Although new to AVF, I have posted a couple of times before and thought that it may be worth me chiming in with a contribution to this thread.
Having spent a load of cash over the years building my HT and automating/piping music throughout my house, and I must admit that I could have used forums to help me choose my equipment, but instead relied on the tried and tested method of selecting equipment by auditioning equipment.
My reasoning for not using forums (in general) is not because I have a problem with forums, in fact quite the opposite, it is the fact that in the past I found relying on forums exclusively tended to be a mistake for me because some people 'big up' their own equipment whilst 'slagging off' equipment that they do not own. One gent on AVSforum.com summed it up best when he said, 'you can go onto any of the official support forum threads and find that in each one the owners of that particular product say 'their' systems hit harder, go lower/louder, sound cleaner, play music better etc, etc' than any other product.
Having learnt the hard way with a few smaller purchases using forums, I tend now to take everything with a pinch of salt.
That said; on this forum I have developed quite a soft spot for our very own russel.williams and moofly (to name but two) and have to say that I read their posts with interest and admiration. Keep up the good work guys.
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All of the above aside, general forum opinions of the Velodyne DD range over the years and my own limited experience, have consistently shown trends/examples that point to the logical conclusion that the DD range of subwoofers from Velodyne are the money no object, audiophiles subwoofer of choice. Yes, other ID brand and self build subwoofers may go louder & deeper whilst costing less, but what a lot of people forget is that Velodyne didn't launch the original DD range to compete with 'that' crowd then, and they are not launching 'this' range to compete with 'that crowd' now. They are still aiming squarely at the audio connoisseur who has the money to spend on a product that not only sounds amazing (I am hoping) but is also amazingly well built and has a support network to back it up.
Oh; in case you haven't guessed already, I have splashed the cash on a DD15+ and am now awaiting its arrival into the country!!! Biased much? what a hypocrite for posting opinion not fact on a forum I hear you scream..... yep - that's me
Basically my choice for the DD+ range was not made lightly and with a £5k budget to play with, it wasn't as if I was shy of choices. So why did I order something I hadn't actually listened to? I am amazed to tell you it is primarily because of other peoples previous experiences with Velodyne, my own limited experience with a DD15 I had for a brief period and through a process of elimination both by eliminating other products via demo's and by the misses saying 'nope' a lot.
I have recently demo'ed (as I explained to moonfly) the Sub1 from Paradigm as well as the 'pit bull' and most recently the Sub25. I loved the PB but would need two of them to achieve what I want sonically, defeating the object of going to one subwoofer from two in the first place. The Sub1 was just not to my taste and the Sub25 is too deep for where I plan on positioning it, although i have to say that it was absolutely AWESOME! Other Sub only manufacturers subwoofers I have heard just don't cut it and the ID sub companies and DIYers don't appeal for a number of other reasons. Shame really I am sure the SVS Ultra is great amongst others (seaton submersive etc).
However, as much as I liked the Sub25 (my favorite to date) I still really like the servo control 'element' and the remote control presets of the Velodyne because (for me at least) it offers the highest level of tweaking over the sound quality (forget SPL output for this comparison) and integration into my control system, HT and hi-fi.
Us Brits, in general, have much smaller rooms than our cousins from across the pond and I doubt very much that most of us could get anywhere close to using the xmax of our subwoofer, primarily because our real world usage involves neighbours, wives and most importantly ear drums. Once the show-off period has passed most of use will reign in our subs output levels to those in keeping with the output from the rest of the speakers at normal listening levels. That said, sound quality should be top of everyone's list, not 'down the pub bragging rights' (e.g. top speed in a sports car in a world of speed cameras, potholes and other road users is useless; realistically ride comfort and an engine with loads of torque partnered with build quality is most useful and pleasurable on a day to day basis)
Basically I love HT, but after re-discovered music and pre-ordered the new GX range as a result (I heard them at the Bristol show) I defo need a musical subwoofer that has dynamic headroom for films. Having owned 2 x MX125mk2s for several years (and then that DD15 for a short period) I can tell you that I have high expectations for the new DD15+.
As soon as it does arrive I am going to write a (probably totally end user biased) review and take some snaps and videos of it in action so you all have a little more info to go on at my expense.
I am off now to try to catch Rob Morse or Chris Hagen's attention in order to bend their ears over best practice for placement in a small room and how best to ustilse the software to my advantage.
Alangner