Review and translation by Marius Donadello
May 7th 2025, Pictures: Velodyne Acoustics & AV-Magazin

Somehow, talking about Velodyne Acoustics as a subwoofer specialist from Hamburg still feels a little strange, even after four years. The company's historical roots in the USA, where it was headquartered for four decades, are firmly anchored in the chain of associations, especially as the development team is still based in Morgan Hill, California. Following the takeover of Velodyne inc. in 2019 by Mansour Mamaghani, who was responsible for distribution in Germany with his company Audio Reference, many tried and tested things have remained the same. First and foremost, this includes upholding the company’s traditional values in the spirit of founder Dave Hall, above all the most accurate bass reproduction possible. However, innovation and development speed have increased significantly since the company's fortunes have been steered from the Hanseatic city. Step by step, existing ranges have been updated and new models designed, the most significant step to date being the launch of the company's own app last year.

The focus then turned to the rebirth of the popular SPL Ultra series, the last models of which rolled off the production line in 2019. The SPL range followed on from the Digital Drive series, which introduced the world's first automatic room calibration for subwoofers. The successor to the SPL Ultra series now occupies a position close to the Digital Drive Plus series within the portfolio and its cabinet design is again based on the original DD series. This product line, introduced in 2003, came with quite sweeping curves, which have now been significantly reduced in the current design of the SPL-X series and thus freed from millennial charm. What remains are gentle curves on the sides of the cabinet, which are only noticeable at second glance depending on your perspective, and a subtle chamfering of the front edges. From a technical point of view, however, the newly developed cabinets have almost nothing in common with the original DD cabinets; for the SPL-X woofers, measures to stabilise the cabinet have been taken to the extreme. As far as the basic construction of the cabinet is concerned, Velodyne continues to eschew a ventilated solution and strictly follows its own tradition of using only closed cabinets.