Sunfire 12" 3000W Powered Subwoofer

the best product out there

I ordered this Sunfire XTEQ 12 to replace an original Sunfire True Sub 11" that I owned for many years. I was hoping that this would be close to a drop-in replacement, though I knew that would be tough. The sub came in a total of 4 boxes! Russian doll style, one inside the other. Packaging was amazing. The subwoofer is finished in a beautiful piano black lacquer, which I quickly scratched with my wedding ring while moving it around (this sub is very heavy). By the way, I also own some Sunfire CRS-3 speakers and those came with white gloves. Sunfire might want to do that with these subs. Until then, beware that the finish is easily scratched. Unlike my True Sub, the XTEQ comes with some sort of "grill", well more like a plastic rim that snaps around the diaphragms; one of those rattled a bit when I was testing and calibrating my sub but, in all fairness, it has not rattled during regular use. I spent quite a bit of time integrating this sub into my 7.2 system using the sub's own EQ, my processor's EQ, a Velodyne SMS-1, and Room EQ Wizard (REW) (among other tools). I do have a second sub and I also have a dedicated listening studio with room treatment throughout. Initially, there was a deep roll off from around 30Hz toward the lower frequencies which my old True Sub did not exhibit and that was tricky to deal with. It took a lot of tweaking and experimenting to integrate the sub into my system but, eventually, it gave me back the musical (not too boomy and not too flat) lows that this sub is known for. I did not have to touch my second sub, the two integrated together perfectly once I positioned the new sub and calibrated it individually. From my experience with my setup, the XTEQ function did very little when I measured the changes using REW. Nowadays, even my dishwasher has an app with status updates. Why can't Sunfire add an app or some capability to show what the EQ is doing and perhaps allow user override or direct tweaking? It is still an amazing sub. Although I was hoping for more, after over a decade of this design; however, I admit that is my personal bias as a spoiled long-time owner of Sunfire and Carver gear. All in all, I am extremely happy. Those new to Sunfire subs are in for a treat.