Velodyne Digital Servo-10 Subwoofer Preview

Velodyne introduced its newest subwoofer, the new Digital Servo-10 (DS-10). The DS-10 is a sub that comes in right behind the company's Digital Drive (DD) series in terms of pricing and performance and is built to put out as much powerful and musical bass as possible within a smaller-sized, space-optimized enclosure. The DS-10 comes built with a cabinet-grade satin black finish. The driver is equally beautiful, but for different reasons (to those who are so enamored with technology). It's a 10-inch Kevlar–reinforced model with a ginormous 19.3 lbs. magnet structure and 3” dual tandem multi-layer voice coil. The basket is die-cast aluminum and everything is driven by an impressive 1250 watt RMS (3000 watts dynamic) ERS Class-D amplifier that claims 97% efficiency. As if that weren't enough, the sub includes Velodyne's patented Digital High Gain Servo (HGS) system that adjusts cone movement at a frequency of 16kHz (16,000 times a second). This is designed to lower distortion below 1% (or below what is considered audible. Everything is controlled by a high speed DSP processor. 

The Velodyne Digital Servo-10 sub also features the company's Digital Drive (DD) room management system designed to use EQ to overcome room limitations and subwoofer placement. The included mic just gets placed at the listening position and the user can press the EQ button on the remote control. At that point the  Digital Servo-10 sub applies any of 8 bands of EQ to smooth out bass interactions caused by the subwoofer's position within the room. The system can also be used manually with 8-bands of parametric EQ made available when using an external calibrated microphone. There is even an output to view the curves and results on your television. The DS-10 sub also gives you amazing user control over the subsonic filter and low-pass crossover, slopes, phase and polarity. This is a sub that can truly be tweaked and optimized for any situation or room.

We mentioned earlier that the DS-10 comes with a remote control. On it there are factory presets for different music and movie settings. These presets can be changed to customize the sub to taste for each mode. You can even engage a “Night” mode which reduces the tactile output of the sub for an experience that (hopefully) won't cause your neighbors to call the cops on you in the middle of the night. A front panel LED read-out reacts to all inputs and gives a visual cue for remote control adjustments. The Digital Servo-10 subwoofer ships with a calibrated microphone, cables, a built-in signal generator and the remote control. The MSRP is expected to be $1,999. We'll update with the expected availability.

For more information on the Velodyne Digital Servo-10, visit http://www.velodyne.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.