[Listening test] Subwoofers comparison: Audio Physic Luna VS Audiovector R SUB Arreté

1) Product name: Audio Physic Luna
Manufacturer: Audio Physic - Germany
2) Product name: Audiovector R SUB Arreté
Manufacturer: Audiovector - Denmark
Approx. price: $4,500 (Audiovector R SUB Arreté) - $4,000 (pair of Audio Physic Luna)
Test samples kindly supplied by: Altitudo Audio - Canada
Reviewer: Henry Venema - TNT-Audio Canada
Reviewed: March, 2023

I would like to give a special thanks to Leonid at Altitudo in Winnipeg for lending a single Audiovector R SUB Arreté ($4500) and a pair of Audio Physic Luna subs ($2000 each) for this review. He graciously paid for the shipping to my house in Brandon, Manitoba. A wonderful knowledgeable man and a great audio store.

I have always been leery about subwoofers. There are so many stories of difficulties of integrating subs with speakers. My anxiety level was high that adding something new to my well tuned system would be a detriment to the overall performance. My hope was that the subs would fill in the last bottom octave that I thought was missing from my speakers.

With a knock at the door, the Audiovector sub arrived. I pushed the 60 pound box up the stairs to my listening room. I unpacked a well packed box revealing a beautiful sub wrapped in carbon fiber with curved sides, a mini version of my bass bins. I dropped the sub directly between my main speakers and set back about 6 inches from the front baffle of my speakers. The sub has a 10-inch forward facing carbon long throw driver and downward facing 10-inch passive radiator. It comes with both line level inputs and a high level Speakon connector with high level 5M cable to connect to the binding posts of my amplifier. Hook up was so simple. The variable crossover switch was set at 50Hz which became the first position for my listening session.

I first hooked up the sub via the high-level cable and input. After an hour I realized that my tube amp didn't have the bottom end grunt that I was expecting. It seamlessly integrated with my speakers, just a little adjustment of the sub volume level and it was set. However, the sound lacked articulation and definition. I switched to the line level connection with a 3M QED pair on interconnects (these were also loaned to me by Leonid). This was a significant improvement. Bass was tighter, deeper, and more resolving. After matching volume levels, I started to play with the crossover frequency. I turned it down to 30Hz. Not a happy result! This turned the sub in to a one note bass thumper, which was the exact thing I was worried about putting subs into my audio system. I'm looking for audiophile performance, and not a party boom box. Then I turned the crossover frequency up to 60 Hz. This was the best position and the point where I really began to analyze the performance.

My main speakers are flat to 30Hz, so the sub didn't add that much bass, but just enough to round out the sound. There was of course deeper bass and nice solidity of bass notes, but the main improvement was a widening of the soundstage, and the energizing of the air in the room. The soundstage had a wonderful fullness, filling the entire space between the speakers and extended the soundstage way beyond my speakers. It was wall to wall of beautiful sound. My only complaint was the change to the midrange as it thinned it out a bit.

Then came the pair of Audio Physic Luna subs. Beautiful piano black cubes with a downward firing 9-inch paper woofer. I placed them in between and adjacent to my speakers. The Lunas come with line inputs without high level inputs, which made set up choice easy. Having a stereo pair made a huge difference over the single Audiovector sub. Sound stage was even wider, more fleshed out, and energised the air, whereas the Audiovector sub pushed the sound back and had a slightly less expanded sound stage. Both subs finished off the bass notes that my speakers couldn't quite complete. This was particularly evident listening to SRV's Riveria Paradise. This track has a bit of the one note bass thump, but with the subs this nicely smoothed out the bass response. The Lunas didn't go a deep as the Audiovector, but they were more tuneful with better bass note articulation. The Lunas excel in opening-up the midrange on some recordings. In particular, Ray Lamontagne's voice on Empty tends to be wispy and raspy, but with the subs his voice was richer and smoother. Then came my ultimate test recording: The Drums of Jiangzhou. From the pounding of the massive drums to the softest sounds, including the crickets in the background, the Lunas made everything better. Sound stage was expanded. The texture of the drum surface could be clearly heard, even which side the drums were being hit. Subtle tone variation of the drums was clearly revealed. The slight variations of tone put a smile on my face. While not quite a religious experience, the hair on back of my neck stood up while I had this CD cranked up to 11. Wow, what fantastic dynamics.

As good as these subs are, I have one problem with both setups. Depending on the recording, I kept turning the subs off and on. Far too many digital recordings have the bass pumped up too loud. I adjusted the subs volume levels to try to compensate for the bass overload, but they had to be turned down so low then had little to no effect on the sound. Too many digital recordings pump up the bass and thereby compromising the overall balance of my system in my room. For example, Peter Gabriel's I/O is particularly guilty of this crime, as well as several of Diana Krall tracks. For the most part this wasn't a problem with analogue sources.

One of the clear advantages of the having subs in my system was the effect of low-level listening. Often thin sounding at lower volumes, the subs gave a nice foundation and fullness of sound to the music.

Both subs were a very nice addition to the overall sound of my system. However, the midrange became slightly clearer, but drier and leaner. How it happens that deep bass can change the midrange is beyond my understanding, and I have not found a good explanation for this acoustic anomaly, perhaps I need a degree in Acoustics. This became a real issue for me. In the end, as good as these subs are, altering the midrange of my finely tuned audio system was too much. There was a hollowing out of the midrange warmth that I was so accustomed to and love very much. In an overly warm system this could be a real advantage, but for me this was a sub killer. I preferred the bass articulation of my own speakers which created a more “natural” soundstage than the subs.

Conclusions

In conclusion, I preferred the stereo pair of Lunas over that of the single Audiovector. Perhaps if I had a chance to try a stereo pair of the Audiovectors, I might change my mind, but that is a lot of money. I think the Lunas are a far better value and would be a fantastic match for stand mounted speakers. With my speakers going down as low as they do, I realized that I didn't need the extra bass. Nevertheless, these are two very fine subwoofers that I can recommend with the only hesitation that they may negatively affect the midrange of your setup. Perhaps if I had a longer period of evaluation, I would find the midrange to be more natural sounding than my initial assumption. This was a great experiment that I recommend every audiophile should try.

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Audio Physic Luna VS Audiovector R SUB Arreté

Sub Par?

Conclusions