Looks very nice and sharp. Small. Controls in front.

Makes a clearly audible click when wakes up from sleep. The amp itself kicks in only 2-4 seconds after the click, so those first seconds of play are tweeter-and-midrange only. Feels like one of those cheap "multimedia" computer subwoofers... Almost inaudible even in my small room, even with volume at 80%. Bass is muddy at high volume and crossover settings. El Cheapo plastic base (advertized in Yamaha sales literature as QD-bass) which may not withstand the test of time. Sticky rubber pads that attach in a rather flimsy way. Huge - and unexplainable - gap in the frequency response at approx. 60Hz. Weak warranty. Woofer cone seems to be made of paper. Front control panel made of cheap cheezy silver plastic and hard to read.

I wanted to buy an inexpensive subwoofer. After examining the RCA models at local Radio Shack, I decided that these are a total waste of my money, and instead I have got the Yamaha at Best Buy. Their regular price is $149, but I was lucky to get an open item for $129. When I was listening to the demo unit in the store, I have immediately noticed it is not a very loud subwoofer (even the $99 Sony model was outputting way more bass - albeit horribly distorted!), but I figured it might be OK for my small room, and it looked very nice. It also had controls in front. I went with Yamaha over the sony mentioned above mainly because of Sony's distortion. When I have set up the Yamaha at home, I had a hard time hearing I have a sub at all. When cranked up to full volume, it was just booming - not very loud, but enough to spoil the whole sound. When set to about 80% of the volume, it was completely overpowered by main speakers (small bookshelf Polk RTi28's). After 3 hours of fiddling with crossover and volume, I made the sub sound acceptable, but the sound lacked clarity. When I have measured the sound spectrum with Signalsuite/Signalscope programs on my Powerbook through its internal microphone, I have noticed that the sub generates an appreciable amount of secondary harmonics (apparently, this is why the sound is muddy!). Also, it had a huge gap in its frequency response curve at about 60Hz, and was producing no sound at all below 40Hz. The sub has a mysterious "movie/music" button in front. I could not figure out what it did - it sounded slightly worse when set to "movie". When not used for a while, the sub goes into sleep mode. When waking up from sleep, it emits a clearly audible (and annoying!) "click" sound. However, the actual plyback starts a few seconds _after_ the "click"! The front controls are made of cheap molded plastic (that tries to pretend it is brushed aluminum), and, adding insult to injury, there is also a cheap-looking green led in it. I have returned this thing to Best Buy after 3 days, and went with a Polk PSW-202, which I was able to get new in the box for the same price. I definitely do not recommend to buy this Yamaha subwoofer.

Similar Products Used:

Polk PSW-202 (highly recommend). JVC SW2000 (part of a $600 shelf system-in-a-box).