Hey all!
I'm a newb here at AC and first, let me say, "Great forum!" Tons of knowledge here.
Now on to the good stuff.
I've had the Songsub in my living room 2.1 system since Tuesday and I thought I'd offer my impressions so far, since user reviews of this gorgeous sub are a bit thin on the ground.
Not ready for a full review yet, but I level matched it and ran some test tones, lowered the gain a hair from my initial "by ear" setting, tweaked the high-pass/low-pass settings on my preamp a bit—settled on 55hz—and I can vouch for the Songsub's musicality. No one-note boom with the Salk.
It integrated easily into the system and keeps up with my LSA-1 Signatures with similar ease. I'm running the gain between 9:00 and 10:00 in a 1700 cu ft room that opens to two other rooms and a stairwell and pressurization is
not a problem. The heatsink on the amp has yet to get much above room temperature, even after cranking an entire bass-heavy CD like Cowboy Junkies -
One Soul Now to a measured 105 dB at my listening position, 12' from the speakers and sub.
I have the subsonic filter set at 20hz. Haven't tried the 16hz or 12hz settings. A 20hz tone rattled windows and registered 89dB (uncorrected RS meter) with the volume on my preamp set to a measured 72dB with pink noise.
Bass is as fast and articulate as the engineering of the recordings I've tested so far. Kick drums, bass guitar, upright and double bass, synth, all sound great, with no audible overhang. The Songsub plays what you feed it and nothing more or less.
I'm sitting in another room—open to the living room—as I type this, listening to Peter Malick and Norah Jones' "Strange Transmissions" and the kick drum has tactile punch, the bass guitar definition and authority, even in here.
I'm a music guy and am fairly certain that this sub wouldn't stand up to a sub like the SVS Ultra or Epik Conquest in a pure HT application. But it's got balls for sure. I'll see what it can do for movies in the next few days, but keep in mind that we're talking 85-95dB average volume levels at the listening position. This is my living room, not a dedicated theater. For music, I'd say that the Songsub is excellent and that's what I bought it for. Not that I have much experience with subs, mind you. But I've heard a few, some of them in the $3-4k range, and this sub can hold its head high in such company when it comes to music, in my humble opinion.
In the looks department, I'd put it at the top of the list.
Jim Salk offers some of the best customer service I've encountered in
any industry. He shipped my sub sans grilles because they weren't ready and that was holding things up. He said it would ship last week and made sure that it did. He then shipped the grilles when they were finished, free of charge. And there's nothing like being able to talk to the owner of the company when you call. Got questions? Not super knowledgeable about speakers or audio in general? He's got answers and he offers them without audible eye-rolling or condescension of any kind. The man and his products are a class act. Kudos to Jim. I'll be purchasing more of his fine products in the future.
Shaun
