VENOM-HD12

Today, we're reviewing a highly unconventional subwoofer for the AurA brand. It's designed not for quantity, but for bass quality—built according to classic Sound Quality principles. Looking ahead, it'll be a great fit for systems even higher than you'd expect at its price. It's even worth considering for competitive projects.

The model, called the AurA Venom-HD12 , was released quite recently. At the time of testing, the price of this subwoofer was 16,390 rubles. Not to be confused with the AurA Venom-12 (which doesn't have the "HD" in its name), which is closer to the "heavyweights" in its concept.

First acquaintance, design features

The speaker is mounted on a cast aluminum frame, and the initial impression is very good. The soft sealing gasket on the underside of the flange seems to be an additional measure of installation quality.

The engine is clearly marked, hinting that our people, who have considerable authority in Car Audio, were involved in the development of the Venom-HD12. And they don't put their signature on just any product.

The diffuser is interesting – it's double-layered. The front surface is woven fiberglass. The cap is plastic, but the texture mimics the woven pattern.

From the back, the material looks like unpressed cellulose, but the cone isn't particularly thick. However, it's surprisingly stiff—bending the cone with your fingers is a little more difficult than you'd expect given its thickness.

The motor is assembled on a ferrite ring with a diameter of almost 15 cm and a height of 2.5 cm. To increase the mechanical stroke, the lower washer of the magnetic circuit has a groove. It is indeed impossible to compress the diffuser until the coil touches it.

The voice coil has a 2-inch gauge and is wound with copper wire. There's no winding length data, but the gap height (judging by the thickness of the upper magnetic core washer) is 9 mm. This is good, as the more turns of the coil in the gap, the better the amplifier's control of the subwoofer (more precisely, the ratio of the number of turns in the gap to the total number of turns is important).

The feeders are mounted on traditional cables and secured to the rear of the diffuser. There is no contact with the diffuser itself or the centering washer at high strokes.

Measurement of parameters and analysis of work

In short, the speaker has soft surrounds (I'm not just talking about the top surround, but the spider as well) – that's one. The excursion isn't too heavy for today's standards – that's two. And the motor is powerful enough to handle it easily – that's three. As a result, we have decent signal responsiveness and, accordingly, quite decent sensitivity by subwoofer standards.

Declared/actual parameters of Venom-HD12:

• Fs (natural resonant frequency) – 32 Hz / 29 Hz
• Vas (equivalent volume) – 53 l / 60 l
• Qms (mechanical quality factor) – 9.72 / 7.04
• Qes (electrical quality factor) – 0.55 / 0.47
• Qts (total quality factor) – 0.52 / 0.44
• Mms (effective mass of the moving system) – 175 g / 188 g
• BL (electromechanical coupling coefficient) – 16.5 T m / 17.4 T m*
• Re (DC resistance) – 4.2 Ohm / 4.1 Ohm*
• dBspl (reference sensitivity, 1 m, 1 W) – 88.0 dB / 87.2 dB

* – when the coils are connected in series

A feature I noticed while still warming up the speaker was the almost complete absence of overtones at significant cone excursions, only a pure tone (often accompanied by aerodynamic noise or the ringing of certain structural elements). In this regard, the Venom-HD12 can be considered quite successful.

The multilayer construction of the cone's cone section has yielded results—no signs of breakage, the cone operates like a piston. Even the central dome doesn't ring, as is often the case. And the absence of mechanical overtones means a lack of bass coloration.

In terms of harmonic distortion, everything is also decent and worthy of even more expensive subwoofers – THD only exceeds 1% below 40 Hz, and even at 30 Hz it barely reaches 3%. Overall, the motor's symmetry and linearity are very good.

Calculation of acoustic design

The description doesn't provide any case recommendations, so I'll be modeling based on my measured parameters. Fortunately, they aren't that significantly different from the stated ones. As always, the interior's influence is taken into account using Tom Newsen's averaged specifications.

I'd consider the ZY as my primary option—the speaker handles 30 liters of volume very well, which is quite adequate for a 12-inch speaker. Moreover, the low resonant frequency in the cabin allows for a slight acoustic boost in the meatiest frequency range. You can tighten it up a bit (down to 20 liters net), but at the cost of slightly thicker bass texture.

A bass-reflex enclosure is also a viable option, but the subwoofer is a bit of a special case. With such a low Fs, setting the port high can be dangerous (to avoid accidentally unwinding the driver), and with a low port setting, all the steam goes down to the region below 40 Hz. So, it's more for fans of "brrrr" and other rap tunes and tactile stimulation of the liver.

So, the ZYa seems like the most versatile and rational option. Moreover, many ready-made enclosures have a volume of 30 liters, making it possible to get a good SQ subwoofer with minimal investment.

Test drive and conclusions. Which tasks should it be used for?

To be on the safe side, I dragged the speaker into the garage, mounted it in a test storage container, and adjusted the volume to approximately the required 30 liters. I listened to it as usual, replacing my subwoofer with some minor adjustments.

The conclusion is clear: the Venom-HD12 not only plays well, but does so with surprising clarity. It doesn't hammer away at a single note, but delivers a well-articulated and taut, yet not overly dry, bass. It allows you to raise the bass response to around 60-65 Hz without risking a muddy, boomy mess in that range. Very good.

It has good volume linearity—it doesn't stall at low signal levels and doesn't require a ton of power to drive amplifiers. I'd look for powerful 2-channel or monoblock speakers capable of delivering 400-600 watts of undistorted power (taking impedance into account, of course; this subwoofer's nominal impedance is 2+2 ohms).

To summarize. A very successful subwoofer with a responsive character and fast, tight bass. It also extends well into the depths. A good option for a SQ system, and it's not embarrassing to use even in competitive projects on a budget. Although, to be fair, the subwoofer unexpectedly proves worthy of pairing with components in a higher price range.

• Well suited for systems with a focus on SQ
• Worthy of becoming part of a higher price category system
• Genre-universal in ZYA of moderate volume
• Responsive, does not require monoblocks with crowbar power
• It might not be for fans of "valeva" and "davilov"