The primary criteria that our panelists considered in our evaluations were:

how much clean bass a subwoofer can put out

how deep the subwoofer can play

how natural the bass sounds (i.e., not excessively boomy or punchy)

appearance

enough inputs to accommodate any common connection scenario

We conducted all of the listening tests in the same acoustically treated listening room I’ve used to test more than 130 subwoofers over the past 17 years. I have run countless tests and measurements in this room, had dozens of manufacturers set up their subwoofers in it, and at one point even had a scientist from Harman International come over to run tests in my room using as many as four separate subwoofers. I know this room’s characteristics (and how they affect speaker performance) extremely well.

Each of the subwoofers went into my room’s "subwoofer sweet spot," the place where I’ve found most subs to sound their best from my favorite listening chair. I connected the subwoofers to my home-theater receiver (a Denon AVR-2809ci for the original tests and a Sony STR-ZA5000ES for later tests) and used a surround-sound system made up of Sunfire CRM-2, CRM-2C, and CRM-BIP speakers. I used a crossover point (the frequency at which sounds are redirected from the speakers to the subwoofer) of 100 hertz, what you might use with a small set of speakers; this gave us a little more bass from the subs and a little less from the speakers, making the test tougher on the subs.

To make sure the subwoofer volume levels were set correctly, I first used the receivers’ built-in test tones and a RadioShack sound-pressure level meter to get the setting close. Then I used TrueRTA spectrum analyzer software, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB interface, and a calibrated Earthworks M30 measurement microphone to check the level of the subwoofers relative to the level of the sound coming from the speakers using TrueRTA’s built-in pink noise generator.

For my listening, I used several of the toughest bass test tracks I know of, including Holly Cole’s "Train Song," Olive’s “Falling,” and the recording of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Symphony No. 3 (Organ)” from the Boston Audio Society Test CD-1, which has notes that drop down to 16 Hz. (How deep is that? It’s the lowest note a standard electric bass could play if its scale length was 7 feet.) I also used bass-heavy action-movie soundtracks via Blu-ray, including U-571 and San Andreas. Then I brought Geoff and Lauren in for blind listening sessions, using a thin black drape to hide the subs’ identities.

I concluded by running CEA-2010 output measurements on each subwoofer. This measurement provides an accurate and easy-to-understand baseline assessment of a subwoofer’s performance, using test tones that simulate the bass content of music and movies. I’ve found that CEA-2010 results correspond well with blind-listening test results but provide a more precise comparison than listening tests can. The higher the number, the louder the subwoofer will play, and the clearer it will sound even if it’s not cranked to the max. I keep a log of all my CEA-2010 results here.

Below are the CEA-2010 results for many of the subs we tested, citing an average output in the mid bass (the region from 40 to 63 Hz, which corresponds to the bottom notes of a standard electric or upright bass) and the low bass (the region from 20 to 31.5 Hz, corresponding to the deepest bass notes in hip-hop and EDM and the couch-shaking explosions in movie soundtracks). Click here to see an embedded chart that includes all the data points.