Everybody knows that a bigger subwoofer means more bass. But what about longer
subwoofer? I'm going to catch a cable. I'm going to ruin every We're good.
Longer subwoofer. This is the Bose
acoustic wave cannon system and it'sing dumb. It's 12 ft long and it can blast
listeners with super low wubs at up to an ear damagingly high 109 dB. And all
we had to do was extract it from the home of some maniac on Facebook
Marketplace. But just how bassy can this thing get? I mean, it's called a sound
cannon, but as somebody who craves the thunder of the wubs, I have very high
expectations. The only problem is it's not built yet. So, I've enlisted help of
good friend of the channel, DMS, so that we can get this thing online, figure out
why it even exists, and hopefully we can make it sound like one of those old
Maxwell tape ads. >> Let's do it. Let's do it. Welcome to the
latest installment of We Bought This Thing. We do not know what we're doing,
but we're gonna use it anyways. >> Hey, Adam, there's something in here.
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So, the script says unbox it, but there's not really a whole lot of
unboxing. Yeah, the box probably isn't around anymore cuz the instruction
manual says copyright 1988. >> But what exactly did we get? I see that
we have a big tube and I see the driver for the subwoofer, but we also have a
bunch of other stuff. Yeah. So, like many other Bose products, this requires
a sort of proprietary power system because this uses DSP, digital signal
processing, to make it sound a certain way. It's just a fancy way of saying
they eqed it to make it sound the way they want. So, you couldn't just drop
this thing into any system. You need this. >> You technically could. However, you
would need to know what they did EQ-wise if you want it to sound the way it
should. >> But like, I don't think it's really a normal speaker cuz I have never seen a
speaker that is um 12 ft long. >> It is a normal speaker. You could
actually replace this. It's just got a simple speaker tap on the side. And
this, it's just PVC pipe. Wait, you're saying we spent $1,000 plus however long
it took to get this here for PVC pipe? >> Yes, but it's a lot less than people
would have spent on it in the 80s. >> Was PVC expensive in the 80s?
>> No. Actually, the reason you would build a speaker like this, specifically a
subwoofer, is because this is the cheapest way you could possibly build it.
>> Wow, that's so Bose of them. But that doesn't mean it isn't cool. I mean, who
hasn't wanted to own a cannon? like
>> it's like a freaking base bazooka. >> Yeah. My favorite thing about it is how
compact it is. Something you'll notice about this is it's open on both ends. So
there's not really an enclosure, right? >> Oh yeah. >> That's because this is what's called a
parallel port. Now the way this works is essentially ports. They help make one
bass frequency louder than the rest. And we have one big one and one short one.
So we can kind of combine those and fill out a bigger range of bass. So it's not
just a one note on one trick pony. >> Another benefit, or maybe it's a
downside, a characteristic of having your bass in a long tube is that it
makes it very directional, which means that the bass only goes where you want
it to go. Ideally, this is why the guy
who owned this previously had this actually mounted in his dining room
cabinets, but it blasted all of that sound into his home theater, so it maybe
didn't disturb the dinner guests too much while he was, you know, sitting by
himself watching the Dark Knight for the 1700th time. Usually, bass is
omnidirectional, means it emits in every direction, pierces through walls. That's
why you can hear your neighbors playing loud music. But the way this thing is
canceling sound out is the bass frequencies are so long you measure them
in feet out like this. >> So this you're saying this cancels out
the frequencies. >> Yes. The distance from that port to the
other one is so big that those frequencies overlap in the air and
cancel each other out. So if you're sitting right in front of it, good bass.
But if you're the guy next door, not so good bass.
>> Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Before we do this, I actually want to hear what this is
going to sound like without the tube cuz that way I'm going to know what that
tube do. >> That means we need to figure out what that rat's nest is.
>> Wo. >> Oh yeah, that is an extra driver.
>> Useful if you know you blow one up. >> Do you think we're going to do that? >> I hope not. But it's not outside of the
scope of possibility. So I don't want to make any promises. >> We're going to blow it up. >> So this thing's weird. Like a lot of
things were in the 1980s audio wise. It takes balanced inputs on these XLRs.
It's just weird seeing it wired for it on binding posts that then go out to
XLRs. >> Yeah, why not just XLR the whole way?
>> Why not? Indeed. I'm going to take this
uh thing off of here just because since we're not using it, I don't leave some
bare wires sitting around that might just short out on us. It's just weird
that there's binding posts for everything. I'm not used to seeing binding posts leading out to RCAs. And
why do they have balanced inputs and unbalanced outputs?
What were they thinking here? What was the what was the plan? >> It's almost like you could like give a
press conference from here. I'm John Bose, inventor of the Bose headphones
and Soundwave Cannon. >> You want an overpriced box, we got you
covered. Sweet. So, now we should be able to play something on this. >> Yes. I'm going to set this beautiful
thing right here on top. Oh yeah, look
at that. Why are you not making sound? Why have you forsaken me? Bass tube.
>> Hey, >> it's doing a little bit. >> Update. Turns out that this Bose uh
controller uh doesn't really work. So, we plugged it into this SVS Prime
Wireless Pro Sound Base and plugged that directly into the subwoofer. And would
you know it, it works. I'm tired, boss.
>> That's noise coming from me adjusting the knob here.
>> Well, it's got some peaks. >> Yeah,
>> there's the That's the frequency of the tube. It's sitting right there.
>> Is it making that? >> It's resonating off this. Do you want to
just sit on a couch and see if >> Do we want to rotate it so that it fits?
>> Fits where? >> Directly. So it faces the couch. >> Oh, you should. This is actually the
correct orientation. >> What? >> Yeah. >> What? So
>> you don't you don't want to be in front of it. >> You don't want to You technically want to be on this side.
>> Why? >> If you are
on this side, you're going to be farther from one side to the other. You're going to get more phase cancellation.
>> Oh. So technically this is the correct side according to the maths
>> cuz what you want to do is launch the sound that way it disperses within the
room. >> It's coming out both sides. >> Oh. Oh. Oh, I get it now. It's the
parallel port. I get what you're saying. >> Yes. Which means there should be spots
when we're walking around on the sides when it should just cancel out and sound
weird. >> It's not very bassy.
>> It's not that bassy. What the hell is this? >> Let's find the right side of it.
But you just walk around and it disappears. >> Yeah, it sounds like a Google Home.
>> You see why these didn't really catch on? >> But I mean, if you built them into a
bespoke environment, would it could work? >> If you had a space designed specifically
where you're trying to only get bass in one spot, that would work great for it,
>> which seems like a a lot when you have other solutions like just making a
bigger subwoofer. But a true sign of a good subwoofer is how it integrates into
an audio system. So DMS hooked us up with these amazing SVS Ultra Evolution.
It sounds like a Goku type thing. It's basically the endgame for a lot of
speakers. These things are crazy. How we
got like what are these 8 in drivers? >> Subwoofer. Subwoofer. Subwoofer.
Subwoofer. I think this will probably produce more bass than the tube does.
>> Bro, don't tell me that. Don't tell me that. We spent so much time getting the
tube. Oh,
okay. Let's try it. We got the We got the tower set up. We got the Bose
acoustic wave cannon set up. Let's see how good it sounds.
Okay. So,
>> yeah. >> What happens if we
>> take out the base cannon? >> My guess, not much.
>> It's honestly just cleaner. It's just cleaner. It's a little bit less
boominess maybe. No, it's it's just
better. >> Yeah, it's just better. >> It just sounds better. >> I feel like a I feel like a [ __ ]
idiot.
>> Our suffering is other people's >> so excited about this bass cannon and
it's garbage. >> Honestly, the tube is still a little bit better than I thought it would be.
>> Really? >> Yeah. >> Better. You thought it was You had low expectations. >> Speakers weren't that good in the 80s.
>> I feel like everyone's talking about like, "Oh, my dad's like 70s hi-fi speakers are so good." Yeah, but '7s
hi-fi in most cases, the vast majority of cases, is not nearly as good as like
$100 modern speakers on Amazon. But generally speaking, things were not very
progressed acoustically in the 80s. >> Dad, don't watch this. They're not that
good. You haven't written it yet, but I heard your comments. You're saying, why
would they test that subwoofer in a big warehouse? That's not even like a good
use case for it. So, we decided to bring it to the lounge where it's a more m
normalsiz space and probably something that's kind of relevant to this actual
use case. Probably a pretty big room for a house, but a reasonable size for a
community space. So, we think that this is a more fair representation. This is a
>> 88 in TV. >> It's a lot of TV. >> And look at how big the tube is.
>> It looks like almost two of that TV. >> It's It's so stupid. Okay, but let's
hear how it sounds. Let's play it. All right, >> we're not here for the TV. >> I have no idea how loud this is.
Can I give it more juice?
>> It sounds a lot better in here. >> Yeah, significantly. So, I don't think
that it could pressurize that warehouse, but in a room of this size, I mean, it
works, >> but it doesn't really have like a lot of like rumble. Like, it it felt like I
could hear bass. >> Yeah. >> But I wasn't feeling it. >> It sounds more like a woofer than a
subwoofer. I would say even in a room this size, it's a bit cumbersome still.
Um, do you want to compare it to like a normal sub?
>> We're now listening on the 10-in Mackie sub. >> Yeah.
>> So, funny enough, the Wave Cannon actually did sound a little bit deeper.
>> Yeah, I was thinking that. I think the Mackie sounded tighter.
>> I do think as a whole the Mackie sounds better to me. Yeah, but I felt like I
got more of the bass experience from the Canon here. >> Yeah. Surprising.
>> I mean, again, this is a 12-in woofer.
That's a 10-in woofer. >> A 10-in woofer in like a 1 ft box versus
a 12-in woofer and a 14 ft tube.
>> So, like they both have their strengths. Would I say that it would make sense to
implement this 12in 15 or 12t long 12-in
subwoofer versus that tiny compact 10 in? Absolutely not. There's no
deployment. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Where I would be like like if if you really needed it, just get another one
of those. >> Yeah. And in the situations where these were manufactured for where you would
like stack them, that might actually do some cool stuff.
>> I Yeah. >> But for the amount of space it takes up and how much it would have cost at the
time. >> Let's go back to Labs and compare this
against another subwoofer. >> This is the SVS PB17 Ultra Evolution.
Holy sh. It's insane. >> It is.
>> It's like >> even tapping on it. Listen.
>> It's like the size of a mini fridge. >> Yes. These are about 165 lbs a piece and
6,000 W. And we have two of them. >> So, these have a 17in woofer, whereas
this thing only had a 12-in woofer. >> Yes. And the magnets on these things go
back to like here. >> That's
>> It doesn't It's adjust to the scale of this thing. Here's a 10-in subwoofer for
scale. >> And this is what we would call like a pretty good subwoofer.
>> Yeah, that's pretty beefy. You want enough bass to fight God?
>> I want to hear this. We got to hear it.
It sounds terrible. It's so much base.
It's at half. Yeah,
it's at half. For reference, the speakers are all the way over there
pointing in a different direction. And this is causing
the robotic arm to sense force. Where?
Holy crap.
Oh my god.
Yeah.
>> Holy [ __ ] >> That was like the whole building like
the the AC and the the the LED wall.
>> Yes. >> Try one more thing. >> Two things.
>> I've seen people put four of these in their houses before.
>> This is crazy. It's so much. It feels like a theater. Yeah,
>> I like how this video was supposed to be about this Bose acoustic wave cannon,
but it ended up just being like, "Wow, look at these SVS subs." >> Yeah. And realistically, again, I don't
I don't think anybody needs this specifically. I feel like someone could
get by just fine with like a $400 SVS sub and that would be insane.
>> Yeah. They probably need these SVS subs about as badly as they need the Acoustic
Wave Cannon system. >> Yes. >> So, in that sense, this is almost the perfect comparison.
>> It really is. They're both needless and you can
probably satisfy anything that you need with a very very affordable and
effective option. Actually, we'll have some good subwoofer recommendations from
DMS himself down linked below. >> But if you wanted to go absolutely
insane with it, >> no better way. >> This is the way. Yeah.
>> Skip the tube. Get the 17in subs.
>> Yep. Slap these in a home theater. run
them at a very low volume to protect what little hearing you're gonna have left after like one meeting.
>> Wonder how much productivity we've destroyed today in Labs since they're
like right there. >> I warned them. >> Just to give the Canon as fair of a
chance as I possibly could, I set up a low pass filter and then did some DSP
tuning by ear to try and match what they're doing with this guy. It's not
going to be perfect, but honestly, it's a big improvement over where we were at.
I don't know exactly what sort of DSP curve they're applying here, but if I
had to guess, it's probably close to what I just did digitally. >> Yeah, I can like feel the pressure in my
ears. I don't like feel it, though.
>> That's a bass tube.
>> That's bass tube.
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We'll have that linked in the video description. Thanks for watching this
video. Thanks to DMS for coming out and helping us out. And thanks to SVS for
sending over those speakers. And uh if you like this video, why don't you check
out uh the fire truck that we can put some crazy subs in there, give it a
whole sound system upgrade. Now that now that truck is fire. That joke was
probably made in the video. I probably not the first one to make that. >> That's pretty good though.
>> I know it is good. Joke's so nice. We made it twice.