Deep, very clean bass. Musical. Very powerful.
Compact too (for those who care).

When it gets cranking, it moves across my hardwood floor!

I'm very pleased with this little powerhouse, which I use for my "family room" theater system. My requirements are a bit unique. (To keep the peace, I had to go with in-walls as my spouse fails to appreciate the benefits of a room full of speakers!) My family room is +30L x 13w X 20H. I have five Sonance T4000 3-way in-walls and a Denon AVR 3200 receiver. Therefore, I wanted a sub that is musical that could help make up for the limitations of in-walls (yet take up little space).
I have my receiver set up for "small" speakers, which directs the low base from the speakers to the sub, and I set the sub for the broadest frequency coverage. The unit provides very clean, tight, precise base that is great for music. I'd go so far as to say it really has transformed what was a movies-only system to something that is quite nice to listen to for music. The sub easily fills the space with clean, tight base with its volume level at 40-50% of max. As for movies, I have the latest progrssive scan Pioneer and a Sony Vega 36" XBR. Base reproduction on movies is thrilling.
I compared this to Sunfire's line (Signature) and also Paradigm's Servo model. I felt the Paradigm to be far less tight, and a bit boomy -- not very musical. It couldn't keep up. The Sunfire sounded good, but the humm issue really put me off (read the reviews). The sunfire is less appealing visually as well and it's more expensive. Value-wise, I give this sub very high marks since it delivers great performance on music for a reasonable price relative to competitive choices. I'm very happy.

Similar Products Used:

Sunfire, Paradigm

Small size
Large volume
Low distortion
Rattle anything within 40 feet

Amp problem in early batches, replaced free by Velodyne
Otherwise nuttin ......

I love listening to anything with this sub. It is great. Music or home theater, it doesn't matter. There is nothing I can say bad about it. It does everything I expected and more. Goes just as loud and actually quite lower than my car system with 2 12's.

FYI ..... there was a problem with the amplifier just like the guy in the last post stated. Same symptoms with messing up the lower channels and such. The problem has been identified by Velodyne. I was sent a new amp. Everything has been perfect from then on. Oh, and as a bonus the new amp has 4 capacitors instead of just 2. Thats gotta help.

I would love to try a SVS and compare though .......

Similar Products Used:

None .... car subs don't really count.

Clean, Tight, Accurate, no distortion, no reverb. Excellently built. The Blue LED on the top is awesome.

It will Make your neighboors learn to hate you within one night if you live in an appartment!!! oh well. Certain sacrafices have to be made!

I never thought I would spend that much money on a subwoofer. The price range I was looking at was half of what I spent. It took me roughly a month to decide to buy this sub, and I have no regrets at all.

Originally I wanted to buy a used Velodyne sub but the salesman showed me otherwise. He first showed me a B&W sub but I did not like it. Then we listened to the VA1012.

Just a little background on the 1012:
Two drivers a 10in active front firing and a 12in passive downward firing.

I liked this sub at first it was rather clean and shook the room thanks to the passive 12in. It seemed to lack a little on music, got a little muddy, boomy, and it did not go low enough. A few weeks later I went back after checking out a Paradigm PS1200. I did not like this sub much at all. It was great for movies but did not cut it for music. You could hear the reverb at every note and it seemed to have one main frequency that it hit the hardest and the other frequencies all seemed about the same muddled together and it was not very clean. The VA1012 had similar problems but sounded better than the Paradigm. The thing I liked the best about the 1012 was how hard it hit. I then compared the 1012 to the SPL1000 due to price considerations. Seeing as how that was still a considerable jump in price.

Just a little commentary on the SPL1000:

I liked the SPL1000 a lot. It was clear, clean and tight with music. No problems that I could see in the store. However, I watch a decent amount of movies and I wanted to make sure that the sub would be able to handle movies. The SPL1000 lacked the hit that movies need, with the SPL1000 sub I didn't "feel" the movie.

Let me tell you how impressed I am with the SPL1200.
Yes this sub is a little pricy but it's worth every dime. The reason this sub is so clean and tight is because it uses active servos to control the cone. This means you get a clean sounding bass note without the harsh reverb of some subs. How this works: The servo is designed to compare the output of the cone to the input signal and adjust the output accordingly. Now this is a Reader's Digest version of how it works. The only confusion that most typical subwoofer buyers get into is the difference between a hit and something that is boomy. When people compare this sub to other ones they get these mixed-up. The difference in detail of the hit of the SPL1200 compared to the boomyness of the VA1012 is extraordinary. It goes all the way down to 20hz and is clean at every level, through all the music I have listened to it does an excellent job reproducing the extremly low tones as well as the higher bass tones. In a word, WOW.

I don't know what else I can say about this sub, I can't even begin to describe how nice it sounds. If you are in the market for a new sub I highly suggest that you test this puppy out. If you have any questions at all about it please E-mail me at Earear@aol.com. Moral of the story is walk into store with fat wallet, carry out a SPL1200, live long, and happy.

Similar Products Used:

Compared this sub with, Velodyne SPL 1000, Velodyne VA1012, Paradigm PS1200, and Sunfire True JR