Clifford Knows Subs

Add the Sonos Sub Mini to Our Reviewer’s List of Subwoofer Conquests

By Henry Clifford

I’ve reviewed my fair share of subwoofers over the last few years. Maybe even an un-fair share? Maybe so many subwoofers that I could easily be accused of having a bass addiction? All true statements. While “Bo Knows Football,” “Clifford Knows Subs.” Of course, when I heard about the new Sonos Sub Mini, I knew I must add it to my list of conquests.

Sonos introduced the new Sub Mini to complement products like its Ray, One, and One SL self-amplified speakers. These younger siblings of mainstays like Arc, Five, and Amp have languished for years without a properly sized bass complement. The hefty Sonos Sub was always designed to pair with larger systems and performs admirably, tracing its roots back to an engineer who defected from Velodyne, a legendary manufacturer in the world of bass.

Unboxing the Sonos Sub Mini

Sonos seems to be embracing sustainability with the Sub Mini shipping in a recycled cardboard box encasing the boom box inside a wonderfully designed cocoon designed to biodegrade or recycle easily. Indeed, Sonos’ own Listen Better Report confirms this approach. The company even has its own cardboard called Sonos Custom Kraft paper. Anyone who has seen the floating debris fields in the Pacific Ocean can appreciate any attempt at sustainability here. Most of these green initiatives get lost in the shuffle for me. We’ve all gone nose blind to corporations committing to save the planet. It’s nice to work it from the other direction, witnessing something good and tracing the cord back to the wall.

Installation

After liberating the Sub Mini from its sustainable sarcophagus and EULA sticker wrapped bag (see the photos — that’s a first for me and felt like taking something out of the honor bar at a hotel), I inspected it for the first time. First off, this thing has some serious heft. It’s heavy, sturdy, solid, well-built and all the other adjectives that go along with holding something that’s been well designed and put together (cue the Jony Ive voiceover). The basic design mirrors that of its older sibling with two opposing woofers firing at each other inside a cavernous ellipse resembling a wound left by some Pez dispensing Howitzer.

I plugged the Sub Mini into AC power and fired up the Sonos app. I scrolled over to Settings and then chose “Add Device.” The wizard fired up and I followed along, dutifully logging in to my account to ask Little Brother whether it was OK to use my new toy. This process feels a little Orwellian, but, in the words of Chris Rock; “I understand.”

Next, came something novel. Instead of the usual workflow involving the customer reaching for a magnifying glass to read 3-point type on the underside of a new piece of Sonos gear, the wizard instructed me to hold my phone near the Sub Mini for a little NFC action. This slick process smoothed out my privacy ruffled feathers and set in motion a series of updates and interstitial screens letting me know that all would be well in just a moment. At last (this entire process took less than five minutes), the install completed, and I started thinking about the best songs with which to shake the room.

Configuration

I selected the Master Bathroom zone and paired the Sub Mini with an existing Sonos One in the room. I then decided to run Trueplay, the Sonos calibration routine that prompts the user to wave their phone around like a shaman ridding the room of evil spirits. I completed the prescribed antics and cued up Madness by Muse for a little bass check. Wow. My initial reaction resembled that of a certain towheaded girl getting to the porridge that was “just right.”

That’s my overall read on the Sub Mini. It’s the Goldilocks zone for the Sonos smaller speaker line. It’s more cowbell. It’s a “these go to 11” kind of subwoofer. Very seldom has a new product done exactly what’s advertised with no drama and then magically added just the right amount of midrange and bass to the existing audio profile. Amazing.

The Sub Mini is also small enough where my wife hasn’t even noticed it yet. Maybe we’ll finally find out if she reads my articles? I played a few more songs including Sure Shot by the Beastie Boys and Mad About You by Sting. Everything sounded amazing!

Sonos Sub Mini Final Thoughts

I love the new Sonos Sub Mini, and I think they’re going to fly off the shelves. At $429 retail, it’s a bargain compared with living a meaningless life devoid of decent midrange and LFE. Running Trueplay after adding the Sub Mini makes a big difference, and I highly recommend it. That might be the only feedback I have for Sonos here; a prompt to run Trueplay at the end of the Sub Mini installation workflow would be helpful. We’ve already added the Sub Mini to our lineup at my custom installation company, Livewire, and I recommend you order one right now. x

Origin Acoustics, the manufacturer of architectural audio, has announced the latest category expansion in their popular Surface Mount outdoor line of speaker solutions. The company will have three models available, with either a 5-inch, 6-inch, or 8-inch IMPP high-performance woofer, which delivers great low-end from a sealed enclosure. The woofer is accompanied by a 1-inch aluminum tweeter designed specifically for outdoor environments. The C Bracket combined with the screw-down end caps allows for maximum vertical and horizontal mounting options. These speakers carry an IPX6 rating with UV resistance to ensure reliability in any environment.

McIntosh has created the new XCS1.5K center channel speaker to match the company’s XRT2.1K and XRT1.1K floorstanding speakers. Rated to handle 1,500 watts of power, it is a hybrid of a 3- and 4-way speaker and can be used with a variety of McIntosh home theater processors and amplifiers. The XCS1.5K consists of 43 individual speaker drivers, four of which are 8-inch long-throw carbon fiber sandwich cone woofers housed in a vented bass cabinet. Fourteen of the drivers are 2.5-inch aluminum midranges and 25 are 3⁄4-inch dome tweeters.

Netgear Inc. has launched two new access points (WAX628 and WAX638E) tailored specifically for the residential custom integration market. These access points are bundled with four years of both ProSupport services and Netgear Insight, which is a cloud-based management platform that enables installers to remotely manage their customer’s network from a tablet, smart phone, or laptop. Integrators and custom installers can get access to network planning, design, and post-sales support services provided by a team of Ethernet and Wi-Fi experts.

Polk Audio has introduced two new flagship sound bar systems, MagniFi Max AX and MagniFi Max AX SR, featuring Dolby Atmos and DTS:X sound. The systems include 11-speaker arrays with dedicated center channels, upfiring height speakers, and Polk’s patented Stereo Dimensional Array (SDA) technology. Both models include wireless subwoofers for extended bass response; MagniFi Max AX SR adds two wireless surround speakers for total sonic immersion. Music streaming, custom sound modes, and eARC connectivity round out the features of these all-in-one systems.

Modus VR has launched Modus-as-a-Service to enable residential tech integrators access to their virtual-reality design software on a more convenient per-project basis from anywhere. Without any hardware investment, integrators and teams can now enlist the Modus VR platform and specialists to host live meetings anywhere, anytime. The Modus VR team provides turnkey, real-time, immersive VR design work and will output all accompanying project deliverables per dealer and client requests.

Proluxe Lighting has introduced its Warm Dim Downlights that offer the glow and ambience of traditional incandescent lighting with flicker-free and smooth transitioning. They provide color rendering at 90+ CRI and have a lumen output of up to 800 Lumens. Their color temperature starts at 3000K and dims down to 1800K. With aluminum housing, polycarbonate lens, and spring-loaded mounting clips for direct install, the Warm Dim Downlights are type IC and cETlus listed for damp locations with up to 50,000 hours of rated life.

The HDANYWHERE uControl

Remote, distributed in the U.S. by Apex Technologies US, is a slender handheld, hard button interface designed to control all the devices connected to an HDA system. This uControl Remote offers users a unified whole-home AV experience, with entertainment and scene-setting options, that’s meant to be more affordable than comparable solutions while still being an attractive proposition for professional installers.

Hisense has unveiled ULED X television technology, providing higher levels of brightness and realistic on-screen picture quality, along with the availability of UX, the First Generation of ULED X TVs. UX features Hisense’s Hi-View Engine X chipset that controls more than 20,000 Mini LED lights to deliver an ultra-bright picture. It allows the viewer to experience the best display standard through active intelligent backlight control and is equipped with Mini-LED X, 5000+ Local Dimming Zones, 2500 nits peak brightness, and Dynamic X-Display.

Draper has created a solution for an angled window that requires interior shading. The new Gabled Bottom-Up FlexShade from Draper means you don’t have to use a square shade and overlap the window opening. The shade can be sill-mounted in the window and can handle angles up to 45 degrees in either direction.The shade panel is kept under constant tension by thin cables that deploy from tensioned spring boxes and attach to a flexible hem bar. Draper uses a 0.06-inch (1.5 mm) low-stretch, high fatigue cable with a polyester jacket.

Legrand’s lighting control brand Vantage can now integrate its luxury lighting control solutions with Meljac and Forbes & Lomax push-button and toggle keypads. Via Vantage’s Design Center software, integrators can program the unique keypads to be part of any Vantage project, providing smart control of lighting and shading in the room. Programming the keypads is simplified using the latest version of Design Center. With Design Center, partner keypads can utilize the same programming as Vantage keypads to meet the needs of any project.

Dirac Live Active Room Treatment was created to address bass resonance and room decay time to produce a cleaner, tighter bass experience in home theaters and home entertainment spaces. Available now in all StormAudio AVRs through a firmware update, the technology moves beyond traditional room correction to reduce bass decay times digitally. It leverages Dirac’s expertise in MIMO mixed-phase impulse response correction technology to enable spatial optimization, whereby all speakers in a sound system cooperate with each other to accomplish what passive acoustic treatments struggle to achieve.

The Blustream NPA70DA Dante Networked Power Amplifier features a 2 x 35W digital amplifier (1 x 70W mono) or 70V/100V hi-level constant voltage output and Dante audio integration. It can be powered via PoE++ from a compatible network switch or locally should the switch not support PoE++. The unit also includes the ability to lower the amplifier power output subject to PoE capabilities, support for combined or independent LAN and Dante connections, DSP with a 31-band EQ, audio delay for lip sync correction, and control via front panel, IR, RS-232, TCP/IP, web-GUI or 12V trigger.

The Victrola Stream turntable line brings a wireless vinyl experience to music lovers with Sonos in their homes. The lineup requires no additional equipment for connecting to a Sonos ecosystem, allowing effortless setup and easy control with the Sonos app, adding a premium, elegant design synonymous with Sonos speakers. As a vinyl resurgence continues across the globe, Victrola Stream will deliver the best of physical and digital music experiences for Sonos owners everywhere as a new record player certified by the Works with Sonos program.

Screen Innovations’ Solo 3 motorized projection screen cassette is manufactured as a visually flawless unit with no typical demarcations of the end caps. Units come powdercoated in white, black, or painted to match the surrounding surface. Alternatively, when mounted above the ceiling, the entire cassette vanishes into the structure of the room. The new Solo 3 — available in 375, 575, and 675 cassette sizes — replaces SI’s legacy 3 and 5 Series motorized projection screen lines.

Savant Systems is expanding their Savant Power System to include additional modules, hubs, and monitoring tools. The new hardware is designed to expand installation flexibility as well as system and price scalability. The Savant Power System is capable of delivering the benefits of smart power to every home. Systems can be designed to control and monitor a few main use circuits or to manage all loads/circuits across the entire home. At the heart of this scalability is the Savant Power Module, which is installed in standard electrical panels, eliminating the need for an expensive proprietary load center.

JBL’s Stage 2 and Studio 6

Architectural series loudspeakers feature a discrete zero-bezel, paintable magnetic grille that installs flush to the wall for a clean look. Offering highperformance sound at a cost that won’t break the bank, Stage 2 loudspeakers feature acoustic components typically reserved for higher priced solutions, including 1-inch/25-millimeter aluminum acoustic lens tweeters, JBL’s patented High-Definition Imaging (HDI) waveguides, baffles with acoustic smoothing, and premium crossover components. A range of eight Stage 2 models is available in various configurations for both in-wall and in-ceiling installations.