Transcript
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AUDISON
amount of bass desired dictates how many of these wave segments move – at lower volumes only the inner wave will move while the others maintain their stationary profile holding things strictly rigid and in alignment. At mid through to high output the entire triplet of waves move together as one. We won’t bore you half to death with why this design is superior to a plain round or EROM design; suffice to say it’s a little akin to the reason we use ‘I’ beams in construction instead of solid shapes such as squares – there is far more surface area and therefore strength. Remember that the surround up top and the flat rolled poly-cotton spider beneath are the things holding the entire moving mass in perfect axial and radial alignment. This is no easy task when trying to accurately move the cone at upwards of one hundred reciprocations a second. Despite this immense strength the suspension also needs to be super flexible and to this end the AV 10 has a sensitivity of 91dB. Beneath the spider is a 60mm twin layer copper clad aluminium voice coil wrapped on a thermally efficient and extended height former; all of which is encased within a high density flux ferrite magnet. This is completely covered by a black protective cap because, as you know, one drop can see any magnet shatter. The entire affair is bolted to the rear end of an extremely strong but lightweight grey alloy frame and even this didn’t miss the engineers scrutinising eye. The webs that run from the magnet clamp plate to the surround edge are designed in such a way that they all offer very little air reflection and, because of
VOCE AV 10 10-INCH SUBWOOFER
AUDITION YOU’RE THE VOICE The Voce range of components are designed to fulfill Audison’s entry level aspirations but
for a long time there was only one subsonic driver in the range – the titanic AV 12 subwoofer. This 12-inch subwoofer is the second best subwoofer Audison has ever produced, being trumped only by the stunning flagship
10 Audison answered – the result is this little beauty the subject of this review. Not surprisingly, being a creation of Audison, the new AV 10 is a work of art. Taking it from the top; it uses a cotton fibre
“WHILE AUDISON’S STABLE IS HALF THE SIZE OF THE COMPETITION’S, IT’S MORE THAN LIKELY TO BE EXACTLY WHAT MOST PEOPLE WANT.” Thesis Basso TH10. The AV 12 remains to this day a tremendous subwoofer but what if you want a slightly smaller one? It’s not a flippant question – from experience, in the high-end market we see about an 80 to 20 percent ratio split for 10-inch to 12-inch subwoofers respectively. In the sides of smaller car boots, behind seats in utilities, within the confines of spare tires and so on; 10s are everywhere, 12s quite simply are not. Therefore when consumers started questioning why the Voce range had a 12 and not a
pressed paper cone instead of the usual bullet proof (and heavy) materials. This gives the subwoofer a very natural sound and because of the light weight it allows the cone to move with tremendous accuracy. In the centre of the cone is a 76mm polypropylene dust cap which reinforces the moving diaphragm – overall the entire moving assembly is extremely tough and hard to disfigure despite its material composition. Surrounding the top edge of the cone is a triple wave profile progressive wave surround and by progressive it means that the
AUDIO SOUND Memphis Audio’s 15-MR10S4 subwoofer is a 10-incher but of a shallow variety and, comparatively, is a budget offering at $260
Alpine’s SWX-1043D is a worthy option and from the company’s top-tier Type-X at $599
Careful run-in was conducted on the AV 10 prior to pushing it as I was most keen to hear its true performance. As someone who has installed and tuned quite a few Thesis Basso subwoofers over the years I was secretly hoping that the AV 10 would be roughly on par with it, despite being half the asking price. Now I’m not about to tell you that it’s as good as the Thesis equivalent but, tell you what, it’s close enough that you should be seriously considering this unit long before spending the extra coin on the next step up. It’s not an enormously loud subwoofer so if you’re looking to set world SPL records then look elsewhere. That said, it’ll certainly move titanic amounts of air, with the triple wave surround doing very well to keep everything running with utmost control at extreme volumes. However the aspect which I was really impressed with, and I mean seriously
so, is concerning the control department. I listen to a lot of fast music and upon hearing a couple of tracks from the AV 10 I found myself continuously heading to my disc library while thinking “I wonder what this will sound like”. With a few exceptions nearly every CD was a marvel of accuracy on this subwoofer, and not just at higher bass frequencies, such as those
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found on heavy metal and rock music, but even fast operatic stuff with the likes of woodwind, brass and percussion – the seriously low subsonic bass regions. The AV 10’s definition and clarity is seriously second to none.
CONCLUSION Put simply; we loved this subwoofer. That may not come as any great surprise given the AV 10’s heritage and pedigree, but this thing is seriously accurate and will impress even the most pedantic music aficionado. I loathe to say it, but I’d probably take one of these over the AV12… just quietly. But that’s just my personal taste. You should get to your nearest Audison dealer and audition one for yourself so you can hear what the excitement is all about.
AUDISON
VOCE AV 10 SUBWOOFER TYPE: 10-inch single voice coil subwoofer POWER HANDLING: 400 watts continuous, 800 watts maximum FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 30Hz – 1000Hz SENSITIVITY: 91dB IMPEDANCE: 4 ohm COST: $499 CONTACT: Clarion Australia on 03 8558 1115 WEB: www.audison.com
• Superb engineering • Peerless build quality • Extraordinary sound quality • Thinking…thinking…
TECH SPECS
If you’re an avid reader of InCar magazine you’ve probably noticed by now that we tend to review quite a bit of equipment from the Italian audio genius that is Audison. The obvious reason of course is that we’re a serious audio visual rag and Audison is arguably among the best speaker and amplifier designers in Europe. The second reason is a little less subtle. See, just like the Mafia, this Italian company also has feelers out all over the world and through this network it carefully monitors feedback from publications, competitions and consumers in general to see what it is that they’re looking for. It then reacts, producing specific items to meet consumer demand rather than just churning out products across multiple ranges, wasting much time, money and effort in the process. This means that while Audison’s stable is half the size of the competition, it’s more than likely to be exactly what most people want because while a half inch thick catalogue of products is impressive, you’ve no doubt heard the saying ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ yes?
SIGNIFICANT OTHERS
REVIEWER: MARTY PRICE
THE NEXT ITALIAN JOB.
this aerodynamic basket design, back waves are one issue that the AV 10 doesn’t need to worry about. The cooling system is carefully designed, with four large perimeter vents located between each pair of web fingers in the back cap – roughly in line with the top of the magnet within. Between these and the rear pole vent copious amounts of air can flow over the voice coil and to this end the AV 10 can handle up to 400 watts continuous before any cooling issues arise. Maximum bursts are somewhere between 800 and 1000 watts if you want to give the suspension a workout. Overall it’s an impressive design and as is the case with anything of this nature, the mounting depth is not shallow being 143mm and unit weight is 8.3kg. A clearly marked black shock resistant plastic terminal block lives on the side of the frame and has the Audison logo embossed in it. Let’s move along to the setup, testing and of course, the enclosure design. Flicking through the instruction book you’ll find it’s a little thin on the serious details but, with that said, Audison does suggest a few designs depending on if you wish to run the subwoofer sealed or ported. I opted to run this one in a sealed enclosure so as to keep a cap on group delay escalation. So far as QTC was concerned I settled on a 43 litre enclosure design to keep the QTC at 0.707 which offers the best blend between boom, control and bottom end extension. Audison offers up two sizes depending on your available real estate and while both are small and good for not consuming too much room, they’re a little on the boomy side – the smaller recommended 12 litre enclosure returning a QTC of 1.017 and the larger 17 litre one a QTC of 0.903. Power wise we weren’t aiming at breaking any world records but, that said, we didn’t want to risk running out of raw power. Therefore I setup a Hertz HDP4 which when bridged offers 500 watts continuous at 4 ohm – plenty of grunt available to get the AV 10 rocking and rolling.
