I was fortunately enough this weekend to spend a couple of hours with Craig Woodhall, who Tumult and HT setup can be found described in other threads in this forum. I contacted him as I live in the approx. area, and he's the only person I'm aware in the area who has built one of these.
Cragi was kind enough to invite a stranger into his home and put up with some rather weird classical music tastes
So here's my take on how it sounds.
The Tumult is a 24" cube (1.5" MDF), 2- 18" stryke PRs, which I understand to NOT be weighted to 2500g, but rather left at the "factory" 1600g. What effect this has on tuning I don't know. Very nice "manly"-looking finish, Al does nice work. It looks big, black, and menacing.
I brought along 6-7 different classical music CDs, mostly with fairly low bass, including some with attendant pipe organ music. Craig doesn't listen to this kind of music so it was an experience for him as well I guess.
For listening to music (classical) I would describe the sub as unobtrusive, tight, and almost analytical sounding, if a sub can sound analytical. This thing is in no way muddy or loose. Craig also has an AV-15 sub, which he usually runs at the same time... for today the AV-15 was turned off, so the bass might have actually been on the "light side"... but wait until you read the movie portion of my comments before taking that as true or not.
Anyway, the sub had no difficulty dealing with anything I brought along. Only the Telarc 1812 overture even really made the thing move at all, and it sounded quite effortless and very well integrated to me.
Craig also played a number of DTS movie tracks, including LOTR:Fellowship (opening battle scene), The Haunting, Finding Nemo (glass-tapping scene), Finding Private Ryan... Not pretending to understand the intricacies of what possible equalization might have been done in his processor, the sound for HT was simply stunning... the effortlessness and ease that this sub demonstrates is amazing. I don't really now how hard the sub is being pushed, although I know with only 800W driving it it's nowhere near limits. But even probably using only a portion of that 800W, it was tremendously loud and deep, a well integrated underpinning to what was going on on-screen. No boom, no attention draw when not called on.
I've listened to that LOTR:Fellowship opening scene several dozen timesin my own HT, and now I'm spoiled for life, or at least until I get me one of these.
Overall... the most impressive part for me was the combination of effortless tight undistorted very deep bass combined with the ability to almost disappear at the same time. Best sub I've yet heard. The only thing close that I can recollect is a corner-loaded EV-30 I heard some years back which was as tight and effortless at this one, but the Tumult goes considerably lower. The only thing I can't compare to is an IB setup which I 've never heard.
Anyway, thanks again to Craig, who was gentleman and fine host, answered tons of questions. Me want one...
David.
