Velodyne MiniVee Introduction

Last year when I reviewed the Velodyne MicroVee, a question was left in my mind of how it would directly compare against their very own slightly larger, and less costly, MiniVee.  The MiniVee is a sealed 8" subwoofer design with a hulking 1000 watt amplifier. Not fully realizing that we already reviewed a near-clone of the MiniVee via the Chrysalis Acoustics Photon-8 (identical performance, different cosmetics), I requested a review sample. This gave me the opportunity to directly compare a MicroVee and MiniVee under the same test conditions and listening environment. 

Is this sub evil enough to satisfy Dr. Evil or will it become the illegitimate step child?  You're gonna have to read on to find out.

Design Overview

The Velodyne MiniVee, like most upper echelon Velodyne products cabinet features beautiful radiused edges. The driver is internally mounted with no visible mounting screws and recessed into the baffle. The black cloth grille sits flush on the front baffle with a cutout displaying the Velodyne badge top and center. The MiniVee sports 4 rubber mounting feet with no provisions for carpet spikes. 

The MiniVee comes in only one finish option which is a dullish black.  It certainly lacks the charm of a real wood veneer, but given its small footprint and ease to blend into any nook or cranny of a room, it can easily be tucked away to be "heard but not seen" as my late uncle used to say about children, or was it the other way around?  Hmm...

Velodyne MiniVee Backpanel View

The rear of the unit is home to the typical mounting plate for the amplifier and controls you find on most powered subwoofer products. To the left side is a large rocker styled master power switch and a non-detachable power cord.  It's kinda a bummer Velodyne didn't make the power cord detachable.   To the right side of the plate amp are all the controls and inputs. These controls include two knobs allowing continuously variable settings for volume and the low pass crossover frequency. There are toggle switches for activating the auto on/off feature, the internal crossover, and setting the subwoofer phase between 0 and 180 degrees. Below the controls are two pairs of gold plated RCA connections for line level input and output as well as two pairs of five way binding posts for speaker level input.  There are no speaker level outputs. For those analog two-channel buffs wanting to apply bass management to their satellite speakers, you will need to do so via other means. 

The internal crossover system for signal input is adjustable from 40 to 120 Hz and uses staged for low pass filtering that according to Velodyne varies between 12 dB/octave at the crossover frequency to 48dB/octave above the crossover frequency. The line level output is fixed at 80Hz with a 6dB/octave slope

The driver used in the Photon-8 has an 8 inch outside diameter with an actually 6.5 inch effective piston diameter. The cone itself is a composite resin that is reinforced with Kevlar fibers and is mounted to the frame with an oversized EPDM rubber surround while the internal suspension is said to use an oversized spider, both to accommodate high excursion but retain linearity.

The motor structure on the back of that cone is also appreciably oversized. The magnet structure weighs in at 204 oz (12.7 lbs) that effectively constitutes fully 1/3 of the entire subwoofer system's weight and weighs more than some comparably sized subwoofer systems. In between the cone and that magnet is a high temperature, 2.5” diameter, dual wound coil. Coupled with a cast aluminum basket frame and we have the makings of what should prove to be a very potent little driver.

The MiniVee is not video shielded but this is an ever diminishing problem in this era of post CRT display technologies. If video shielding is an important consideration the MiniVee-10 is shielded, which provides an accommodating option in the product line.

The Velodyne MiniVee also boasts a digitally controlled class D amplifier (up to 95% claimed efficiency at full load) section that is said to deliver 1000 watts rms power and 2000 watts dynamic power.  The amplifier, which is separated into two sections, occupies the entire back plate. One board dedicated to the power supply supporting the transformer and main fuses. The second tiered board supports the preamp functions and six 470 microFarad, 200 V power supply capacitors. There is a small heat sink to the side of the capacitors while the majority of the circuitry lives under a grilled metal housing to reduce radiated RFI noise inherent in high frequency switching amp designs. Based on the power consumption rating of 8 amperes listed on the back of the unit at the standard 120 volts we get a power rating of P = 0.95(8A * 120V) = 912 watts which is close enough to the 1000 watt rating that with a slo-blow fuse leaves little to suspect the rated power of the amplifier.

Both the amplifier and driver feature overload protection circuitry. The driver is digitally controlled with a current limiting driver servo to limit distortion by prevent clipping and over excursion. The amplifier section has thermal protection as well as protection against excessive voltage drops.  As you will see in our measurements section, this little sub is unbreakable. 

Velodyne MiniVee Internal View

Disassembly of the MiniVee to reveal the internals can only (safely) occur through the rear amplifier plate, which is secured with 10 wood screws around the perimeter. Inside the cabinet, fiber batting is wrapped around the outside faces of the cube and a second piece separates the driver from the electronics mounted to the back. The cabinet itself is constructed of 1/2” MDF with glued joints and triangular wedges used to reinforce the outside corners.  The driver is secured down with metal clamps.  It's obvious Velodyne designed this sub to be rattle-free at even the highest power levels.

Set-Up & Installation

I tried the MiniVee in several locations in my office, but found it blended best with my speakers when placed on the floor below the left speaker and flush to my desk.  I tried placing it under my desktop by my feet but it produced such a large tactile response that it seemed artificial when listening to bass-intense music.  The MiniVee was connected to my EMP VT40.2 Hybrid Tube Amp Speaker System via speaker level paralleled to the 41-SE/B speakers.  I found the line level outputs of the VT-40.2 amp to be about 10dB too hot for this sub which caused it to reach excessively high output when the volume control on the sub was set any higher than a finger nail thickness from zero.  A more graduated level adjustment would have been appreciated.  I was unable to make coarse level adjustments using the volume control because the sub reached a high gain state with the volume barely turned a few clicks past minimum regardless of what source device I connected to it.  When using speaker level connections to my EMP VT40.2, I still only needed to set the master volume of the MiniVee just below 1/3 up from zero to reach the right output level for my listening setup.  The volume control was quite finicky and I wished Velodyne would have instead employed a stepped potentiometer so you could lock your setting in place without fear of being blown off your chair because the volume control got accidentally bumped higher when you were moving the sub to do some spring cleaning. 

Because of the premature rolloff above 70Hz of the MiniVee, I found running it full-range with no bass management worked best in my situation.  The added output in the 70-100Hz region running the sub full-range really helped to provide the much needed bass fill for my desktop speakers.