What - Yet another black box?

The problem with subwoofers of course, is that they all look pretty boring, so why do we take photo's of them? Well it sure fills up a lot of space on the page and makes it look like you're getting more review for your money.

Welling is a brand which has been around for a few years now and is imported by a couple of rogues (Crossy and Hobbo) from Melbourne, neither whom know anything at all about HiFi (self confessed). Luckily for them, the Welling product offers excellent value for money across the whole range!

Occasionally they hit upon a gem and the Welling WS-12 Subwoofer is one of those gems.

As far as subwoofers go, it's not unattractive, in a black box 355 X 450 X 470 mm and weighs 22 Kgs. There is a black acoustically transparent grill over the front and pretty blue light which indicates the unit is in operation. The driver is the interesting thing here, in most subwoofers the driver can be easily pushed in with little resistance (compliance) the give away with the Welling is the "stiffness" of this (12") driver. Next time a dealer demo's a sub, gently press in the woofer and feel the resistance. It's a reasonable indication of how good musically it's going to sound. The Welling has almost as much resistance as the M&K (my favourite sub) so even before we fired it up we knew it should sound good. This also indicates the driver was designed specifically for a powered subwoofer and not lifted from a standard passive speaker. The built in amplifier is a 150 Watt job with auto on/off (switchable).

When it came to test time, we had Alex "The Ear" put it through it's paces. Sure enough it was extremely musical with a tight punchy bass exhibiting no perceptible lag or overrun. The crossover has an excellent roll off and with the crossover down around the 50Hz mark, we could detect no lower midrange or upper bass squirming it's way through. When it came time for movies, we gave it a run with Armageddon and really shook the walls. There was no hollowness or rattling usually associated with budget subwoofers and although optimized for movies, this sub will handle the subtleties needed to enhance music.

Within its price range, the Welling is one of the better subwoofers currently available.