PSA subwoofers. I talked with Tom

[Pogre]

No, because the designer I mentioned before prioritized paying from his own pocket getting that speaker measured in Canada at the NRC.
Any one of these guys can reach out and arrange to have somebody like ASR, AH, Erin, review a speaker.
The nice thing is, too, it is marketing and the cost can be written off on their taxes.
There is no reason to not play.

The lack of third party anything for the Sierra towers caused some hesitation for me, and I already owned a pair of Sierra 2 books. If it weren't for that, me being able to listen to the bookshelf version of the towers before pulling the trigger, I might not have gotten them. I am very happy with them, but I already had a really good idea of how they would perform, and Dave does have many detailed, easy to find measurements posted for every speaker.

Aside from maybe the RAALs, I think the most impressive thing about the Sierras are the inert bamboo cabinets. When you give the books a knuckle rap they sound like they're completely solid, almost like tapping on a big solid brick.

 

[kini]

Boy am I surprised no love at all of PSA subs or speakers for that matter around here. It's all skepticism.
You do know he can't build speakers fast enough to keep up with demand right and they do build the speakers right in Ohio? I'm quite surprised at the level of skepticism here and almost distrust.
I've heard the MT110s a few times and 2 of their subs in a real world environment and it was pretty intense and awesome with the best dynamics I have ever heard in a home. The clarity from the MT110 was simply stunning and at super duper high volumes. They did not once even break a sweat.

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I've posted my thoughts on the MT110 several times before but to summarize- they were pretty ordinary and less efficient in room than my RF62IIs. They were smoother up top at high volumes. IME in my room the Kef Q750s are a much better speaker.

 

[ryanosaur]

same reason why JTR hasn't sent out their updated Subs etc...

Ah, But Jeff has had his gear reviewed... AH has measurements of at least one of his Subs, and I've seen them post Polar Plots for the 215RT. I've also heard that there is a review pending (still?) of the 210s I think(?).

As an aside, as I understand it, Ricci has stepped away for a while to focus on fighting... apparently he's a MMA guy. So there may not be much from DataBass for a while.

For the others... it's a measured choice. That's it. Personally, it is not a choice I would choose to defend on any other's behalf. Not when the US Tax code will foot the bill for a legitimate business!
Shopping for gear is hard enough as it is, especially for those not willing to invest some time in learning even just the basics of what can be an overly complex and expensive hobby. We have seen too many people come through here, though, with issues because they bought stuff they don't understand.
I spend my time here at AH because they have made it a priority to make this hobby accessible to all. Yes, they do measurements... AND, they published articles about understanding how to interpret those same measurements!

As far as the plethora of YT Influencers and Channels dedicated to Audio... for about 99% of them, I say it's all garbage and BS fluffjobs. As of right now, AH and Erin are the only videos I watch with interest. Everyone else is a waste of space, oxygen, and data rates.

 

[vader540is]

I agree.

 

[Pogre]

Yeah I totally agree.

Measurements are great and all. I would hope everyone would send them out to Josh, James or Erin for testing.


iIRC when I 1st talked to Tom about 6 years ago about why he doesn't send his products to databass, he said he is a one man shop. It's very different to be a small ID and to have that luxury of sending products out for third-party testing...same reason why Rythmik hasn't sent out their updated FV18 paper cone...same reason why JTR hasn't sent out their updated Subs etc...

Het brings up the same points.

Well kinda but when you sell out everything you build you don't need the advertising. There seems to be no incentive for these two companies in particular. Unless I'm missing something.

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Maybe Tom is the exception and is as busy as he wants to be, or can handle. If he's constantly selling out and doesn't want to deal with hiring employees, then fair enough. I can understand his reasoning for it.

Just for the record, I reached that conclusion through skepticism and asking questions.

 

[vader540is]

Same reason why we don't measurements from other well-respected small ID subwoofer companies.

Deep sea
Seaton sound
Funk

 

[Hetfield]

I've posted my thoughts on the MT110 several times before but to summarize- they were pretty ordinary and less efficient in room than my RF62IIs. They were smoother up top at high volumes. IME in my room the Kef Q750s are a much better speaker.

And I have heard awful things about KEF many many times. People like different things for different reasons.
I don't own PSA, I'm just saying what I heard and to me they were impressive.

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[kini]

And I have heard awful things about KEF many many times. People like different things for different reasons.
I don't own PSA, I'm just saying what I heard and to me they were impressive.

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But have YOU heard the Kefs? And there are very few bad things said about Kef. I had all 3 in my room and the Kefs are by some margin the best of the 3 (in my room) IME.

 

[Hetfield]

But have YOU heard the Kefs? And there are very few bad things said about Kef. I had all 3 in my room and the Kefs are by some margin the best of the 3 (in my room) IME.

Nope, I haven't. The point is shitty things are said about all these brands. Someone loves a speaker and someone hates them.

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[ryanosaur]

Nope, I haven't. The point is shitty things are said about all these brands. Someone loves a speaker and someone hates them.

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How bout both for one brand?!
I was really impressed by the Q950s and older R900 by KEF, but I would never buy them. They sounded fantastic and gave me a right proper case of listening fatigue!

But seriously, until the fatigue hit me like a sack of lead shot to the dome... they were sounding quite fantastic.

 

[Hetfield]

How bout both for one brand?!
I was really impressed by the Q950s and older R900 by KEF, but I would never buy them. They sounded fantastic and gave me a right proper case of listening fatigue!

But seriously, until the fatigue hit me like a sack of lead shot to the dome... they were sounding quite fantastic.

Ah to each there. I'm last person that should say what's good and what's not. I've come to the conclusion I'm extremely easy to pIease. bet KEF sounds amazing. They look beautiful in my opinion.
I really like the PSA speakers I heard and subs but I know you guys like measurements and tests.
And I have super cheap RSL speakers that I love so again what the heck do I know. I'm easy to please I think.
The last horrible speaker I heard was a really, really awful 5 channel set I bought way back when I was 20 years and wanted to get into HT. It was 4 awful towers and some terrible center. I want to say the brand was Technics? It was just terrible but I got bit enough by the HT bug that wanted to keep going. I had an awful JVC receiver too now that I remember.
After that I got into Def Tech and the rest is history as they say. I did stick to Def Tech for 20 years before going to RSL.

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[shadyJ]

Same reason why we don't measurements from other well-respected small ID subwoofer companies.

Deep sea
Seaton sound
Funk

Funk has had plenty of third-party verification on data-bass.com.

 

[vader540is]

True but none of their Newer stuff.

I'll just stick with my in-home trials.

I'll be able to see real world results in MY ROOM and best of all and I can hear them.

 

[shadyJ]

Ah, But Jeff has had his gear reviewed... AH has measurements of at least one of his Subs, and I've seen them post Polar Plots for the 215RT. I've also heard that there is a review pending (still?) of the 210s I think(?).

There are AH measurements for 3 JTR subs: the RS1, the 215PRO, and the Captivator 2400.

 

[Timforhifi]

Psa makes great equipment but people want to verify these subs when doing research. If Tom sent out a few units to qualified reviewers it would go a long way. Would really only cost him the shipping or future sales if they perform poorly. If he’s confident on their performance it’ll only help him in the long run.

I’ve owned many psa subs but I had a few issues with some. Blew the drivers in an xs30se, my fault though. Had 3 amp failures in xv15, xv15se and xv30. Tom sent out replacements really fast though. Drivers on the older subs had a tapping noise so he included sticky pads to cushion leads with high excursion. Then the big problem I realized if you run subs hot drivers will clank or rattle and ports chuff a lot. Now to be fair the chuffing and clanking was v1800 and v3600. Psa subs aren’t a great sub for people wanting to turn it up to very high spl, unless you have multiple psa subs that are capable. Also want to add that the newest line from psa might not have same issues.

I hope Tom is just too busy to send out test units but part of me is worried they’d test poorly and it would really hurt him. If his tv21ipal only hit 110db@20hz and peaked around 118-120db with high distortion or chuffing below 20hz it would really hurt psa. Now if that sub was $1400 it would be very similar to svs pb3000 in performance. Obviously I’m just making up numbers on that tv21 and it could absolutely blow us away.

I trust vader540is and we talk occasionally about this hobby. He’s very qualified to test these and analyze data. I believe the tv18 to be a really great sub. I think using huge down firing port really helps lower any chuffing on this model. I think it’s the best sub for the money they make.

As of right now I use dual monolith 15s. Amazing how I can’t get them to make a bad noise at insane levels. 125db+. On a side not youthman posted his review of mono 13 and it was ok but not glowing. Said it had port noise and his spl levels were really low when distortion crept in. I could scream user error but I’ll leave that open for discussion. Maybe mono 13 was a downgrade over mono 15? I highly doubt it

 

[Danzilla31]

Psa makes great equipment but people want to verify these subs when doing research. If Tom sent out a few units to qualified reviewers it would go a long way. Would really only cost him the shipping or future sales if they perform poorly. If he’s confident on their performance it’ll only help him in the long run.

I’ve owned many psa subs but I had a few issues with some. Blew the drivers in an xs30se, my fault though. Had 3 amp failures in xv15, xv15se and xv30. Tom sent out replacements really fast though. Drivers on the older subs had a tapping noise so he included sticky pads to cushion leads with high excursion. Then the big problem I realized if you run subs hot drivers will clank or rattle and ports chuff a lot. Now to be fair the chuffing and clanking was v1800 and v3600. Psa subs aren’t a great sub for people wanting to turn it up to very high spl, unless you have multiple psa subs that are capable. Also want to add that the newest line from psa might not have same issues.

I hope Tom is just too busy to send out test units but part of me is worried they’d test poorly and it would really hurt him. If his tv21ipal only hit 110db@20hz and peaked around 118-120db with high distortion or chuffing below 20hz it would really hurt psa. Now if that sub was $1400 it would be very similar to svs pb3000 in performance. Obviously I’m just making up numbers on that tv21 and it could absolutely blow us away.

I trust vader540is and we talk occasionally about this hobby. He’s very qualified to test these and analyze data. I believe the tv18 to be a really great sub. I think using huge down firing port really helps lower any chuffing on this model. I think it’s the best sub for the money they make.

As of right now I use dual monolith 15s. Amazing how I can’t get them to make a bad noise at insane levels. 125db+. On a side not youthman posted his review of mono 13 and it was ok but not glowing. Said it had port noise and his spl levels were really low when distortion crept in. I could scream user error but I’ll leave that open for discussion. Maybe mono 13 was a downgrade over mono 15? I highly doubt it

You have to take what Youthman said with a complete grain of salt.


He only heard chuffing when all other speakers were off. It wasn't audible when the whole system was running

It only happened when he drove them to very very high levels reference levels on his setup. No one will listen that loud usually

Plus alot of ported subs will chuff on low frequencies at that level of output at low frequencies around or below the port tune. Hell the vaunted PB 16 ultra will do that. That's one of the cons of ported subs

He was driving one sub to max levels to do that not many of us will do that also most will do duals and then it's a complete non issue you'll never drive them hard enough to get them to chuff even at high levels

That was extremely irresponsible of him to make such a big deal about that without explaining the above in his review. Seasoned audio enthusiasts would completely disregard his chuffing issue knowing it's non relevant but newbies would totally freak out on it and it could affect there decision to buy

This is the same guy that compared the pb 16ultra to another sub but forgot to change the tune of the 16ultra to match the frequency response of the other sub. Which made it look like the 16 ultra had much less deep bass then the other sub which was completely innacurate

Plus I trust @shadyJ testing a lot more then Youthmans although I enjoy his reviews. If chuffing was such an issue don't you think Shady would have mentioned it?

 

[shadyJ]

Plus I trust @shadyJ testing a lot more then Youthmans although I enjoy his reviews. If chuffing was such an issue don't you think Shady would have mentioned it?

I don't recall ever having tested a ported sub that I couldn't drive to turbulence. Port chuffing is poorly understood by a lot of people, and then when you bring in the brand warriors, and someone says a reviewer noted subwoofer brand X chuffs, it makes a nice mess. Port turbulence is a problem when it happens at lower drive levels. The only way to prevent port chuffing entirely is to utilize extremely strict limiters, but if you do that, you will leave a lot of performance on the table. It is especially difficult to prevent when you have a deep tuned sub, like anything tuned at 20Hz or below. That means long ports for any reasonably sized enclosure, and quite often bends in the ports. All of that increases the chances of port chuffing. Variable tuned enclosures can also increase chuffing when sealing one of the ports. Chuffing will show up in measurements as noise, and it is many times the limiting factor in CEA-2010 testing in deep frequencies as a distortion threshold.

If you frequently find your sub is running into audible chuffing, you are running that sub too hard. You need either a bigger sub or more subs.

 

[Hetfield]

I don't recall ever having tested a ported sub that I couldn't drive to turbulence. Port chuffing is poorly understood by a lot of people, and then when you bring in the brand warriors, and someone says a reviewer noted subwoofer brand X chuffs, it makes a nice mess. Port turbulence is a problem when it happens at lower drive levels. The only way to prevent port chuffing entirely is to utilize extremely strict limiters, but if you do that, you will leave a lot of performance on the table. It is especially difficult to prevent when you have a deep tuned sub, like anything tuned at 20Hz or below. That means long ports for any reasonably sized enclosure, and quite often bends in the ports. All of that increases the chances of port chuffing. Variable tuned enclosures can also increase chuffing when sealing one of the ports. Chuffing will show up in measurements as noise, and it is many times the limiting factor in CEA-2010 testing in deep frequencies as a distortion threshold.

If you frequently find your sub is running into audible chuffing, you are running that sub too hard. You need either a bigger sub or more subs.

Another excellent post and while your knowledge is light years ahead of mine I agree with this.
I've never heard chuffing from my PB2000 pro or my PB1000 but I will never push them to the edge either. I want things to last so I don't push my speakers to the limit, my amp or subs.

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[Pogre]

I don't recall ever having tested a ported sub that I couldn't drive to turbulence. Port chuffing is poorly understood by a lot of people, and then when you bring in the brand warriors, and someone says a reviewer noted subwoofer brand X chuffs, it makes a nice mess. Port turbulence is a problem when it happens at lower drive levels. The only way to prevent port chuffing entirely is to utilize extremely strict limiters, but if you do that, you will leave a lot of performance on the table. It is especially difficult to prevent when you have a deep tuned sub, like anything tuned at 20Hz or below. That means long ports for any reasonably sized enclosure, and quite often bends in the ports. All of that increases the chances of port chuffing. Variable tuned enclosures can also increase chuffing when sealing one of the ports. Chuffing will show up in measurements as noise, and it is many times the limiting factor in CEA-2010 testing in deep frequencies as a distortion threshold.

If you frequently find your sub is running into audible chuffing, you are running that sub too hard. You need either a bigger sub or more subs.

Great post Shady.

I think chuffing is quite often overblown. I've seen negative comments about the HSU VTF-3 MK5 chuffing and it's never been an issue for me. Have I heard them chuff? Yes, during that ridiculous, unintentionally deep tone at the beginning of Edge of Tomorrow. I think I read that tone is like 11 hz? Who on earth is regularly playing tones that deep for normal listening?? What ported sub wouldn't chuff trying to play that? It's unrealistic to judge a sub based on a tone like that.

 

[kxthor]

Sorry guys, I ended up getting pretty busy yesterday and did not have time to take and reply to this thread. I want to seriously thank everyone for their input here. Things that I would not have thought of before came up and I believe it's good to have a little back and forth on the thoughts that go into some of our posts. My eyes are open now bit I think I'm still going to give psa a chance. The most that I believe bad can happen is pay for return shipping, on the other end I could end up with an amazing sub or 2 out of this. Thanks everyone.