RSL Speedwoofer 10S MKII Review: Improved Performance, Great Value!

We reviewed RSL Speakers' original Speedwoofer 10S sub with high marks back in 2016, and it has proven to be an extraordinarily popular subwoofer over the years since. However, technology has marched on, and while the original Speedwoofer is still a perfectly fine sub, why not leverage the advances in loudspeaker design that have occurred since then for an even better product? That brings us to the subject of today’s review, the Speedwoofer 10S MKII. The MKII employs a host of improvements and upgrades, the largest of which is making the amplifier making a switch to a DSP design. The MKII essentially takes the original design and modernizes it as well as adding some performance tweaks.

How much of an improvement does this have over the original? And how does the Speedwoofer 10S MKII fare on its own without comparison to its predecessor? Let’s dig in to find out…

Unpacking and Appearance

The Speedwoofer 10S MKII arrived at my doorstep double boxed. Inside the boxing, there were polyethylene corner stand-offs to keep the sub cushioned from shock as well as giving it clearance from the box edges. The sub was wrapped in a soft plastic sheet that should protect it from moisture and scuffs. Altogether, the packing was good and should enable the sub to survive typically rough shipping practices.

  
 

Once unpacked, the Speedwoofer 10S MKII turned out to be a fairly typical-looking subwoofer and not bad at all. The finish is a lightly textured vinyl that we see on many lower-cost speakers and subs that offers a slightly satiny reflectivity but not quite as smooth. This nice thing about it is that it is relatively durable compared to other finishes and it does not show fingerprints. With the grille on, the Speedwoofer 10S MKII is not a terribly remarkable unit, and the only distinguishing feature of it would be the lower gloss piece with a curved upper lip that has the model name printed on it. Once the grille is removed, we get a look at the cone, and it is a pretty cool-looking anodized aluminum dustcap that is encircled with a beefy half-roll surround. Aside from the neat-looking cone, the Speedwoofer 10S MKII is merely an inoffensive black cube, and its smaller size should give it a pass in situations where other household members might object to intrusive audio equipment. It can also be had in white which will help it blend in lighter decors. One thing that might have been done to help soften the appearance would have been to round over the lengthwise edges, at least for the top of the sub.

Design Analysis

A quick glance at the Speedwoofer 10S MKII doesn’t really reveal what is unique about this sub; on the surface, it appears to be a typical subwoofer with a 10” cone. For a fuller understanding of the Speedwoofer 10S MKII, we have to dig a bit deeper. One of the unique features of the sub lies in its internal construction with the “Compression Guide Technology” which divides the interior space into three different chambers where the backwave pressure from the rear of the cone can compress and expand in a manner that reduces resonances. As I said in my review of the RSL CG5 & CG25, which also employs this design feature, it seems to borrow from transmission line theory which can get quite complex. Within the sub, there is a solid diagonal piece that stretches from the lower front of the enclosure to the upper rear, so there are two larger compartments in the enclosure. The upper rear of the sub is open so that the backwave goes over it into the lower compartment. There is an opening in the front of the lower compartment that opens up to a slot port that extends to the back of the sub. The larger chambers divided by the diagonal piece are filled with a thick batting material for damping internal waves.

 

 

I couldn’t say how efficacious the Compression Guide Technology really is, but if nothing else, it does add a good deal of rigidity to the sidewalls of the cabinet. The MDF enclosure is already fairly well put together for its price range with a 1” thick front baffle and ¾” thick sidewalls and braces as well as corner braces to reinforce the edges. It’s an unusually stout cabinet for the pricing. The driver is pretty beefy as well. It uses a Kevlar reinforced paper cone with an anodized aluminum dustcap. It connects to a cast aluminum basket via a Nitrile rubber surround and a Nomex spider. It has a 2” copper voice coil set inside of a 1 ⅜” double stack of magnets that have a 5 ½” diameter. That should provide a lot of magnetic flux for the coil to play with, but it does depend on how powerful the magnets are which is not a published spec. Venting is done both under the spider and through the pole piece. 

The driver is powered by a Class-D 400-watt RMS amp with a high-speed DSP processor that RSL calls the XDR amp (where XDR stands for “eXtended Dynamic Range”).  Connectivity includes a left/right pair of RCA inputs and outputs as well as speaker-level inputs. It also has a built-in wireless receiver for RSL’s optional wireless transmitters that can be had for an additional $50. What is nice about RSL’s wireless transmitter is that it will work with multiple Speedwoofer 10S MKIIs simultaneously which is not something that Bluetooth-based transmitters can do. The amplifier provides two operating modes, Music Mode and LFE Mode. LFE Mode adds a bit more extension for some deeper bass whereas the Music Mode stays closer to the response of the original Speedwoofer. The DSP circuitry is a lot more feature-rich than the original’s non-DSP amplifier and includes advanced thermal management and protection schemes for fluctuations in voltage and DC conditions as well as having a lower noise floor and lower distortion output. On the amp panel, there are knobs for volume, phase, and low-pass filter (40-200Hz with 24/dB octave slopes), as well as an auto-on switch. The low-pass filter knob also controls the operating mode.

RSL Speedwoofer 10S MK II Rear View

The Speedwoofer 10S feet are fairly typical cylindrical rubber pieces that should do well at damping vibrations and not scratch any hard flooring. The grille is held in by normal grille guides and doesn’t seem like the type that would snap off easily. With grille on, the front of the sub has curved corners, so it won’t cut or jab anyone unfortunate enough to brush against it. Without the grille, all the edges are hard 90-degree turns. If the user has kids or pets, it would probably be best to use this unit with the grille on, not just to protect the cone but to protect against injury from anyone running into a hard edge.

Listening Sessions

The best placement for a single sub in my room gives me a relatively flat response for an un-EQ’d single subwoofer, with a window of +/- 4 dB from 25 Hz to 100 Hz with no broad dips in important ranges. This location trades low-end room gain for a relatively flat response, a worthwhile trade for my tastes. The receiver used was a Marantz AV7705 and the crossover was used mostly at 80 Hz. As always, I will note here that since room acoustics have a huge effect on low frequencies, the way these subwoofers sound in my room at my listening position is not necessarily going to be the way they sound anywhere else for anyone else, so readers would do well to keep that in mind, and not just for this subwoofer in this review but for any subwoofer in any review.

Music Listening

What subwoofer review wouldn’t be complete without a pipe organ recording? To see what the Speedwoofer 10S MKII could do with the ‘King of Instruments,’ I found a weighty album in “20th Century Organ Masterworks” which was released on the Guild Music label in 2018. As the title suggests, this recording deals with modern compositions which are played by Iain Quinn. The performance was recorded on the Gottfried and Mary Fuchs Organ at the Pacific Lutheran University. This colossal organ was built and installed in 1998, which makes it a baby among pipe organs of the world that can often be centuries old, but it’s a big child with 3,912 pipes, some of which are 32 feet tall that gives them a fundamental resonance of a near-infrasonic 16Hz. While I don’t think any of the pieces on this album take full advantage of 32-footers, it does have plenty of prominent lower notes which will keep the subwoofer busy.

The first track on this album, “Passacaglia,” by Dmitri Shostakovich was a great choice for showing what the Gottfried and Mary Fuchs Organ could do in terms of low-frequency flexing and consequently is also a great vehicle for the Speedwoofer 10S MKII. It is a piece with constant bass throughout and is frequently even polyphonic, which is rare in traditional music. The Speedwoofer 10S MKII managed to reproduce the complexity and dynamism of this piece without issue. Bass is still very present in subsequent tracks but a bit more subdued compared to “Passacaglia,” and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII gave these performances enough power to impress the grandeur of the pipe organ upon the listener without overdoing it and turning the deeper notes into an indistinct rumble. It’s remarkable that this 15” cube can help to bring a lifelike pipe organ into my living room. Of course, my living room is a lot easier to energize with bass than a large church, but the Speedwoofer 10S MKII helped to create an illusion of size and space that transported me into the scene of the performance. The Speedwoofer 10S MKII might come up a bit light on the lowest notes that some pipe organs can reproduce, but the organs and recordings that actually contain that infrasonic content are uncommon. For the vast majority of pipe organ recordings, I think that this sub would be a great tool with which to bring about the deeper frequency playing, and I wouldn’t guess that there is a less expensive sub out there that could do better. Pipe organ fans have a good, affordable choice in the Speedwoofer 10S MKII.  

An acoustic album that also frequently touches subwoofer-range frequencies is “Drum’n Koto,” a fusion jazz album that puts an emphasis on the double bass, which is not surprising since it is headlined by Chris Jennings, a renowned virtuoso bassist. As the title suggests, a koto is used extensively in these pieces, and the music is performed by a quartet comprised of a koto player, percussionist, guitarist, and bassist, but they are sometimes joined by other guest instrumentalists. Sometimes fusion music shoe-horns in exotic instruments with Western music structure and it can sound forced, but the koto fits in perfectly here, and so much of “Drum’n Koto” is just competent jazz music where the inclusion of Eastern instruments does not really draw attention to the fact that they are not traditional jazz instruments.

Much like “20th Century Organ Masterworks,” this album opens with a dazzling display of musical dexterity and showmanship in the first track for bass frequencies, and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII delivered an impressive rendition of the performance. On this subwoofer, it was easy to discern that the bass drum was tuned quite low. Its interplay between the double bass was nicely integrated, and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII did a good job in coupling the instruments within the performance without smearing them together. Plucks and mutes of the double bass sounded immediate, and I did not notice any lagging bass sounds. Likewise, the percussion had a meaty thump without overstaying its welcome. Jenning’s play on the double bass could be quite rapid at times, and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII was able to track his notation fluidly. Sometimes he played it using a bow, and the pitch shifting of his slides was also smoothly relayed. This album would be a good one for audio equipment manufacturers to use as demo music in audio shows, and they should hope it would sound as good as the Speedwoofer 10S MKII could.  

For bass music on the subtler side, I once again turn to the genre of dark ambient, and this time with Ajna’s “Oracular.” This music could serve as the perfect soundtrack for a movie about a group of people who get lost in a haunted cave network, never to be found again. Dark ambient music tends to lean on the low frequencies with droning and rumbling sounds, and “Oracular” is no different. If you like your music calm yet creepy at the same time, it foots the bill nicely. This album was released in 2020 on the Cyclic Law label which specializes in dark ambient, and I streamed it through Qobuz.

This album opens with a deep drone underneath a cacophony of industrial atmospherics, and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII was able to charge my room with this deep vibrating sound despite its modest size. The second track digs even deeper and uses a near-infrasonic rumble that had to be at the edge of the low-frequency extension of the Speedwoofer 10S MKII, and I was surprised it could recreate such a deep bass sensation. The sound reminded me of the ground rumble that can be felt from a passing freight train. Subsequent tracks mix in a variety of low-frequency sounds that can often overlap, and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII kept these musical elements separate. Much of the bass sounds are densely textured, but the sub reproduced the definition of these sounds so that the imagery that they intended to convey was as clear as a bell. Speaking of bells, track 5, “Rising Above Physical Time,” contained a ringing sound that was as if a large bell had an endless sustain, and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII adeptly replicated the gradually rotating phase of the ringing sound for a mesmeric effect. Track 6 might have found the low-frequency limits of the sub as the cone was moving frantically but was only producing a subtle sound. To the sub’s credit, it didn’t produce any noticeable distortion or mechanical noise despite being pushed to attempt such a punishing tone. Again, I was surprised at how much deep bass this sub could produce given its size and pricing. 

For bass to push the subwoofer hard, I found a killer album titled “Uprising” by Foreign Beggars that was released in 2012. Foreign Beggars was a hip-hop group that mixes rap vocals with dubstep and drum’n’bass instrumentals. Their clever lyrics and inventive use of electronic sounds are on full display in “Uprising,” an album that could hammer any subwoofer at a high enough loudness level. The bass is varied yet always heavy-hitting, so it is a lot of fun as a workout for a subwoofer. It stands as a great test to see how much punishment a sub can take as well as just being a terrific album.

The bass lines of “The Uprising” are immensely thick, and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII managed to lay them down heroically. I did push it to its limits, but those limits were surprisingly high for a modestly sized 10”. As I heard before when it does reach its limits, it doesn’t turn itself inside out trying to reproduce the signal, and instead, it simply stops getting louder. That is a wise choice on the part of RSL since they will likely sell a lot of these things and won’t need to deal with many returns from people who ran the sub into an early grave from over-driving them. The Speedwoofer 10S MKII did an admirable job of powering my room with heavy bass, and, at approximately 20’ x 35’ with openings to other rooms, my listening room isn’t particularly small. I could hear the kick drums and bass lines vibrate my ceiling tiles. Since the limiter does keep the driver on a short leash, this is a sub you could use to power a party in a small to medium-sized room with no problem. It would probably be in over its head in a larger room when pushed hard, but it could still sound good as I heard, and two would be killer. For those who like really fun bass lines, I can recommend track 2 and track 12 from “The Uprising”; they are a wild ride with a good sub, and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII helped to make them sound great. I have a feeling that those looking for a subwoofer for electronic music are going to be quite happy with this one.

Movie Watching

One movie that I watched with lots of low-frequency turmoil was the 2016 Netflix release “Spectral.” This movie is about some American special forces acting as peacekeepers in a civil war in the European country of Moldova. They engage some supernatural soldiers who are nearly invisible and are killing combatants on both sides of the conflict. A movie about modern warfare against super ghost soldiers is a sure way to bring in some heavy bass in the sound mix. What is more, it features a score by Tom Holkenborg who is no stranger to our subwoofer reviews. He is always reliable for bringing in a weighty score that is not bass shy. “Spectral” should make for a good demonstration of what a subwoofer can do for a typical effects-driven big-budget action movie.

From the start, “Spectral” turned out to be a bass fest, and the Speedwoofer 10S MKII was up to the task of giving this movie the low-frequency oomph that the sound mix demanded. Massive APCs growled through battle zones with gutteral engine noise. The attacks of the ‘hyperspectral anomalies’ occurred with a palpable subsonic grunt. Explosions and gunfire were given a thunderous boom that had a visceral presentation. V-22 Osprey transported troops through the sky with a resounding rumble. And Tom Holkenborg’s music score added its own portentous orchestral thrumming, which pulsated underneath the action. The Speedwoofer 10S MKII reproduced all of this turmoil with a tireless verve. With little human drama but extensive action scenes, the movie itself functioned better as an extended audio and video demo, but not every movie needs aspirations for an academy award to be enjoyable. However, those movies that are so reliant on visual and audio effects do need good A/V equipment to be appreciated, and I am happy to report that the Speedwoofer 10S MKII was more than adequate in delivering “Spectral’s” audio fireworks.

 

For something with a different tone, I watched the 2015 Turkish horror movie “Baskin,” which had gained something of a reputation for being a truly nightmarish film. Naturally, I was intrigued, and the trailer promised some heavy-duty low-frequency activity, so I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to see what the Speedwoofer 10S MKII could do in a more atmospheric setting of a horror movie. In this movie, a squad of police officers takes a distress call to an abandoned building where a black mass ceremony was performed. Little do they know that they have stumbled into an opened portal to hell and must escape or suffer a fate worse than death. A plot like that promised fun for the whole family as well as a chance for the Speedwoofer to flex its muscles.

After watching “Baskin,” I certainly got more than I bargained for, in both sheer horror and also usage of bass. Much of the low-frequency sound occurs as either music or surreal atmospherics, and there is plenty of it to go around. Notable instances of heavy-duty bass use transpire in the nightmare in the restaurant, the arrival of ‘The Father,’ and the end credits music. There is even a Turkish disco tune with a brawny bass line. The Speedwoofer 10S mkII did a great job of adding muscle to the sound mix. It was a frightening movie whose tension was elevated by the ominous sound, and strong bass capability is needed to fulfill its potential. The Speedwoofer was definitely capable of doing its part to maximize the horror of “Baskin.” The sweeping drones of the music score were given a palpable buzz by the sub, and even amidst such a carnival of the grotesque, it will surely be one of the most memorable elements. “Baskin” is obviously not a movie for everyone, but those with a strong stomach and a taste for the surreal will enjoy it, and make sure a good subwoofer like the Speedwoofer 10S MKII is employed (fans of the Panos Cosmotos films “Mandy” and “Beyond the Black Rainbow” are sure to love “Baskin”).

 

RSL Speakers Speedwoofer 10S MKII Measurements & Conclusion

 

Testing on the RSL Speedwoofer 10S MKII was conducted with the microphone facing the woofer at a 2-meter distance. The temperature was recorded at 49F degrees with 70% humidity. The subwoofer’s gain was set to maximum and the low pass filters were left off.

 

The above graph shows the measured frequency responses for the RSL Speedwoofer 10S MKII subwoofer per its operating modes. The LFE Mode holds a nice flat response from the mid-20s up to 100Hz while the Music Mode rolls off the response at around 30Hz. I used the sub in LFE Mode for my own listening, and most people would probably find that more satisfying. The extra deep bass is noticeable. Above 100Hz, the upper-frequency roll-off is gradual, and it could probably be EQ’d for a flatter response without much trouble for those who want to use a 120Hz crossover. ‘Music Mode’ will have enough frequency bandwidth for the vast majority of music recordings. Music rarely dips below 30Hz, especially in acoustic recordings. RSL may have made this mode available for instances where room gain can really boost lower frequencies which is not an uncommon occurrence. There are plenty of movies that do dig below 30Hz, so for home theater aims, LFE Mode is recommended.

 

The above CEA-2010 measurements are short-term bursts that show the subwoofer’s clean peak SPL before heavy distortion sets in. Our measurements have been referenced to 2-meter RMS, which is 9dB down from the standard requirement for the measurements to be shown at 1-meter peak. However most publicly available CEA-2010 measurements are shown at 2-meter RMS, so we followed that convention. The burst performance is very good for the price and size of the Speedwoofer 10S MKII. With short-term output exceeding 107dB at 40Hz and above, it is no wonder that it could rock so hard even in my medium-to-large room size. It has some real low-end grunt as well, with a recorded measurement of 102dB at 25Hz. The overall measurement set here nets our Bassaholic Room Rating on the higher end of the ‘Medium’ Room Size Rating meaning that it should be able to remain powerful in a room of up to 3,000 cubic feet.

For information on how the room ratings are determined, please read our article Bassaholic Subwoofer Room Size Rating Protocol.

However, if you don’t intend to rock hard frequently, I do think it could handle somewhat larger room sizes at moderate loudness levels. On the other hand, a dual Speedwoofer 10S MKII setup could easily handle larger rooms and still come in at under $1k. Even better, a dual sub setup is better for reducing the adverse effect of room modes and standing waves, so you can get a flatter response and a higher quality sound than is possible with a single subwoofer.

 

Testing for long-term output compression was done by first conducting a 20-second sweep tone where 50Hz hit 90dB with the subwoofer 2 meters from the microphone. We then conduct further 20-second sweeps by raising the gain by 5dB until no more output could be wrung out of the subwoofer. These tests show us the long-term continuous headroom that the subwoofer is capable of. The Speedwoofer 10S MKII holds its response shape up to the 100dB sweep before any compression sets in. Above that point, it does start to run out of gas in deep bass, but there is still plenty left in the tank in lower-mid bass where we see it can exceed 105dB from about 40Hz to 90Hz. Again, this is a very respectable showing, especially considering the size and pricing. 

 

The above graphs show the corresponding total harmonic distortion to the long-term output graphs. Essentially, they depict how linear the subwoofer remains for the corresponding drive level seen in the long-term sweeps. The quantity being measured is how much of the subwoofer’s output is distortion and is shown here as a percentage. Starting at the 90dB sweep, there is very little distortion present. However, when pushed a bit harder, harmonic distortion does start to crop up, but not in quantities that are likely to be audible at anything but the highest drive levels, at least outside of deep bass. The nature of the distortion is what starts to matter at this point, and it is what we get a look at in the following graphs…

  

The above graphs depict measurements of the constituent harmonics from the long-term output sweeps and are what the total harmonic distortion measurements are composed of for the 2nd and 3rd harmonics. These individual harmonics can give us a clue as to what might be the cause of some quirk or non-linearity. We are only showing the 2nd and 3rd here because they more or less reflect the higher even-order and odd-order behaviors, although higher-order harmonics tend to be much further down as a percentage of distortion compared to the second and third.

Here we can see that most of the distortion product outside of deep bass below 25Hz is largely comprised of even-order harmonics. Since it seems to increase at fairly even intervals with respect to the rising drive level, I would guess this would be due to inductance rather than a suspension or motor issue. The fact that it is notched out just below 50hz would support this; were it a matter of stress from the suspension or motor, there wouldn’t be an absence of distortion at that frequency. The good news is that even-order harmonics are more difficult to perceive than odd-order, especially in music recordings. All musical instruments produce lots of even-order harmonics of their own, so if any even-order harmonic distortions are audible at all, the listener may not even be able to distinguish them from that of the instrument. The bottom line for these measurements is that if the listener doesn’t want to be met with any audible distortion products, just don’t crank the Speedwoofer 10S MKII as hard as humanly possible.

 

Group delay is the measurement of how much time it takes for individual frequency bands of an input signal to be produced by the speaker. It can indicate that some frequency components are developing slower than others or are taking longer to decay. It is generally thought that 1.5 sound cycles are needed for group delay to be audible at bass frequencies, although there is an argument that group delay should remain under 20ms to be completely unnoticeable, but that is likely meant for mid and upper bass frequencies.

The Speedwoofer 10S MKII seems to average group delay a bit below 1 cycle until port tuning which should keep it below any audible decay times for pretty much any content. It does exceed 1.5 cycles below 30Hz, but that is likely too deep in frequency to be readily perceptible by human hearing. There isn’t anything else remarkable about this measured performance; it isn’t extraordinarily good but it isn’t bad at all either. This is simply a competent level of group delay, and listeners are not likely to hear any laggy bass or overhang.

Comparing the Speedwoofer 10S to the 10S MK II

For those looking for a major upgrade from the original Speedwoofer 10S, the MKII version isn’t going to have a big increase in performance. We can expect some minor increases, but since the driver and enclosure hasn’t undergone any radical changes, and since there has only been a relatively small increase in amplifier power, the improvements in headroom will be minor. One of the aspects that will have a change in performance going from the original to the MKII is the switch from front-firing port to rear-firing port. The rear is likely to be placed closer to backwalls or side walls, so it will probably get more acoustic loading in that condition, and since it the port is not facing the listener, any chuffing or port turbulence noises will be much more heavily masked. The added DSP of the MKII has over the system justifies the upgrade. The RSL Speedwoofer 10S MK II sub is bulletproof. It can sense all kinds of problems and either compensate for them or shut the system down to avoid catastrophe. It can deal with suboptimal power sources, DC offsets in the signal, signal overloading, thermal issues, and other things way better than the previous non-DSP amp.

Conclusion

I normally go over the strengths and weaknesses of the product under review in the conclusion of my reviews, but the problem with going over the weaknesses of the Speedwoofer 10S MKII is that there isn’t much I can fairly complain about. This is a modestly priced sub that has a modest size, and that brings inherent limitations. It packs a lot of performance and usability within those limitations, and it managed to exceed my expectations of what it would do. It strikes a great balance of deep bass extension and dynamic range for its size. In loudspeaker design, there is an inevitable trade-off between smaller size, dynamic range, and low-frequency extension. Increasing one of those parameters must come at the cost of at least one of the other parameters and usually both to some degree. For a subwoofer of this size to have substantial output to below 30Hz while costing less than $500 is a whole lot of good news for a lot of subwoofer shoppers. And, as we mentioned before, those with a large room and a $1k budget ought to consider a dual Speedwoofer 10S MKII setup, since that will have enough output for larger spaces as well as negating localization effects and yielding a flatter in-room response than is possible with a single subwoofer.

There are subwoofers that can dig deeper, but they are more expensive and significantly larger. There are subs that can get louder, but again, at an increase in size and cost. Even taking size out of the equation, the Speedwoofer 10S MKII should be competitive in performance with nearly every other subwoofer in its price class. What is more is that for a mere $50 extra, you can go wireless with the addition of a subwoofer signal transmitter; most other wireless subwoofer kits start at $100 and can go up to $200. This all makes the Speedwoofer 10S MKII a very high-value proposition.

 

In the end, you get a small-sized, nice-looking subwoofer with good extension and output for $450 (FREE Shipping), and if you want less wire clutter and more placement flexibility, add the wireless transmitter for an extra $50. It is no wonder that RSL has seen such success with the previous iterations of the Speedwoofer, and, with a product this well-rounded, I expect that success to continue with the Speedwoofer 10S MKII. Those who think that the Speedwoofer 10S MKII might be a good fit for them can try it with very little risk. Shipping is free, and there is a 30-day in-home trial. If it doesn’t work out for you, it can be returned for a $25 flat rate return fee, and RSL pays for return shipping. RSL has a very generous trial policy here, and I think they can afford to since I doubt that many buyers will be returning this subwoofer.

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Build Quality
Fit and Finish
Ergonomics & Usability
Features
Dynamic Range
Performance
Value