[The News Bot]

Reviewed by Russell Williams
The XXLS-400 offers the nimbleness of smaller sealed subs with their easier room integration, plus a good portion of the grunt offered by the considerably larger ported boxes but without taxing the limits of acceptable domestic size. I simply can't think of anything that comes close to such a complete performance for remotely similar money in such a WAF friendly package.
Read the full review...

[namuk]

Good review Rus , but what music did you test on the 400?

[OnTheFly]

Just when I had narrowed my choice down to a smaller BK or SVS, this comes along.........

What are SMD components?

[Russell.Williams]

SMDs are Surface Mounted Devices that are machine mounted versions of common components like resistors, transistors and small integrated circuit chips, etc. They mount flush to the circuit board and generally have no, or very little leads with the component being soldered direct to the track on the PCB. Virtually everything in this picture from the Anti-mode review is SMD:

By stating that there are no SMDs or automated placement devices, BK are emphasising the hand made nature of their product. Is there a technological or qualitative reason for going one route or the other? Where subwoofers are concerned, possibly not initially, but it does improve the chances of getting an out-of-warranty repair years down the line - SMD boards are very difficult to repair by hand and binning the entire board is often the cheaper option.

Russell

[Russell.Williams]

Originally Posted by namuk

Good review Rus , but what music did you test on the 400?

JS Bach: Organ sampler by Naxos
Arabesque sample by Naxos
Metallica: Black Album
Living Color: Stain
Madonna: Ray Of Light
Gwen Stefani: Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
Kari Bremnes: Live.
Rodrigo y Gabriella: Rodrigo y Gabriella
Nils Lofgren: Live Acoustic
Dire Straits: Love Over Gold
Frank Sinatra: Nice And Easy
And some others.

[chapeau]

Is there a technological or qualitative reason for going one route or the other?

When a company I worked for spent many $100k on SM machines the justification was basically a better quality of finished product, fewer errors, and even when paying close to minimum wage to people on the assembly line it was soon going to pay for itself. Returns of SM board amps dropped considerably. They could also have better planning as the SM machine was a known quantity whereas humans were not. They still had to hand solder things like the large caps onto the board and put the boards into the chassis by hand but in general there was a vast improvement in things that were 'measured'

[AngelEyes]

A great read yet again Russell, I really like the way you have balanced the content for those who aren't interested in the tech, as well as those of us who are.

Personally I could take a bit more but appreciate you don't want your audience falling asleep

Great job.

Adam

[Graham27]

Thanks for the review, very much appreciated!

Another one to add to the mix then. Decisions, decisions...

[Smurfin]

Excellent review Russ. Was tempted by this in my WAF friendly living room project, but opted for something slightly different. It's not been plugged in yet but if it turns out to be crap it's all your fault for taking so bloody long to post this review

[itansey]

tried ordering this sub via the bk website but got an error. They really need to improve the website if they want to sell direct to the public. Even the copyright symbol on the website is 2004...

[SAM63]

Russell,

I was hoping you would be able to tell me how much more musical the the xxls400 is over the monolith? Is it only a slight difference or would it be very noticable.

One of these these will be my new sub I hope. Sorry if this a poor question but I havent really bought a proper sub before.

I expect to listen to music abit more than listen to low bass sounds in films. I currently have AE Neo 3's the bass from which i think is pretty good and clean, paired with a denon avr 1911.


Many thanks,
Sam