Review written by 'micp and Mark'

micp:

Well Mark "Mulletboy2" and myself met up for a listen to the Vibe Black Air II.

The front end was a set of RE Audio 6.5 mids and Morel CR-103 tweeters run from a old Alpine v12 T-757.

The enclosure was Marks own creation, a fibreglass shpere, not sure the net airspace as I did not measure it but we gestimate around 1.2 cubic foot for the subwoofer. This is fairly large for a 10 inch subwoofer. I have not modeled it in software but would be willing to bet it was low Q design.

The crossover was set around 70-80hz on the amplifier which was a Crystal CAM 300.2 which should deliver around 600 WRMS into a 4 ohm load.

We played a range of musical tracks on it from rock, classical and bass CD's.

First we have the bass level set a bit to low but after turning the bass controller up a fair bit we started to get it singing in line with the fronts.

I have to say this enclosure and subwoofer was musical indeed the bass was tight, it handeled the fast drum beats with ease, we were actually shocked!

The drivers transient response sounded fine, the fast changes between high and low notes were smooth no long overhang or delay.

It blended in with the fronts very nicely, it sounded even, the bass was upfront of the car not behind you on the driver side of the car.

The driver and enclosure peaked around 40-45hz in my car and the response started to roll off from there, the roll off was gradual, 20hz-25hz the lowest region was a fair bit down in strength but the 28hz-33hz region played through strong.

Output was healthy, fair bit of kick from the drums, the bass CD's rang through clearly filling the car with bass. Bare in mind this is a saloon car with a fir bit of metal to get though before reaching the cabin.

We were listing from a SQ perspective on the most part, it sounded goo with this kind of power.

I'm sure a pair of these with 800-1000 WRMS would give the more bass hungry people fairly decent a smile on there faces.

I'm going to honest but I liked the sub, I enjoyed hearing it. I found it hard to believe this was not a more expencive subwoofer I was listening to.

Mark:

Damn, there's not a lot left for me to say! But yeah, I was extremely impressed (moreso than in the TL ). The TL definitely has the upper hand with the output in the sub 30Hz range, but for musicality and tonality, the sphere wins it hands down IMHO. Like Michael, I found it hard to believe that the sub was less than £100. Infact, on some of my favourite tracks, I found it hard/impossible to differentiate between the Vibe and some significantly more expensive subs I've owned.. but bear in mind that we weren't spanking it... and it was clear that we were getting close to the maximm linear output levels.

No idea how much of a role the enclosure played, but the important thing is that it had good output levels (albeit not astonishing), very good SQ (), and I'd be happy to listen to one on a day-to-day basis. If I was going for a budget SQ system, I'd definitely consider one

If anyone wants to grab a listen before the sub goes back, lmk.

Cheers

Mark