Potentially my next sub upgrade. HSU ULS-15

HSU ULS-15

Driver
· 15” woofer!
· XBL2 TM linear motor technology
· +/- 33 mm Xmax
· Motor force (BL) stays within 2% over a very wide +/- 20 mm excursion
· Triple shorting rings for virtually non-existant flux modulation distortion

Amplifier
· Wireless connectivity using 2.4 Ghz wireless transmitter with four position channel selector switch!
· More inputs than any other sub we know of: Wireless L/R inputs, Balanced XLR inputs, unbalanced rca L/R inputs, and speaker level inputs
· 1000w RMS short-term power, our most powerful amplifier ever
· ULF Trim control that allows one to take advantage of room gain by adjusting the rolloff frequency anywhere between 16-50Hz

"So in many rooms people should get good response down to 10Hz with room gain factored in." - claimed by pete in their forum.

Specifications look intense considering its size.Reviews, measurements should be out shortly. What do you guys think, worth it ?

satish

Cannot say at this time satish, as they put this link up on their site yesterday only! But spec looks very impressive and it will be a serious contender to other sealed subs like JL Audio Fathom 112 & 113. If you want high SPLs at lower frequencies you may need couple of these or go for ported subs

But the style is exactly as SVS SB12+

Satish:

I have a HSU and it sounds excellent. I have an old model, but I have yet to hear another sub that sounds close to or better than the HSU.

The choice of a sub woofer is a little tricky and very subjective. Many people like a huge boom noise that reverberates like an echo. I personally like the 'Thwack' that ends abruptly as I find the reverberation to be an artificial addition. For example I always compare the sound of a tabla as I hear it direct, with what I get from a sound system. The closer it is to the real tabla, the better it sounds to me. You should hear a combination of Zakir Hussain and Sivamoni to undrstand what drums are.

In war movies for example, the sound of a gun shooting - I have again compared this to the real sound of a gun that I have heard in some firing ranges in the US. Some movies also very cleverly add the tinkle of the spent bullet casing falling on the ground.

One good movie is Kill Bill 2, where the heroine is nailed into a casket. As the villain is hammering each nail, the camera is INSIDE the casket, and you can see the lights going down as each nail is hammered into position. You can clearly hear the sound of the hammer hitting the nail, AND the tortured sound of the wood. Here the sound of the nail hitting the hammer ends with a thwack and is immediately extended by the creaking sound of the wood, and more important of the laboured breathing of the heroine that is always there in the background. There is a beautiful mixture of hollowness, fear, and darkness with the hammering seemingly hitting your head. The HSU subwoofers play these sounds beautifully with out one sound overlapping the other. Believe me, a good system and sub woofer can make you wince and sweat.

Similarly if you hear Japanese drums, they sound huge, but end abruptly. To me these sound very natural.

HSUs go down to 10Hz or even lower. Something that very few sub woofers do. You cannot generally go wrong with a HSU. But again, the human ear cannot hear anything below 20 Hz, so what sub woofer manufacturers
do is to increase the air waves coming out so that you are hit physically. BUT as I said, the sub woofers sound is very subjective and best decided after an audition. Specs alone may not be the right information for a decision.

If you are in the US, you must audition the HSU before buying it. If you are interested I can post some comparison notes on subwoofers and also some professional advise on how to choose one. Of course these are available on the net.

And remember something very important. If you sub has to sound nice, you must build bass traps in your room. With that, the sound will shake a lot of other stuff in your room, and introduce unnecessary vibration and other sounds.

Cheers

Venkat

I was interested in vtf-3-mk3, sent an email to HSU yesterday, they confirmed that they will ship it to India, waiting for a quote. I think its' going to be cost prohibitive to ship it from the U.S.

I will post back once I hear from HSU sales.

Hi Ronnie,
From what I have heard, JL audio is more musical than HSU. Get them if you can…
And getting good / clean bass in any room will require extensive room treatment along with bass traps or parametric equalizers like the Behringer feedback destroyer. Ping “Richard bass nut green” on Audio asylum - speaker forum for some input.

This is the uncorrected response curve of my room with zero absorption factor. Do you really need a treated room ?
@100db


I had slight issues when the sub digs lower than 15hz@115db or higher (the pulse saga lol), that I've added 2 filters in Behringer feedback destroyer to make perfect curve.

Further reading here

So you have a Behringer feedback destroyer.
With one of those, who needs room treatment ?
Nice work !

Thanks mate, yes FBQ 2496.

Several times tempted to go for sms-1, but now I don't mind the complexity of REW+BFD coupled together! Midi cable just feed the correction values triggered by a click from PC, hardly no manual stuff to do on BFD!

Nice sunil, i was also planning on incorporating the Behringer feedback destroyer as advised by wmax on audioholics. Is it easy to set up?, that was my main concern.

Although before this sub i plan to buy a HSU MBM - 12.

What are your thoughts on this sunil, i have mostly read positive reviews with most people noticing considerable improvement by splitting the bass frequencies.

satish

You will be fine with BFD & the REW software, as you can manage the PC & software configurations. If you are a complete novice PC user, you have to opt for Velodyne SMS-1 (which is not applicable to you anyway). You just ping me when you get BFD, i can run you thru the basic setup

I don't think you need a MBM module, if you are going for HSU15. If you follow the specs, you can see HSU can produce very strong mid bass freqencies, flat down to 20hz.

Also please don't carried away with the advt.. that says flat down to 10hz. Below the quote from pete. In very small rooms HSU15 gives powerful low frequencies. In your case you may need at least 2 to fill your cinema room [I'm sharing my JL audio experience here, which is identical to HSU15]

Another point to note satish is, if you are planning to import go with dual HSU route (works out cheaper due to size and weight) and if this for your Canada house you may have to consider big ported subs