Review by Marius Donadello
22. Nov. 2022, Images: Velodyne

The hour of the subwoofer had already come when loudspeakers were supposed to be ever slimmer, preferably completely compact. How this came about is a more complex issue, because many people who are primarily interested in sound have also taken a liking to more discreet sound transducers - in a way, you can't get rid of the ghosts that you yourself have called. The trend towards soundbars with external subwoofers, however, has also brought a dilemma further into focus that concerns the bass cubes themselves: space and set-up priorities often dictate "down-sizing", but with subwoofers this is a particularly difficult matter. After all, reproducing very low frequencies requires above all a lot of diaphragm area, which in turn naturally determines the dimensions of a woofer. The laws of physics have to be bent in order to meet the conflicting demands of compact dimensions and bass volume as far as possible.

Velodyne, as a subwoofer specialist and pioneer of the first hour, dealt with how to optimise the sound performance of subwoofers quite early. Since the company was founded in 1983 by David Hall, Velodyne has introduced several technologies in the course of its research and development, such as servo control and the external room correction system SMS-1, which measures up to three woofers. Last, but not least, Velodyne introduced the first remote-controlled subwoofers to the market in 1996 with the FSR models. The development project to realise maximum performance with minimal enclosure bore its first fruits in 2007: The MicroVee started in a spectacularly compact format to expand the bass reproduction of a speaker ensemble. It seemed doubtful that it would be suitable for more than a small desktop system, but experience proved otherwise. With the MicroVee X, the German-American company has now introduced the third generation of the mini subwoofer, and it will be interesting to see whether there has been any improvement over its predecessor, the MicroVee MKII. We have tested the MicroVee X extensively in a stereophonic set-up.