I decided to invest in a subwoofer for my home studio. As an owner of Presonus Eris 5’s, I thought it would be a clever idea to get a Presonus subwoofer. Presonus has a couple of models, and the biggest one they do is called the Temblor T10. They were going for quite reasonable amounts of money second-hand on eBay (I am trying to buy all my tech ‘pre-experienced’ these days), and I saw one that I was going to go for.
Then, on my Google shopping, I saw that a computer manufacturer supplier was offering an open boxed unit for even less. I weighed everything up, and I thought, “Yes, I shall go for that.” The subwoofer beast arrived, and I should have known better than to go for the biggest, just because it was inexpensive.
This thing was just ridiculous! It is a hundred watts, and my studio space is large, but the Eris E5’s are not that big. They are home close field monitoring speakers. So, when I put this subwoofer into the audio chain, it just sounded like there was a bunch of dudes with their cars revving up in the car park next door. It completely overpowered my near field speakers.
I used to be a live sound engineer, and I understand wattage and power ratios; I should have known a 100w self-powered speaker would be too much… I did persevere for a couple of days and in the end, I had to send it back. There is a gain attenuation knob on the back of the subwoofer, and even dialled right down, it was still massively overpowering. It’s a hundred watts for flip’s sake! I should have known better.
So, I had to scratch my head because although the sub bass unit was kicking ass, I couldn’t really work with it. There was no way to judge any sub frequencies in my mixes because that is all I could hear – sub frequencies. So, I packed it up and sent it off, and I got a refund under the 14-day cooling off regulations we have here in the UK.
Meanwhile, I opted for the Eris sub8. PreSonus also does a Temblor t8, which is 50 watts, and I knew from my experience with the T10 that 50w would still be too much. So, I’ve gone for the sub 8, which is matched for the Eris E5’s and E4.5’s. I’ve had it a week now, and it’s lovely. I’ve still had to turn it down on the input and it’s just tickling in; the sub frequencies are definitely there though. It helps me to judge sub bass for the music I’m making and when I am listening to more dance-oriented music, but it is not overpowering.
So, I suppose the message in this story is: trust your instincts, trust your specs, and if you don’t understand the specs, find a sound engineer or a producer to explain them to you. You can always contact me via the form below and I will advise you.