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well what I got here? This subwoofer needs no introduction but I’m going to do it anyway. This is the JL audio F112 Fathom and I’ve wanted one of these subwoofers for over 10 years had this for about two months now for those of you that have been following along we’ve been through a lot together in those past two months but it’s here. It’s working and it’s a heck of a subwoofer and today I’m going to tell you a little bit about it what it’s been like living with it music movies how it compares to other subwoofers and I’ll try to answer the question of why do these things get so much love from audiophiles and are they worth the high price tag so stick around hey guys if you like this kind of content you want to see. More please consider subscribing give the video a thumbs up and leave a comment below and let me know what you think I love connecting with all you guys and definitely appreciate all of your support so thank you so much and let’s get on with the review so to start off. I wanted to give you just some quick background history and context about this subwoofer.

In Particular Jl Audio And The

driver found in 1975 company’s been around for a long time really well known in car audio. In fact, I had a 500 one in a 10W 6 and a custom enclosure back in the day when I was in a car audio. In 2001 they came out with the JL Audio W7 Subwoofer driver, which is what this driver is based off of and it’s got like six patents that uses a very distinctive overall surround. This is a treated foam surround for really really massive excursion and more cone surface area and that subwoofer was really successful in car audio. They use it in competitions and really you know really high sound quality people love them.

They Sold Tons Of Them Made Lots Of

money and they invested that money into starting a home audio business right and so the phantom Subwoofers were their first foray into that market now when they first came out in 2000. Roughly around 2004. I think they had two models. The F-112, which is here and the F-113, which is the larger version which uses a 13-and-a half-inch woofer and you would think oh well. They had the w7 want to just drop it in here and call it a day well.

No They Didnt Quite Do Didnt

quite do that you see with these subwoofers because of the amount of power and the enclosure needing to be very compact and the demands of home theater they actually beefed up the driver quite quite substantially i’ll show you a picture on the left is the normal you know W7 woofer and on the right is the modified W7 woofer that they use for the fathom home audio subwoofers and it’s got a larger magnet different spider suspension structure. All that’s been changed to accommodate the increased demands that you see for the the home theater and home audio application back in the day I think they’re around twenty-eight hundred dollars today. If you want a new F-112 you’re looking at four grand so certainly not um a budget option well what are we working with here well first of all it’s a sealed enclosure made. three-quarter inch MDF fairly solid weighs 115 pounds , so it’s it’s heavy. It’s dense and it uses a single driver.

Its About 18.

5 inches high by 15 inches wide and 17 and a half inches deep, so it’s fairly compact JL rates. This subwoofer extending from 150 Hertz all the way down to 19 Hertz plus or minus three Decibels. Usually these specs are a little conservative, and you can expect a bit lower extension more output in an actual room where you have the room to factor in and contribute to the base response. Let’s spend a little bit of time talking about the driver because let’s face it that’s that’s really the star of the show right and this is a quite a remarkable piece of engineering.

Weighs Nearly 50 Pounds Right And It

uses this really thick distinctive surround that actually like I said extends. the dimensions of the basket and what that allows is for more surface area of cone and more excursion and by excursion. We we mean how far the driver moves in and out jail audio claims three inches at least three inches peak-to-peak excursion potentially more during transients. What you’ll see also on the front are some of the controls now. The controls are really really critical for dialing in the subwoofer and getting it to blend right that’s one of the biggest challenges with integrating a subwoofer.

One Of The Main Reasons Why People Get

frustrated with subs is because it’s hard to dial them in well. The fathom has a lot of really good controls and it’s really easy to access because it’s on the front panel as opposed to having to reach back with a flashlight or fumbling around where you can’t see it on the back. Don’t know why more subwoofer manufacturers Don’t do this so really nice controls and this is all this is all either aluminum or stainless steel. I think it’s aluminum very very well damped and high quality powering that massive 12-inch woofer up front is a 1 500 watt class D switching amplifier class D means it runs very cool and that’s why when you’ve been running this thing on a movie or music all day. These heat sinks barely even register.

I Mean Theyre You Know They They Typically

stay room temperature I’ve never felt them get even barely warm um so that it definitely has a lot of thermal capacity. So there are actually two versions of the JL audio Fathom subwoofer. There’s the V1, which is this guy and there’s the V2, which came out I think a couple years ago. The main differences are in the driver. amplifier and the software for the room optimization.

This One Here Uses A Single Band

auto eq basically so you’ve got a microphone connects via an XLR input. Here you calibrate it. It sends out a series of test tones and it listens and it finds the the worst defending one and it attenuates it. The V2 has a much more sophisticated version of that. I believe it’s either 15 or 18 bands of of optimization that they’re able to correct in those frequencies and the amplifiers also been improved.

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Theyve Increased The Power By About 15

to 20 percent, and also they um upgraded some of the components in the woofers to allow for just a little bit better performance all right so now the fun part how did this thing sound I’m going to break this out into two parts. First part is going to be movies second. part is going to be music for movies. I use this for family movie night several several weekends in a row and three movies in particular really stood out to me Avatar Reyen, the Last Dragon and Disney‘s onward awesome awesome movies. I highly recommend them not just for the content but also for the low frequency effects.

They Actually Have A Ton Of Bass And

they turned out to be really great material to put this thing through its paces. The subwoofer definitely did not disappoint. In fact, it exceeded my expectations for a subwoofer that’s relatively compact with a single 12–inch driver very gifted 12-inch driver. This subwoofer was phenomenal the way that this thing disappears is another really really impressive characteristic far better than any other subwoofer. I’ve had in my home and that i’ve heard recently bass appears and materializes out of thin air and then.

You Could Have Some Of The

quietest passages like an avatar when they’re just kind of walking through the forest and all of a sudden. Some like giant monster jumps out immediately the base is there it’s in your room that thing is in your room when I was watching Avatar. I actually spent probably half the time just looking at the driver and seeing that thing move the way that that just kind of comes out the three inches of excursion you can you can really see it’s working hard but it never sounded stress it never sounds like it’s struggling and part of that’s due to the extensive engineering and design of this driver. Right for that kind of environment and the amount of power that the amp can put out right to make a lot of base. You need a lot of clean power.

You Dont.

Want to have that woofer struggling you don’t want to have the amp feel like it’s dying it’s cho you know it’s getting choked out. This subwoofer had no problem. Whatsoever on movies with deep bass extended bass loud passages soft passages. I mean it did everything that any of my other subwoofers did but in a much smaller package and that to me is the most impressive.

Part About The Subwoofer For Home Theater

you know there’s a lot of complexity with bass in in movies right there’s a lot of chaos. There’s a lot of just you know seemingly random periods of loudness and quietness and more loudness and you know varying degrees of intensity Happening very quickly and this subwoofer really excels at that it just moves so fast. It’s so effortless you know it kind of reminds me almost of you know listening to a pair of electrostatic speakers. You know that it’s that that that speed that transparency that’s what I was getting with the subwoofer in movies and in some of the some of the sounds. Some of the soundtracks.

Some Of The Music That Goes Along With

those movies too. I will say the only thing that I thought was missing from some of these movies was that that final lowest you know subterranean bass frequency you know and we’re talking like below 16 hertz probably that’s really where um the paradigm sub one with its six eight inch woofers kinda takes over um you know there’s only so much that a single 12 even even this this 12 can do output wise. I would say that for home theater this subwoofer. Probably reminds me the most of my 15 inch you know Dayton audio high output woofer that subwoofer They’re about on par in terms of just a raw output extension.

Wise.

I’d probably put it halfway between that subwoofer and the paradigm sub 1. so after that I moved it back into my two channel room which is this room. I’m sitting in now and I connected it to my Dynaudio C1s and I swapped it out for the the Martin Logan Depth eye, which today has been my reference music subwoofer.

Its A Really Fantastic Servo Subwoofer With

three eight inch woofers so can the fathom If it did so well in home theater can it do equally as well. In two channel hi-fi audio and the answer is a resounding yes a hundred percent. This is probably going to be my new reference two channel audio subwoofer It’s. close tie between the the the depth line.

Ill Get Into That In A Little Bit

the way that this subwoofer blends in with these C ones in my room is it’s astounding I didn’t even have to run the aro. I found that it was unnecessary it didn’t make too much of a difference. I used the 12 db slope.

Summary

This is the JL audio F112 Fathom and I’ve wanted one of these subwoofers for over 10 years had this for about two months now . Today I’ll try to answer the question of why do these things get so much love from audiophiles and are they worth the high price tag so stick around for the video . Please consider subscribing give the video a thumbs up and leave a comment below and let me know what you think I love connecting with all you guys and definitely appreciate all of your support so thank you so much and let’s get on with the review so to start off with this subwoofer . JL Audio W7 Subwoofer driver is based off of and it’s got like six patents that uses a very distinctive overall surround. This is a treated foam surround for really really massive excursion and more than a subwowoofer was really successful in car audio. They use it in competitions and really you know really high sound quality people love them….. Click here to read more and watch the full video