This subwoofer is absolutely incredible. If you like huge bass, this is the model for you. Here are some details.

I was in the market for a new sub because my Infinity model (part of their TSS-1100 home theater speakers) recently conked out. I was attracted to Velodyne because of their reputation and because they make a 15� sub. Of course, I want their 18-incher but I can’t afford it. So, the 15-inch model was the compromise that also got me the bass increase I’d always wanted. And boy, did I get it.

First, a few words about my system and setup. My home theater room is roughly 10 feet by 12 feet and is on the second floor of a home built in 1911. Which is to say, it responds well to the movement of massive quantities of air at very low frequencies (as opposed, say, to a basement with a concrete floor). I have an Onkyo TX-SR604 home theater receiver, the aforementioned Infinity TSS-1100s, and a run of the mill Panasonic standard-def DVD player. I play music from an iPod through Onkyo’s iPod dock. Music on the iPod is ripped at the default 128 rate. For connecting the sub, I used the subwoofer output from the receiver into the line-level inputs in the sub. Velodyne recommends a Y-connecter to send signal to both the left and right sides of the line-level inputs, so I did that too.

One thing to note about the DEQ-15R is that it’s a behemoth. At 73 lbs., getting it up the stairs and then out of the box required much grunting. If you have any back issues at all, get a friend to help you. Not surprisingly, it also takes up a lot of space. Fine by me, but some would undoubtedly consider it a little imposing in a room of this size. Set up was a breeze. The sub comes with a calibration microphone which plugs into a jack behind the removable front grill. The sub makes twelve audible “sweeps,� records what it hears, and you’re ready to go.

The sub comes with a nifty little remote that’s about the size of a deck of cards (though thinner, obviously). It enables you to turn the sub on and off, mute it, control phase settings (0, 90, 180, 270), adjust the volume (from 0 to 80), and to select from four pre-set equalizer settings (movies, rock and blues, classical and jazz, and games). Use of the remote is super-simple and I fell in love with it right away. One thing that always used to bother me was the inability to make on the spot bass adjustments. Now I can, and I love it.

For adjustment purposes, the manual suggests setting your receiver’s bass output to the same level as your front speakers. While this was fine as a starting point for me, I had to turn up the volume on the sub too much to get the sound I wanted. So, I bumped up the output level from the receiver a few notches, which in turn meant that I could keep the sub’s volume in the 30 to 45 range, depending. Not that it matters, just my preference. The manual also suggests choosing some bass-intensive music and playing around with settings until you get what you like. Few things have I enjoyed more. For bass purposes, there aren’t many songs better than Ball Tongue by Korn. I cranked it up and was immediately amazed by just how much punch this sub packs. For kicks, I turned it up a little too high and went downstairs to the kitchen (situated directly below the home theater room). Every single plate, glass, and piece of silverware was shaking! It was like its own little symphony. Other test songs included: Jet City Woman (for the intro) and Della Brown (great bass work here) by Queensryche, the first couple minutes of Blackened by Metallica (for the double kick-bass section), The Lemon Song by Led Zeppelin (for the wonderful bass that backs up the quiet part of the song), Pride and Joy by Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Meet the Zony Mash by Wayne Horvitz and Zony Mash (a jazz band serious bass as you might expect). On multiple occasions I laughed out loud in joyous amazement. More seriously, it felt like I finally had the bass response that I always wanted and suspected I was always missing. It was both deep but tight, forceful but not muddy, and just filled out the lower end of the audible spectrum so nicely. Way better than anything I’d ever heard outside a high-end audio showroom. And can I just mention the remote control again? It was so nice to be able to adjust the volume of the sub on the fly. Different songs have different bass levels (obviously), so when I wanted to tweak the level and/or the settings, I could do it from the comfort of my recliner. A seriously cool option.

The next test was a DVD, War of the Worlds. I’ve used this as a test DVD for years because it’s full of Low Frequency Effects. The sound made by the lightning strikes near the beginning of the movie is incredible. With the Velodyne DEQ-15R? Unbelievable. Absolutely shook the entire house. My three cats disappeared to places I didn’t even know existed in my home. What amazed me here was the sub’s frequency response (according to the manual 14-240 Hz). The lows were so much lower than anything my previous sub could create. It was an incredible feeling. And I mean “feeling.� I have large stuffy leather recliners in my home theater but this sub shook them to perfection. The rest of the LFEs in the movie were faithfully reproduced as well. It was an incredible viewing, listening, and feeling experience.

My only critique is one that can be found in the Audioholics review by Tom Andry, namely the minor damage the can occur during shipping. Mine was shipped by UPS and suffered some along the way (a broken grille post and partial detachment of the black plastic bezel on the front edge of the sub). Given that one of the corners of the box was noticeably squished, I was pretty sure I’d find something like this when I unpacked everything. I guess this is how it goes when you ship a 75-lb object. And this despite the fact that Audioholics actually repackages the sub before shipping it to the consumer. Frankly, the in-box padding that comes from Velodyne is pretty flimsy. A little bigger box with more padding would be a step. Also, it wouldn’t hurt them to use more robust grille posts. All told, if you can pick yours up in person you’ll probably be happier. Finally, I do wonder why the LED display needs to be so puny. It can display a grand total of two characters at a time, so the word “Off� actually scrolls across the screen. Given that the display can be turned off using the remote, it’s not like a larger screen would create crisis levels of ambient light. This is a super-minor issue, of course, but still.

Finally, huge thanks to the guys at Audioholics. I had to have the shipment rerouted because I was going to be out of town when it arrived. They handled that request immediately and professionally and enabled me to take delivery of the sub at my own convenience. I will buy from Audioholics again.

All said, the DEQ-15R is a superb subwoofer and I recommend it highly. Very highly.