Deep yet tightly controlled bass

In awarding it Subwoofer of the Year Hi-Fi and Home Theatre Consumer Buying Guide said: “My first impressions were immediate. From the very first note is played, even before adjusting any of the controls – it was obviously very clean and tight. Very few subs start making an impression so early… This is one of the cleanest, tightest and most musical subs 1 have heard. It goes very deep for its size and price and is very well built. “

The Kurlo uses a 12″ (30cm) extra-long throw bass driver. It has a very large voice-coil and a huge 3 Kg magnet to allow a cone excursion of 34 mm. This makes it equivalent to a 15-18″ unit having a normal excursion of 6-8mm.

It has a 500W RMS BASH class H amplifier giving huge reserves of power for the long-throw drive unit, allowing it to reproduce the deepest movie sounds and musical notes with superb ease. BASH amps combine the advantages of the speed and low distortion of a class B output stage with the bass tautness provided by a switch-mode power supply very rapidly (over 100kHz) charging up the supply rails when power is drawn by the amplifier. By varying the supply rail voltages BASH amps also run very cool.

The Kurlo has a sealed cabinet to improve speed and transient response. However, we have also added a small amount of electronic equalisation so that the frequency response is flat to nearly 20 Hz below which it has been rolled off rapidly to avoid cone damage. At the top end, the frequency response can be rolled off from 50 – 150 Hz at -12 dB/octave; alternatively, this may be bypassed using the LFE input.

The Kurlo’s cabinets are very solidly built to minimise secondary vibrations that can muddle the sound. We use 25mm MDF veneered on both sides with Australian wood on the side and back panel and 40 mm of MDF on the front panel. In addition to giving a superb furniture finish, MDF has high strength and excellent damping. Cabinet strength is further increased by extensive asymmetric bracing, and damping is increased by the addition of constrained-layer damping. Sound waves inside the cabinet are dispersed by a proprietary technique and absorbed by Australian wool.

As Audio & Video Lifestyle stated “Wow – this was as clean a presentation of this piece as I have ever heard from a subwoofer at any price! There was no overhang after the transient – it stopped just as quickly as it started. The Kurlo has great rhythm and pace, and its virtues of cleanliness and tightness of reproduction served themselves very well and led me to the conclusion… that this is a fantastic music subwoofer… (and) all its virtues described above carried on into movie watching.”

Finishes – real wood veneer