested by Craig seems to be a good choice, but if I wanted to increase my budget to say, 75 bux USD (heh, I have lots of other expenses, so not much to spend on new driver), or even better, say about 125 Canadian, what would you guys recommend?

Also, when looking for a new driver, what factors besides size and materials do you have to look at?

thnx

Similar Products Used:

NONE