Brent Butterworth

The Power Sound Audio XV15’s sole concession to design is that, besides the stock satin-black finish, you can get the sub in your choice of five wood finishes for an extra $150. Otherwise, it’s a big, ugly box, standing 23 inches high and weighing 75 pounds. It packs a 15-inch woofer — the biggest of any sub in this test — powered by a BASH amp rated at 500 watts RMS, 1,000 watts peak.

When it released its Digital Drive subwoofers back in the mid-2000s, Velodyne got the jump on all of its competitors. The Digital Drive circuitry and software let you tweak a sub’s sound — manually or automatically — to perfection, and also provided several preset EQ modes to suit different types
of material.

Call it the projection paradox. Projector owners are so devoted to their pursuit of a cinematic effect that they’re willing to spend thousands of dollars more than the average TV buyer and endure lights-out viewing. Yet all the hot technology seems to go into those sexy flat-panel TV sets that people who don’t know a pixel from a pineapple buy at discount stores while they’re picking up tube socks and army-size bags of Cheddar Jalapeño Cheetos.