Acoustic Audio PSW-6 Down Firing Powered Subwoofer (Black)

**** 3year update **** 3 years now....daily use....over 3000 hours now per my averaging. Still impressed, in a 20ft by 20ft by 24ft space, but then open to the rest of the house beyond that. In the time since my original review below, my Velodyne HGS-18 in the theater room has blown it’s amp, sadly....but this little 10” acoustic audio continues to play well in our living room... 3000+ hours in now. Zero regrets! **** original, one year review **** I never have come back and written a review a year after I purchased a product. Today, while playing some music while cleaning the house, what I was hearing from this, now one year old subwoofer, compelled me to post a review of this product. A year ago, probably much like you, I was in the market for a small / moderate subwoofer to cover the low end for my living room TV setup. We got a new 4K TV, all of which are flat, and this one with the speakers on the back. Its hard to hear things, I think some kind of soundbar or stereo setup is required to be able to hear anything properly. I went the stereo route, as I already had some Klipsch “satellite” monitors mounted high in the 4 corners of the room. The room is terrible as far as size / shape. 20 ft x 20 ft with 24 ft ceilings, but its also open to EVERYTHING. Its virtually impossible to get awesome sound in such an environment, so I was looking for something good, but didn’t want to break the bank on performance that would be lost in such a terrible environment for sound. I picked this little sub up to hide away in our living room setup. Its tucked away, and nobody can really see it. 10” downward firing driver, down firing slot port, and the amp is rated at 200 watts continuous and 400 watts peak. Well get to the amp ratings later. I have to say….this thing is great! Has been from day 1, and we are at day 360+ of constant…DAILY… use! Truly, it sees use for hours, every single day, as this is the room where my family spends the most time. I got it for TV sound, as the small Klipsch satellite speakers mounted 12 feet up couldn’t possibly even cover any kind of bass. This sub has exceeded my expectations. It’s truly awesome for movies as well as standard TV. A nice big impact all around. And when you consider the price, wow! The price / performance ratio is outrageous. There is full bass, throughout the room. It’s not hollow sounding, it’s nice and full and deep! It sounds spectacular! Today, while playing music, I was overwhelmed with how great it mixed and filled the room, and sounded nice even in all the other adjacent rooms, it really made the music sound spectacular. Not only good for TV and movies, but music too! Now, some naysayers may say that such a low end system means I don’t know what a good subwoofer should sound like. I don’t believe that to be the case. I have a room my family uses as a dedicated theater. It’s the perfect rectangular shape, with 10 foot ceilings, and no windows. Acoustically treated, and calibrated. It has some modern components, including a full 7.2.4 Dolby Atmos and DTS-X processor and speaker setup. One of the subwoofers in that room is the Velodyne HGS-18 series II subwoofer. It has a servo controlled 18” driver. 1250 watts continuous / 3000 watts peak. Its massive, could double as an end table, 120 pounds….and THX certified to boot. It plays down to 5 Hz, and is simply devastating. Despite its age, to date, Its still regarded as one of the very best subwoofers made for the consumer market. I’ve included a picture of the two together - the under side of the Acoustic Audio 10”, and the front of the Velodyne 18”, to show how much smaller the acoustic audio is, it will tuck away in any room very nicely. In the dedicated theater room, I don’t care how big it is….the room is more functional than beautiful. I don’t want that in the living room however! The Acoustic Audio 10” is perfectly small, and can tuck away nicely. In no way am I here to compare the abilities of the Acoustic Audio to the Velodyne. Its no competition, its also not the intended competition I suspect. The Acoustic Audio isn’t meant to be able to recreate the sonic output of an earthquake….the Velodyne is. However, the Velodyne was also 30 TIMES the cost of this Acoustic Audio 10”! If you aren’t expecting gut curling bass that can shake the walls, but rather a nice powerful low end that can play deep audibly, dynamic and musical at the same time, works equally well at video and music programing – I think it’s difficult to find a better consumer subwoofer at this price point for the performance that it delivers. This small package does a fantastic job filling such an odd and large space with very pleasing and at times surprisingly powerful performance. There are people that are critical of the amplifier in the Acoustic Audio 10”. Rated at 200 continuous / 400 peak, they say in actuality, the amp is way smaller. I honestly can’t say, I have no way of measuring….I have to go on how it performs, what it sounds like. And on that front, if this thing only has a 50 watt amplifier, whatever it really measures at…its working….its filling a very big room with generous and powerful bass….and remember how much $$$ we are talking here. 1 year in….and without a doubt, all thumbs up – BUY IT!

2 Year Update: It's still working great. I don't use it for hours on end or turn it up loud, and have not had an issues hitting the bottom that others have. The caveat is that I have a small living room, with great acoustics. The small space and walls keep sound from spreading out but it also has a rug that keeps the sound from bouncing, so the result it a really rich and full sound. Pair that up with the sub sitting in a corner that enlarges the sweet spot and amplifies it more, and it really provides a lot of thump for a small package. Without these factors, it would be too small. It certainly is not going to work in a large living room. Would be good for a bedroom though. My other two reviews were actually before I had HDMI setup for my TV and stereo. I just recently upgraded to HDMI, and wow, soooo much better. The bass is nice and tight, cleaner and deeper. The sensitivity is easy to adjust, and the auto on/off is pretty on target now and it's pretty sensitive. I don't have to do weird settings with things like dimension and sound image on the receiver to coax out a good, clear sound. I think the bottom line, is this brand makes excellent subwoofers relative to the cost. ------------------------------------ Update after 8 months of regular use: I have finally gotten this sub dialed into my system and it is sounding great with daily use for music, and especially movies and shows. Until about 2 months ago, I was just not getting an optimized sound from this sub. There was a stupid setting on my Onkyo stereo that made it so the sub output would only work with the stereo's double bass mode turned on, which basically was muddying the bass a bit and a few other thing and just not has as accurate bass reproduction. Since turning it off, it has a much cleaner and I can adjust it to have a fuller bass that fills music and movies on the low end but does not overpower and muddy up the mids like was happening before. I was having to do a lot of finageling before to get it to sound good, and now it's pretty effortless. Just have to decide how low I want the bass. Also, the auto-on/off feature is very accurate now and no longer has a problem coming on when it should and at lower levels. It comes on immediately when bass kicks in in a show, and while playing music the volume does not need to be turned up to have the sub on (many times it needed to be at a level that was too loud for the desired listening experience). It also works great with the 5.1 DTS setting of my receiver. So with that being said, I have upgraded this to a full 5 stars. I am very impressed with the sound quality and richness of bass for the small package. Obviously being only 6" it's not going to shake the room, or have enough power for a large living room. Our living room is n 8" sub would probably be a little better, but as I mentioned, compactness and placing out of sight was one of the most important factors for me.... obviously I'm not an audiophile. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Week Update: Still very happy with this sub for the most part. I've got my system dialed in pretty well to how I want it, which is with good clear vocals and mids, and rich low end. I wish it could be a little more deep without having to turn the gain up so much that it overpowers the mids, but where it's at is a satisfactory listening experience. It tends to handle anything with a rich bass very well, such as reggae and blues. For movies and TV, I am pretty happy with it. I like my movies and shows loud, so when crank the system up, I can really feel the explosions, but I don't get to do that very much with a wife and baby in the house. The one thing I am not totally happy with is that the auto on/off feature keeps it from coming on unless I turn the volume up pretty high. Once I manually turn on the sub on at the lower sound levels, the bass does get richer, so the auto on/off is definitely hindering it at lower volumes, which is lame because if the sub is putting out any sound at all, it should be coming on, even if it's at a lower level. Other than that, the on/off feature works fine for shutting on and off. Maybe it's just my settings, since I have the receiver's decibel levels on the center channel turned way up so I can hear vocals very well and it has something to do with that. I guess I'll need to work more with this and see what can be done since leaving the subwoofer on continuously makes it get a little warm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This a good little sub for the price. I am not sure I can give it 5 stars, but it's a solid 4+ star. In looking for a subwoofer, it was important to me to get something very small that would fit in the space created behind my corner fitting entertainment cabinet. I will gladly sacrifice some volume and deepness to keep an uncluttered living room. This fit behind the console nice and snug. There's no way I could have gotten an 8" behind it. Overall, I'm very happy with the low profile look of my system that produces really decent sound. As far as the sound quality, it definitely has a decent thump to it, but it's not going to shake the room or anything. The bass isn't as tight as I would like, but I do prefer enclosed subs to ported ones anyways, and they are almost all ported. (Gives you louder volume, less tightness). We have a fairly small living room so this has plenty of volume to fill the room up and you can also hear it well throughout our 1700 sq ft house. I primarily wanted to be able to hear vocals and dialogue well but not have tin can sound. This has rounded out the sound pretty well. I am still tweaking things constantly and I suspect that I'll need to turn down the level of the sub so that I can turn the center channel and other speakers up more, but overall it has proven pretty responsive and manageable as far as adjustments go. I did have a few small issues setting it up, although I think that was mostly related to the receiver. Some configurations in the receiver's setup didn't seem to work with this sub. The auto shut off works mostly fine for me but if the volume is not high enough, it won't come on. Not a big deal, because it has to be pretty low and at that point, you'd barely hear the sub anyways. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the purchase. I wish I could find an 8" or 10" that doesn't take up too much space, because I'd really like richer, deeper bass at lower volumes, but this definitely is adequate.

So, I've been reading a lot of reviews about whether or not it will work with music and whether this is audiophile quality. I have been a high-fidelity audiophile for over 45 years now. I've had some pretty expensive speakers from B&W, Dahlquist, Bose 901s and now the Magneplanars. I wish I could afford Klipschorns, but they are way out of budget and take up too much space. For just a bit over 2 bills, this speaker does quite well. I've owned many subwoofers before and I have 3 other subwoofers in my house right now, but they are all smaller than this 15 incher. I've had passive woofers and active woofers. I also know a little bit about acoustics, sound waves and decibels. You can pay over 2K for a top-of-the line subwoofer like an S&K, but are you going to be able to appreciate it 10 times more than the cost of this speaker. No. If you need a little extra bass and you are on a budget, then this works just fine for audio whether for music or movies. Just tweak the settings and move it around for best placement and until the sound feels right. I can afford expensive equipment, but I won't get that much more pleasure out of it except for bragging rights. Did I mention I have a pair of Bose 901s? They do not need a subwoofer, but they do need a hefty amplifier. Cheers. ---------------- update, 2024-01-02 ------------------------------------------- So, I've had this for almost a month now. Over New Year's Eve, I sat down and listened to my Maggies with this subwoofer powering lower bass. I have a Yamaha Graphic Equalizer with a Spectrum Analyzer, so the setup is tuned for flat response. Flat response lets you listen to music for hours at a time without experiencing ear fatigue. I must have listened to this setup for about 3 hours on New Year's Eve and it still sounds pretty good to me. I augmented my listening session with some Miller Lite. My old favs on this setup included SuperTramp, EWF, ELO, Dire Straits, Grand Funk and more music from the 70s and 80s. You have to remember that most of your money needs to go into the main speakers, which are going to carry all frequencies from upper bass, around 100hz to high frequencies, up to 20Khz. This sub is designed mostly for mid-bass and lower bass, which is around 60h and 30hz respectively. These are frequencies you are not going to hear so much as you are going to feel. If the walls are shaking and your chest is thumping then the sub is doing it's job. Like I wrote earlier, for around 2 bills you can't go wrong. Experiment, move the sub around, tweak the crossover and volume on the sub until it feels right. I also recommend that you feed the high-output speaker wires from the audio amplifier into this sub and then feed the speaker outputs from the sub into the main speakers. For this little money, you can't go wrong. I have 2 large stereos systems with a lot of money invested in each and this one of them. I love my music and I love bringing the concert into my house. Rotel power amp and preamp pair drive this system. Cheers. --------------- update 5/16/2024 ------------------------------------- Well, it has now been 6 months since I got this subwoofer. I have no complaints. I find myself moving more CDs over from my Bose 901 system to this system as I am discovering the fuller sound since adding this subwoofer. BTW CDs maintain more dynamic range than MP3s, which I have a library full on my phone. This subwoofer replaced a Polk 10" subwoofer, which is happily playing in the garage these days with it's Polk bookshelf brothers. Meanwhile I am continuing to enjoy this sub which compliments my Magneplanars. Cheers. --------------- Update 8/23/2024 ------------------------------------- About 2 weeks ago, I noticed a bit of a rattle coming from the right SMG. At first I thought something in the music room was resonating to the speaker, but I happened to be standing next to it and the rattle was coming from the speaker around 120hz. Well, the SMGs are over 20 years old so I guess it was their time. Last weekend I ordered a pair of KEF-Q550s, they cost a small fortune, but what a magnificent sound and they work just wonderfully with this subwoofer. I didn't have to adjust anything on the subwoofer not even the crossover on the sub, which is set to around 100hz. The KEFs naturaly roll off around 55hz so this is perfect. I made very minor adjustments to the graphic equalizer using the analyzer and the pink noise generator. I have been spending the past 3 days listening to a lot of music. New expensive speakers + inexpensive subwoofer (with good specs) = wonderful soundstage. Remember, in earlier comments I said that you need to put most of your money into a good set of main speakers. I added new pictures. Cheers.

I bought this to complement some Klipsch R-14M bookshelfs on my computer. UPDATE: 4 years later and this subwoofer has had zero issues. Fills in my small bookshelfs on the computer just fine. Took rating to 5 stars because there is nothing to complain about. I see the price has gone up quite a bit in 4 years, but what hasn't in the last 4 years...2019...probably wont be a year like that for a while. In the first 10 minutes of turning it on I was already shopping for a different sub and thinking about boxing it back up. I had the volume at max and barely anything was coming out. But I decided to deal with it later and just let it play for a while. After a couple hours of music playback, the volume increased greatly as the subwoofer loosened up. I ended up turning the volume knob down to 75%. The low pass crossover knob doesn't really have any effect below about 100Hz on the indicator. But going too high will make the sub overly boomy. If you plan on being about 6-8 feet from the subwoofer, then it's an adequate subwoofer. Once you get about 10-15 feet away, a lot of the bass rolls off. Since this is under my computer desk, it makes it about 5 feet from me and it's plenty of bass for my taste. While I have never heard of Acoustic Audio, I have heard of the parent company Goldwood. I have been a Part Express customer for 20 years and they have carried Goldwood drivers that whole time. So I do have some confidence in Goldwood. I was surprised to see that the amplifier plate looks EXACTLY the same as the plate amplifier on the Dayton Audio (Parts Express brand) 10" SUB-1000. They rate their version at 100 watts RMS, where as this one is rated at 200W RMS. The Dayton number is probably more realistic. I own the Dayton 12" subwoofer and have been satisfied with that, so that makes me more confident in this brand, since they appear to be made by the same company. The competition for this subwoofer would probably be the Polk PSW-10 that is sold for a very good price here on Amazon (older generation though). It's a 10" ported design, just as this Acoustic Audio subwoofer. I ended up going with this product because the Polk is only rated for 50 watts, this model is supposedly 200 watts, but 100 watts is probably more accurate (just my guess though). Also, the reason I was shopping at all for this is because my small children have been putting all kinds of stuff inside the front facing port of the previous subwoofer I had on my computer. This model has both the subwoofer AND the port facing down to the ground. So no more random toys and items going inside the subwoofer!!!!! I did end up going with the Square Trade warranty. I was only like 6 dollars and added several years of hassle free coverage. Overall, after some break in, I am satisfied with this product. There aren't a lot of choices at the ~$100 price point. The Polk is a popular one, as is the Dayton Audio. I would consider this to be a different looking Dayton Audio that you can get delivered same day. If you are needing it for a small space and just looking for some "boom" for your small speakers, then it's a good product. BTW, the feet are about 2" tall cones that are hard plastic. With the sub firing down, you might want to get some rubber or felt bumper feet/pads to stick on the bottom if you plan on putting this on hardwood or tile. So it doesn't rattle or move around.

We thought this subwoofer would be a great asset to our new theater sound system. We hooked up the product about two weeks after purchase, since we were getting pieces for our new theater sound system bit by bit. It sounded great for one week before the fuse blew and it had to be replaced. The problem was even after we replaced the fuse, it kept blowing fuses, then finally it would not even power up. We had not even played it that loud. We had bought a total of two exact same subwoofers from this company and the second one happen to arrive right after the fuse had blown on the first subwoofer. The second one would not power up at all straight out of the box, so we replaced the fuse on it and then it finally came on. However, it did not sound as good as the first one. Our biggest concern was that we knew that the fuses kept blowing on the first subwoofer and we already had a problem with this one out of the box, so it was not worth risking trying to make the second one work. So we returned both items and are waiting on a refund? The price sounded great for the product you were getting, but obviously cheap is not always better, you get what you pay for! I will update this once we receive a refund to discuss how the customer service performed. There were no questions asked on the return on the product, even though I asked why the product was performing this way, perhaps we got two bad apples, but I got no response from the company other than to return the items. I truly wanted to make the product work and work with the company, but I guess the company either preferred the product be returned or they did not want to fool around with answering my questions or they could not answer my questions. Regardless I hope they are able to fix the problem and offer a better product in the future, based on their no questions asked and if my refund is promptly returned, I would give them a second try with a different product. Update as of 4/27/12-I received a prompt refund from seller. If they fix the problem they were having with the subwoofer, then I would reconsider purchasing other products. Great customer service!

I wanted a subwoofer for my retro gaming room. It was going to be sitting on some IKEA shelves with exacting space limitations: 13.25"w x 13.25"h. I went for this sub because it was a 10" driver with the port on the bottom. (Many have the port on the sides, which would be against a wall on these shelves.) This is the biggest driver with the smallest enclosure I could find. As another review mentioned, the height dimension is inaccurate when the stock feet are taken into account. But, since the driver fires downward and protrudes beneath the enclosure (not to mention the port), this thing's gotta have feet. I used Monosaudio 40x20mm speaker isolation feet, just screwing them into the holes the stock feet were using (they're screwed in with phillips drywall screws). With those feet in place, the speaker JUST squeezes tightly into the 13.25" height that I needed it to fit under. I hooked the sub to an AIYIMA A07 Pro amp via the line out (1/8" stereo phono to dual RCA plugs). The speaker comes with wires and adapters for this purpose, but I did not use them. I verified that the phase switch and the auto on feature work fine. This sub produces quite a lot of boom with the gain at about 50% and the crossover at around 50-60Hz. When hooked to a line out on the amp like this, I don't think the amp provides any gain control, it all has to happen on the sub. This is inconvenient, having to turn the knob on the sub to adjust its volume. This isn't a problem with the sub, it's just that you should keep the placement of the knob (and other controls) in mind if you're planning to hook it up through a line out. In all, I think this sub is an impressive performer for its size and at this price point.

Acoustic Audio is a decent subwoofer for the price . Some draw backs , boomy bass , not tight or punchy bass. Im driving the 2 subs with the new Emotiva receiver that puts out 165 watts continuous with a 5.2.2 set up . I found lowering the gain on each sub helped a lot to limit the boominess . I have POLK AUDIO tower speakers and a POLK AUDIO center channel, their bass is very tight , so tweaking the subs gave me tighter bass . The build quality is just ok , I was surprised how light the subs were considering their size , definitely not for a smaller room . When listening to my CD's or Bluetooth at higher volume levels the cabinets ( probably because of the cabinet wall thinness ) you could actually feel the walls of the cabinets vibrating, not good ! Acoustic AUDIO needs to build a thicker walled cabinet , but as they say , you get what you pay for . Overall a decent subwoofer for listening at normal levels .

Pros: Sturdily constructed, easy to set up, excellent tone (matched up smoothly and seamlessly with the JBL hybrid satellite/bookshelf speaker system I purchased it for use with, after the 5.1 sat system's original sub died). This little sucker has some punch. I would recommend the product and the manufacturer to a friend. Cons: It wasn't free, just inexpensive. One minor nag: the crossover bandwidth's upper end could be a little higher, say maybe in the 210 hz range. General: Like others, I too was surprised by how sensitive the unit's auto on/off feature is, how easily and readily it went off. My solution was to (1) set my Denon CI receiver's Bass Setting to LFE + Main (the bookshelf speakers have a lower crossover than the satellite speakers), and LPF for LFE to 120 hz and Speaker Crossover to 110 hz for all the speakers (the crossover value for the satellite speakers), (2) turn down the sub's main (output) to 40% and (3) incrementally pushed the sw channel level up on my Denon CI receiver (in .5 db steps) until the sw's power LED turned green (at 0 db on my receiver's sw channel level). Then I used the sw's gain control to dial the volume level in old school (it finally ended up a little under 50%, leaving plenty of head room to spare). Works like a charm now. One final observation--about the price--not too long ago (about five years, or so) I purchased a pair of really sweet Velodyne subs (that are now the envy of several of my friends) on precisely the same sorts of margins as the Acoustic Audio units are selling for today (MSRP vs. actual price, in the 25 - 30% range).

It's an amazing high quality, well built, heavy duty home [12"] subwoofer! Acoustic Audio also has subs from 8", 10" and goes up to 15". To be honest I would have gone to the 15" (inch) woofer sub but there was a different seller for that one and he was selling it for $1,350Cad, nothing new here in Canada. Now I've it in a fair price of $395.57Cad so if you want even more and have the necessary space for it go to the 15". Its ability to carry low frequency sound whether you're listening to music or watching a movie is really an experience! It does have a great punch (when needed) and the mixture of sound is really amazing. Immersive sound, yeah, that's what it is.. Live the experience! It has everything a subwoofer should have (more info in the listing pics) and has a very nice wood finish. I totally recommended this Acoustic Audio PSW sub from the simple listener to the advanced audiophile. I'm telling you, you'll be amazed.

el sonido lo da hacia el piso, lo uso para escuchar música, los bajos me los da sin alterarlos, se disfrutan y no es necesario subir tanto el volumen ni la ganancia. para música esta perfecto . el proveedor tuvo la atención de comunicarse conmigo y buscar entregarme lo más rápido el subwoofer. Estoy satisfecho con la compra. como dato adicional es un subwoofer que maneja frecuencias bajas hasta de 25 hertz y eso da como resultado el disfrutar los bajos de fondo o mejor dicho de mas bajas frecuencias ya que las bocinas trabajan arriba de 45 hertz,

Compré este subwoofer para complementarlo con mis Presonus Eris 3.5 conectado todo a través de una interfaz de audio Behringer (también comprado por Amazon.) Al recibir el producto, mis expectativas quedaron muy bajas debido a que había considerado que la calidad del sonido no era tan buena. Posteriormente, compré 12 esponjas acústicas (30 cm x 30 cm x 5cm) mi cuarto es muy pequeño, de aproximadamente unos 2.5 metros por 5 metros. Al recibir la esponja acústica e instalarla en mi cuarto, la calidad de este subwoofer aumento por mucho, los bajos se sentían mucho más profundos. Cualquier persona que desee comprar este producto (yo compre la versión de 8 pulgadas debido al tamaño de mi cuarto) y tenga un par de monitores de estudio, y esponja acústica en un cuarto no muy grande, es el producto ideal. Hago énfasis en qué hay MUCHA diferencia en el sonido al instalar la esponja acústica (en mi caso), por lo mismo, recomiendo altamente comprar este producto en conjunto de esponja acústica, ya que en mi caso, el potencial del producto se vio mucho más aprovechado debido a estas esponjas. De momento no he tenido ninguna falla. Negativo: Los cables RCA y adaptador que venían con el subwoofer son de mala calidad y uno de los lados llegó dañado por lo cual no pude utilizarlo.

I love this speaker if you want big sound you must have a big speaker, Loud and big are different There is no distortion with this baby played in the house. at normal levels. Put it in the middle of your room with a 5 by 2 top on it for a coffee table it will look great

Not much is mentioned about the 6" model but it has it's place. I put together a small system for my turntable using two Klipch R-51M speakers and a NAD amp. This little sub was just the right touch. It doesn't shake the room but it adds a deep low end you can hear. It pairs well with the Klipch but should fit in with other good speakers.