From the picture above, you might already realise that this is not one of the usual tests. In addition to the Velodyne DD+ 10 - or more precisely two of them - it is also about the criminally underestimated sonic advantages of subwoofers in pure high-end audio systems. In a familiar form, our colleague Roland Dietl will soon devote himself to the Velodyne.

Actually, I should have known Back in 1996 - at that time still in a printed Hi-Fi publication - I wrote a plea for subwoofers in music systems. At that time I owned a pair of Roksan Darius loudspeakers with somewhat limited deep bass capabilities. Each of the four different subwoofers presented supported the frequency range in which a lot of instruments are active - and not only church or concert organs. But even then I noticed that the powerful woofers also provide a much more credible illusion of the acoustic space, and that even recordings with voice and guitar alone can definitely benefit from a subwoofer inconspicuously integrated into the sound image. Then for me came the time of loudspeakers with a rich bass foundation: from the Trenner & Friedl Gordon to two LumenWhites - the WhiteLight and the DiamondLight - and the Kawero! Classic and Göbel Epoque Aeon Fine, to name only the most impressive in retrospect. Then the subject of subwoofers fell into oblivion for me.

But this has since changed, and fortunately so for me. First of all, subwoofers - and specifically those from Velodyne - were back in the spotlight when Hifistatement took part in the High End Society's "Sounds Clever" campaign, which was very positive for our industry, almost two years ago. The aim was to put together the best-sounding system for an acoustically only vaguely known room with a budget of 5,000 euros. Helmut Baumgartner and Roland Dietl, who both run systems at home with more or less large main speakers and a subwoofer each, favored a combination of two-way speakers on stands plus a subwoofer for our demonstration in order to be able to react better to the sonic vagaries of the demonstration booth. Since Velodyne is one of the most experienced manufacturers and its portfolio includes reasonably priced subwoofers, we chose the Impact 12 MKII. BaseAnd according to the verdict of most visitors, our decision was probably spot on: the chain made music at a level that one would not necessarily expect in this price range.

I can’t remember whether it was because Göbel High End offers a "small" subwoofer, the Aeon Baforce Petit, in the Epoque line, from which my speakers also come, or because the three partly active, partly passive seven-inchers on the front - the corresponding equipment on the back is not visible from the listening position - of each Aeon Fine seem unimpressive to me, but suddenly I thought it was a good idea to experiment with subwoofers in my listening room again. Since the physical size of my listening room is nowhere near as large as imaginary stages suggest during successful recordings, I searched the Velodyne range for very high quality, but not very space-consuming models and found the Digital Drive Plus 10 with impressive specs. Of course, the 15- or 18-series models are even more imposing, but two of them would at least visually overload my room. If, while experimenting with the 10s, it turns out that one of them produces similarly positive results as their two, I can always try a larger model.