Klipsch RW-10d Powered Subwoofer-Review

The RW-10d draws a very nice line between rocking the house and delicate bass reproduction.As a smaller design, it doesn’t rattle the walls like bigger designs, but it also tap dances better than those products.It’s a great down-the-middle solution, from a lot of important perspectives – thump, punch, musicality, and price.It will not give you prodigious amounts of any, but will give you more than enough to perform well in most any situation you put it in.At its price, the RW-10d offers excellent value and flexibility, and deserves a serious audition.

Pros

Cons

The RW-10d offers good performance with movies and games, adding weight and punch and an overall presence that belied its small size. The RW-10d provides a superb digitally-controlled top panel user interface, which adds flexibility, versatility, and, most importantly, ease of use and convenience. The RW-10d is built very well, offers claw-style feet for easy placement, and looks as good as anything in its class. Sound The RW-10d provided a very big, boomy sound with movies and games. While it certainly had enough tightness, it sounded more big than punchy. The porting somewhat minimized the effects of walls, but it still sounded a bit better in a corner or up against a wall. Port noise was low overall. On music, the RW-10d exhibited good speed on certain material, particularly rock and electronic music. It even provided some nice body to large scale classical tracks. While exhibiting a plodding quality overall and lacking ultimate finesse, the RW-10d didn’t detract from music material overall, keeping its faults to a minimum while providing some kick in unexpected places. The RW-10d’s lack of a high-pass crossover could be a factor in systems lacking bass adjustment control, while its inclusion of a low-pass crossover bypass could help bass performance in some systems by eliminating a needless crossover. The RW-10d provides a phase control and, as noted, easy adjustment capability which added a lot to the enjoyment of the product. The Depth and Punch modes made it easy to quickly tailor the sound to music or movies without getting too involved in setup, and the presets enabled some more fine-tuning. The digital control presented no downside whatsoever, and added a lot of convenience to the product (Nobody likes reaching around back to make adjustments, let alone turning the woofer entirely.). Klipsch added a lot of value with this aspect of the product. Conclusion The RW-10d draws a very nice line between rocking the house and delicate bass reproduction. As a smaller design, it doesn’t rattle the walls like bigger designs, but it also tap dances better than those products. It’s a great down-the-middle solution, from a lot of important perspectives – thump, punch, musicality, and price. It will not give you prodigious amounts of any, but will give you more than enough to perform well in most any situation you put it in. At its price, the RW-10d offers excellent value and flexibility, and deserves a serious audition.

The RW-10d sounded a bit heavy and slow across music material, especially classical and jazz material. The RW-10d lacks a high-pass crossover output, which could limit bass control options for some users.

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