The Velodyne Impact 10 has the smallest cabinet of any home subwoofer we tested, so it’s easy to find an inconspicuous place to put it where it still sounds good, even in a small entertainment room. The subwoofer has a down-firing port, which helped it perform well in the music portion of our listening test. This is a good subwoofer option if you’re looking for subtle and accurate low-end reinforcement in your small- or medium-size room entertainment room.
This subwoofer’s amplifier delivers 150 watts of continuous power. That’s below average for the subwoofers we tested, but it makes the Impact 10 a good sub to pair with smaller main speakers like a sound bar or bookshelf speakers.
It also makes this Velodyne subwoofer a good choice if you plan on using your speaker system to listen to music. The Impact 10 scored well in our acoustic and electronic music tests. Playing music doesn’t push a subwoofer quite as much as watching action movies, but it still requires accurate and efficient low-end response. The Impact 10 delivered just the right amount of bass without drowning out the high frequencies across every genre of music we played during our testing.
Any frequency above a subwoofer’s crossover point is sent to other speakers, and this Velodyne model’s can be set between 50Hz and 200Hz. You can optimize the Impact 10’s crossover using a dial on its back side. The woofer’s speaker level inputs and outputs are also located on the back, and they are used to connect it to an older receiver that doesn’t have a dedicated LFE or subwoofer output connection.
We evaluated the quality of each company’s help and support, and Velodyne ranked among the worst. The Impact 10’s two-year warranty is shorter than average, though it should still give you enough time to find any defects in manufacturing or workmanship. The only way we found to ask a product question was through an email form on the company’s website, and it took three business days to receive an answer. Most subwoofer manufacturers like Polk Audio and Yamaha offer phone support, and representatives from those companies typically answered our emails within 24 hours.
