Monitor Audio Vestra W10 subwoofer review

There was a time when adding a subwoofer to two channel hifi was like having a guilty secret. Frowned upon by stereo purists, these were the preserve of surround sound and home cinema fans, seeking low frequency thrills.

Thankfully times and tastes have changed, and so too have our home audio needs. Many folks now want greater low end grunt in their listening environment, perhaps to offset a challenging space or to add more bass to a smaller stereo system that may, for example, be based around bookshelf speakers due to limited space. The point being playing to the benefits of what a subwoofer can offer in more tailored ways is now the norm, rather than simply dialling in a load more bass while compromising the overall sound.

This means that what was once just a product aimed at certain buyers, subs are now much more mainstream across all walks of hifi – and our systems are all the better for it.

I’ll confess to having a subwoofer within my two channel system for a few years (having never felt the need to make the leap to 5.1 or 7.1). It’s not always in use, but it’s there for when my system and entertainment needs demand it.

It’s also expensive. So when Monitor Audio announced the new Vestra trio of more affordable options we couldn’t wait to put them to the test in an equally matched system. Regular readers will be aware that MA has been on a mission of late, updating many of its speaker ranges (from entry to hi-end) while also setting a new direction for long-respected sister brand Roksan, meaning it can offer a full system (with Blok racks to boot, should you need some hifi furniture to host it all). It’s also no stranger to subwoofers, already offering the Anthra series starting at £1,650, alongside the Bronze W10 6G at £650.

Bargain threesome

What the new Vestra range does is offer more options at lower prices, with all three new models costing less than a grand each. The Vestra W10 on test here is the cheapest at £600 and also the smallest of the three at around 300mm in each direction, boasting a 254mm (or 10″ in old money) front firing drive unit. The W12 is next up at £750 with a 12″ drive unit, while the W15 model at £900 packs (you guessed it) a 15″ woofer, with the former two being sealed box designs and the latter ported.

And this being Monitor Audio, those drive units are no run of the mill affairs. Instead you get MA’s C-CAM (Ceramic Coated Aluminium Magnesium) driver cones which boast ‘advanced high-linear excursions’, making them more resistant to bending stress, while offering increased reliability and accuracy. It’s a material that MA has been developing for years and similar to that used across its Bronze and Silver speaker ranges, albeit without the heavily textured finish.

Behind its C-CAM cone the W10 boasts a new motor system with uprated venting and larger, round-wound high purity copper wire voice coils. Finite Element Analysis optimisation has also been applied to its steel components, for improved consistency of its magnetic gap to reduce distortion.

And speaking of power handling capabilities, this sub needs it, as inside its fully braced 15mm thick MDF cabinet (21mm for the front baffle) nests a 250W Class D amplifier and custom power supply that’s uniquely optimised for the W10 model (with the W12 and W15 models getting a larger 500W version).

Features are what you’d expect, including single-ended stereo and LFE RCAs alongside a 12V trigger jack. There’s no balanced/XLR input, but I wouldn’t expect it at this price. Other controls include 0-180° phase switching, an auto on/off mode and three sound modes to set its internal DSP to ‘impact’, ‘movie’ or ‘music’ mode, plus two rotary dials for volume and crossover matching.

Lifting the Vestra W10 from its box reveals a solid but manageable heft at 13.4kg. Its vinyl clad carcass is nicely finished, while its reinforced speaker grille affixes with reassuring grip via four chunky pins, which is exactly what you want in use. And while this may sound obvious, I’ve experienced more than a few subs in recent years with front grilles that for me don’t attach firmly enough, given the frequencies they’re exposed to, which seems a common oversight.

The W10’s threaded rubber domed feet follow in a similar vein. They’re nothing fancy by exotic hi-end standards, but they do the job as you’d want, anchoring the sub firmly while preventing your floor or the sub’s underside getting marked.

Performance

Given its affordable price point, partnering the Vestra W10 with speakers in a similar bracket gives the best real world results for what to expect. Dynuadio’s Emit 10 are an obvious choice, powered by a Rotel Michi X5 amp fed from its sub out socket, and with a Primare NP5 Prisma Mk2 streamer installed in my average sized living room.

Set-up is easy enough for experienced sub users as well as newbies. Once powered up and connected, your next step is to get the phasing right (based on whichever sounds loudest or ‘fullest’) and then tweak the volume and crossover levels. To do this, once I can hear the sub’s contribution via its volume dial, my rule of thumb tends to be to tweak the crossover dial until I can hear the sub’s frequencies starting to overlap a loudspeaker’s lower bass notes and upwards, and then knock it back a tad, followed by adjusting volume to avoid the sub’s sonics dominating the lower registers.

Kicking off with some obviously bass heavy material via London Grammar’s Hey Now at 24-bit/44kHz FLAC over Tidal reveals the Vestra W10 to be a capable yet subtle performer. It’s not a sub that fights for attention as many are at this price, which favour boom by the bucketload in a manner that can give decent subs a bad name.

Instead the W10’s sonic signature is of a more composed nature. This track will give most stereo speakers a decent workout in the bass stakes without seeming to need to revert to a sub. But with the W10 in play the contribution of those subsonic frequencies can be felt as well as heard. They’re nicely rounded and full of weight without sounding bloated or unnatural in the mix, instead they enhance the track, rather than shift its focus – which is exactly as you want it.

Don’t know what you got ’til its gone

Flicking between the audio modes and the differences they bring aren’t overly distinct from each other, with ‘impact’ sounding that bit more punchy and ‘movie’ mode sounding a bit deeper and looser at the extremes. Overall my preference is for ‘music’ mode as the most transparent and balanced of the three. What pays far more dividends through is tweaking the volume and crossover points to get the W10 just where you want it in the mix. In my room (which is average sized and with plenty of flat surfaces) I was just under half way on most material in terms of volume, where I felt the music benefitted the most from the W10.

And while it sounds like a contradiction the the most notable difference the W10 made was when I powered it down during A-B testing, which really hammered home it’s contribution and how much I’d been missing without it!

Ondara’s Spanish Villager No.3 album at 24-bit/96kHz is a real point in case. Spinning through this album and then taking the Monitor Audio out of the mix has me craving the return of the way it seems to suck the air from the room within the rhythmic bars of opener An Alien In Minneapolis. Even with less obvious bass heavy tracks such as A Seasonable Amnesia and that opening bass note at 18 seconds in sounds frankly flat without the W10 in the mix. Adding it back in and there’s a textured loveliness to those bass notes that’s big-smile inducing. As a partner to similar sized standmount speakers in two channel systems, this is an ideal roommate.

In summary

With its quality drive unit and accomplished internal electronics this is a great value sub that will delight music and movie fans alike at the price. Ideal for smaller/budget system and those making their first step into subwoofer territory, genuine hifi pedigree to back it up. Superb value.