Arendal Sound 1723 1S & 1V Powered Subwoofers Review

Arendal Sound 1723 1S & 1V Introduction

After having reviewed three of Arendal’s subwoofers, I like to think I am pretty familiar with their design philosophy and performance targets. I have dealt with their massive $3k flagship, 1723 2V, as well as their smallest and most affordable unit, the petite 1961 1S. So then, why review the 1723 1S and 1V if I already have a good grasp on what is in store? There are three reasons.

First, while I know what happens when you double up the 1723 subwoofer driver, I am interested to see what a single 1723 driver can do alone. I am curious to see how it will scale with the 1723 2V; yes, the 2V doubles the driver, but it does not double up on amplifier power or cabinet size, and these will make a difference. This being the case, I would guess that the price/performance scale of Arendal’s subwoofers is probably fairly linear across the board, but I wanted to check that out for myself.

Second, the 1723 2V is an enormously heavy behemoth whose sheer size and weight make it a non-starter for many folks. The 1723 1S and 1V are far more reasonably sized. If you want more subwoofage than the 1961 subs can produce but can’t handle the monster 1723 2V, the 1723 1S and 1V have an answer for you, but what do they bring to the plate?

Third, I also think that the 1723 1S and 1V deserve to be evaluated on their own terms irrespective of Arendal’s other subwoofers. Those shopping for subs at the 1723 1S and 1V’s price range probably aren’t going to be helped a whole lot by reviews of Arendal’s other subs except to get an idea of what their feature set is like and their general build quality. The 1723 1S and 1V should be significantly more powerful than the 1961 1S and 1V but not quite on the level of the 1723 2V, but what does all of that mean? That is what we hope to answer in this review.

Unpacking and Appearance

As usual, Arendal’s packing was exceptionally good. They arrived at my home in heavy-duty boxes that were wrapped in a shipping plastic sheet with the edges covered in security tape. Inside the box, the subs were sandwiched by some thick polyethylene foam pieces and covered in a drawstring sack made from a rayon-type fabric, protecting them from scuffs and moisture. The packing included cotton inspection gloves so that the subs can be removed without getting fingerprints on the finish.

Once unpacked, the 1723 1S and 1V revealed themselves to be a pair of gleaming monoliths with a stylish austerity but not completely minimalist. The units that I was sent had a gloss black finish, and it was a high-quality gloss with no orange-peel texturing that I could see. The vertical edges were beveled which emphasized the height of the subs almost as an architectural styling cue. The lowest inch has a narrow groove that makes it seem like the subs are resting on a base. The cones are sunk into the cabinet with some beveling along with a trim ring to hide the driver frame. The cones themselves have a matte black texture with an Arendal logo printed on a concave dustcap. They can be hidden with a magnetically attached circular grille for those people who just abhor the sight of a loudspeaker cone, but I think these subs look better without the grille. The grille still may be useful in protecting the cones from curious kids who could damage them.

The 1V is substantially larger than the 1S, and most people would consider it a fairly large sub. Although the 1S is not a micro sub by any measure, it is pretty modestly sized, and people who can not handle a big sub would probably find it to be acceptable. The 1S would be a lot easier to hide than the 1V for those who need the sub to be out-of-sight, or at least not very noticeable. The subs can be had in gloss white, gloss black, matte white, and matte black finishes. Arendal’s matte finishes are so nice they really ought to be called satin finishes. Obviously, the gloss finishes are going to be a lot more noticeable than the matte finishes, so if you want the sub to be inconspicuous, go for the matte finish.

Design Analysis

The 1723 1S and 1V share most of the same components and are separated by only one real design feature, but it is a major one: the 1S is a sealed subwoofer and the 1V is a ported subwoofer. However, let’s first go over the shared aspects of these subs before getting into further details of how they differ.

The driver is the same one used in the 1723 V2 that we reviewed, so we will just borrow our description from that article:

The cones are made from a combination of long fiber pulp and fiberglass and are attached to the baskets with a nitrile-butyl rubber surround and a Connex spider. The voice coil has a 2” diameter and uses aluminum wiring around a polyamide former. The basket is a thick stamped steel frame that connects to a beefy motor comprised of a 1 ½” stack of two magnets that are 6” in diameter. There is a heavily bumped-out backplate for longer excursions with reduced risk of hard bottoming, and venting is done under the spider. There are multiple aluminum shorting rings used for reducing inductance. Arendal claims it has a 50% higher excursion than the previous generation of 1723 subwoofers.

The drivers are powered by Arendal’s Avalanche amplifier, a class-D design that is controlled by a 2.6” color LCD screen with a selector knob, a menu button, and an enter button. This enables a lot more control over the sub than the usual array of knobs that most subs use. You can adjust how each input is controlled individually. Aspects of control include different crossover slopes, as well as high-pass slopes, wake-up times and wake-up sensitivities, operating mode selection, and even a 7-band parametric equalizer. Connectivity consists of a pair of RCA inputs and outputs and balanced XLR inputs and outputs. The outputs can be handy for daisy-chaining subs in a multi-sub setup, as well as running the signal to active speakers. A subwoofer needs highly sophisticated processing to deal with all of that, and the Avalanche amp has that with a 32-bit microcontroller. The microcontroller also constantly monitors performance parameters so that the sub is always operating in safe conditions. Some of the parameters monitored include output voltages, power supply rail voltages, and amplifier temperatures. If it senses anything amiss, it immediately shuts down the unit to prevent damage.

All the same settings from the LCD screen on the 1723 1S and 1V subs can be controlled by an app  (on iOS and Android devices), for those who don’t want to have to get up off their sofa to change the settings of the subwoofer. One nice thing about the app is the graphic display of the parametric equalizer, for those who want to see the effect that their changes have on the response. The app also features a test tone for when you want to make sure it can produce a signal and a time delay setting that can be changed by 0.25ms increments out to 50ms, which can come in handy for situations in a multi-sub system where the subs have different distances. The ability to change time delay can synchronize all the subs so that their arrival of sound hits the listening position simultaneously.

With a 7-band parametric equalizer, each Arendal 1723 subwoofer has a great deal of flexibility in taming the response from the inevitable damage inflicted by typical room acoustics. What is more, a multiple 1723 subwoofer system can be globally controlled as subwoofer groups in the Arendal sub app, so that equalization can very easily be extended to multiple units. This is the best way to equalize low frequencies in a multi-sub system, instead of having a different equalization for each sub. That feature, plus the ability to set delays in such fine increments on each sub, essentially does away with the need for external equalization in a multi-sub system altogether. All the user has to do is measure the system response and make the required changes in the app. With this ability, it's worth experimenting with higher-crossover frequencies in a multi-sub system as well, since room modes don't stop at the standard 80Hz crossover frequency. With a multi-sub system, localization from higher crossover frequencies will be less of a concern, since the bass will likely be emanating from several different directions, thereby balancing out any particular localizable source.

As with Arendal’s other products, the enclosures for the 1723 1S and 1V are made from HDF (high-density fiberboard). HDF is stronger than MDF, and as a result, it weighs more, so these subs are not lightweights. In order to compensate for the beveled edge, Arendal has lined the inner edges with sizable inner-edge bracing, so the beveled edges have reinforced structure along that area. The 1V has braces at the midway point in the cabinet in the depth direction and height direction. The slot port adds a lot of additional bracing since it bends at the corner and then goes all the way to the top of the front of the enclosure; it runs parallel with two entire panels. The port is flared at both ends. A port of such an extended length will inevitably have a very deep tuning frequency. The ported design and larger cabinet require a lot more additional bracing for the 1V over the 1S, and all of that extra cabinetry is what accounts for the near-doubling of the weight, 106 lbs vs 54 lbs. There is a good amount of acoustic stuffing lining the walls of the cabinet of both subs to help damp internal pressure waves. The feet are stiff rubber cylindrical pieces with the Arendal logo molded on the bottom, and they should do well at absorbing any cabinet vibrations that the subs might have.

Overall, the design of the 1723 1S and 1V meets the expectations set by the other Arendal subs that we have seen. That bodes well for how the subs will handle real-world use, and since there is no substitute for experience, let’s see how they do in practice…

Listening Sessions

The best placement for a single sub in my room gives me a relatively flat response for an un-EQ’d single subwoofer, with a window of +/- 4dB from 25Hz to 100Hz with no broad dips in important ranges. I placed both subs next to each other in this area. This location trades low-end room gain for a relatively flat response, a worthwhile trade for my tastes. The receiver used was a Marantz AV7705. The crossover was set to 80Hz. The speakers used were Mon Acoustics SuperMon Isobarics powered by a Monoprice Monolith 5x200-watt amplifier.

As always, I will note here that since room acoustics have a huge effect on low frequencies, the way these subwoofers sound in my room at my listening position is not necessarily going to be the way they sound anywhere else for anyone else, so readers would do well to keep that in mind, and not just for this subwoofer in this review but for any subwoofer in any review.

Music Listening

“Bach to the Future” is an album famous for being the last recording of the Notre-Dame Cathedral’s pipe organ before the 2019 fire, which devastated this landmark cathedral. The performance was played by the renowned Oliver Latry, who is immensely talented and has wholly earned his fame. Much as the album’s title alludes to, “Bach to the Future” holds a selection of Bach’s works, but Latry looks at them through the lens of the changes that they have incurred over time. The pieces played are arrangements and transcriptions that Bach’s original works have encountered over the centuries by numerous players and composers rather than attempts at faithful reproductions of Bach’s original compositions. To depart so far from the original works is a bold move in the classical music world, and the recording makes the most of it by showing off the Cavaille-Coll pipe organ’s spectacular capabilities, including those of its massive bass section. It’s a terrific album, but it wouldn’t go easy on weak sound systems at anything above a modest loudness level. I streamed this release in a 24-bit/96kHz resolution on Qobuz.

The recording of “Fugue in G Minor” in this album provides a nice example of the need for a light touch in bass as well as good integration between the speakers and sub. The lower-pitched voice of the repeated melody of this famous piece weaves in and out of the body of the composition, and it dives into subwoofer band frequencies but not with tremendous force. A good sub is needed to not overdo the bass in this particular track. Otherwise, the organ will sound disconnected instead of singular. I gave both subs a go at this track (individually, not simultaneously), and neither sub exhibited any problems in this regard. The following track, the pipe-organ staple “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” brought a more extravagant use of bass, and both subs obliged the recording’s low-frequency tumult. Both the 1S and 1V sounded the same for the tracks that I compared them on in this album; switching between the subs didn’t seem to make any serious audible difference. I reasoned that this album probably didn’t dig deep enough in frequency to exploit the 1723 1V’s port advantage. I wouldn’t have expected any difference outside of the frequency range of the port’s contribution which would have been below 40Hz on the 1V. Hardcore pipe organ devotees will want the 1V, in a choice between the two, for those recordings that dive into the deep end with gusto, but the 1S is certainly no slouch if a smaller sub is needed. Both subs helped to bring the Cavaille-Coll organ back to life by providing a lifelike low-frequency foundation to the monumental instrument’s sound, and organ music lovers are sure to be delighted with either one.

“The Dune Sketchbook” is an interesting album and a must-have for anyone who is a fan of Hans Zimmer’s score for the 2021 film adaptation of “Dune.” It is not simply the score from the movie; rather, it expands upon the film’s music, so there is much here that is new and original. The score is a mixture of choral, orchestral, and synthesizer sounds, and all of these elements are required to convey the scope of the story and setting of “Dune.” Of course, being a large-scale work from Zimmer, it has its fair share of deep bass, and it will keep any subwoofer busy. The sound system that can play this music back at a hearty loudness level is a capable system indeed.

“Dune Sketchbook” hits deep bass hard early on in the first track, “Songs of the Sisters,” with a throbbing bassline that cuts in under a female chant, an appropriate way of signifying the power of the Bene Gesserit, a matriarchal religion with formidable political influence within the Dune universe. I listened to this track on the 1V, and it gave a powerful presentation that had a physical dimension as well as an aural one. Subsequent tracks also had plenty of moments of heavy bass that were authoritatively reproduced by the subs. I alternated the 1S and 1V from track to track, and the difference was subtle. The 1V might have had a bit more force in the lowest notes, but that might have been expectation bias coloring my perception. It was impressive that the smaller sealed 1S sub could keep up so well with its larger, ported brother. The track “Shai-Hulud” did have some very deep bass effects where the subs were more easily differentiated, but both subs delivered a very strong performance. My theater room is not tiny at about 3,500 cubic feet with openings to hallways, and either sub was able to fill the space with a potent bass sound. These subs were able to give this epic score the big sound that they were meant to have.

There is dark ambient music and then there is pitch black ambient music, and “They Shall Wake” by Abbildung is closer to the latter than the former. This 2021 release on the Essential Mundi label is a soundtrack to a nightmare landscape. It’s not just spooky noises though; the music here is artistically arranged to either reward attention for those who want to focus on its gradually shifting soundscape or merely be used as a backdrop for authoring a horror novel, performing an occult ritual, or some other activity that avails from a macabre soundtrack. Low frequencies are ever-present but take a variety of different forms in multiple layers of sound sources. This type of music benefits tremendously from a good subwoofer to give its world a convincing atmosphere.

Reverberating thuds punctuate the first track like a massive vault opening before the listener and closing behind them. The 1723 1S had no trouble reproducing this thunderous sound, and this small sub affected a sensation of an enormous environment in my listening room. The track “Realms” is where our plunge into the abyss really starts. Continuous drones, along with a distant rumbling sound, are used in part to form a spacious but foreboding setting, and both subs gave these elements enough delineation to keep them distinct. Our journey continues in the track “Sentience,” in which a sequence of chords in the lowest octave of a piano permeates the song. I had the 1S active for this track, and it had enough pitch definition to track the melody rather than smear it into a mere sound effect. I switched back to the 1V for the last few tracks, and while they didn’t have ground-shaking bass, they did have pervasive low-frequency sounds that were given a clear-cut form by the subwoofer. Listening to “They Shall Wake” with the 1723 1S and 1V affirmed that they can deal with fine-drawn bass, as well as thicker and more obvious stuff as well.

For something to see what the 1723 1S and 1V subs could do when pushed hard, I selected the recently released epic drum’n’bass compilation “Together With Ukraine.” This album brings together over 100 electronic bass music artists for 136 tracks of low-frequency vibes with all revenue going to the Ukrainian Red Cross Society (nearly $130k raised, at the time of typing this). The artists are a mix of established names and newcomers, and the styles range across the many subgenres of electronic bass music, but the one thing they all have in common is that they can ride the bass drivers hard of any sound system without needing to be turned all the way on the volume dial. This album can only be purchased on Bandcamp and is a great way to give your subs a workout while supporting a good cause.

I started listening to the album with the 1S, and it could belt out a forceful low end in track after track. Kick drums were given punch, and basslines buzzed with tactile vibration. Switching to the 1V didn’t produce much difference that I could sense. It still sounded great, but I had to think that this music wasn’t quite digging low enough in frequency to kick the 1V’s port into action. It’s possible that some of these tracks could have dug deep enough to differentiate the two subs, but I wasn’t about to do an A/B comparison between all 136 songs to find out. Some people might go for the 1S based on the myth that sealed subwoofers have ‘quicker’ bass, but the truth is that both subs had excellent transient response. The kick drums and toms started and stopped on a dime. Bass sounds with rapid attacks and decays were always razor-sharp. The alignment of the enclosure didn’t make any difference that I could tell. While it’s true that port output generally does have a waveform cycle of lag behind the woofer’s output, the fact is that subs with a very low tuning frequency like the 1723 1V do shift that delayed output to frequencies well below music ranges. There are other reasons why sealed subs don’t necessarily have a qualitative advantage, and we will discuss them when we take a look at their group delay measurements. While I haven’t yet had time to listen to the entirety of this album, what I have heard so far with the 1723 1S and 1V has left me impressed by the beatdown they can provide to the listener with a penchant for loud electronic music. Some of my favorite tracks so far: “Orbiter” by Askel & Elere, “Berehynia” by Billain, “Chain of Command” by Black Sun Empire, “Backbackback” by Bukez Finezt, “Hlafjung” by DJ Ride, and “Gutenberg” by Gyrofield. But there are just too many great tracks to list them all in this all-killer and no-filler compilation.

For more information see: Sealed vs Ported Subs

Movie Watching

One movie that I had not yet seen which promised to be a huge bass fest was the latest entry into the Jurassic Park saga, “Jurrasic World Dominion.” The first movie to popularize deep bass as a useful tool for filmmakers was, of course, the first Jurassic Park film. I still vividly remember sitting in a theater with a newly outfitted DTS sound system on the opening night of “Jurassic Park” back in 1993 and hearing the subterraneous footsteps of the approaching Tyrannosaurus Rex. While “Jurassic World Dominion” brings back much of the principal cast from the original “Jurassic Park,” I was more concerned about the return of the true stars of the series, the dinosaurs. Would the newest entry of this franchise recapture the same sense of dread of these resurrected monsters? And would the 1723 1S and 1V do justice to their return?

I first watched “Jurassic World Dominion” using the 1723 1V and then went back and rewatched some scenes with the 1S to see how it compared. With the 1V, each footstep of the larger dinosaurs landed with a subterranean thud. The guttural growling and roars of these giant creatures delved into infrasonic regions at times, and the 1V made it sound like a seven-ton creature was right next to me. The many vehicle crashes, explosions, and other catastrophes were given a visceral slam by the 1V. The more memorable moments consisted of fights between the Tyrannosaurus and Giganotosaurus. The stomping and charging of the dinosaurs rumbled my room, and I could hear the ceiling and doors shake. Rewatching some of the bass-heavy scenes and flipping back and forth between the subs did illustrate their differences. The 1S was not able to realize the earth-shaking rumble as well as the 1V. The 1S produced an impressively deep sound for its size, but the 1V had an infrasonic thunder that made the dinosaurs a bit more realistically frightening. That deeper bass added a touch of immersion that the 1S couldn’t quite match. Of course, this was all perfectly predictable given the design differences, and most people would be quite happy with what the 1S can do for movie night. However, those setting up a dedicated home theater should spring for the extra size and cost of the 1V. For movies like “Jurassic World Dominion,” it’s worth the premium.

Another recent release that I checked out with the 1723 1S and 1V subs was “Ambulance,” Micheal Bay’s latest effort in flash and bombast. “Ambulance” is about a man who is persuaded to be a getaway driver for an armed daylight bank robbery in Los Angeles. When things go south in the heist, he improvises by stealing an ambulance with a hostage and leading the police on a massive chase throughout the city. I find that Bay can make entertaining movies without being too intelligence-insulting, when given material that doesn’t have a massive scale or much self-seriousness, such as “Pain and Gain” and “6 Underground.” His major blockbuster movies, such as the “Transformers” sequels or “Armageddon,” however, can be a headache-inducing combination of loud and dumb that I can not take. “Ambulance” looked to be more of the former and less of the latter, thankfully, so I opted to give it a try. Bay’s movies have always been big on bass, and this movie looked to be a good demonstration of what these Arendal subs could do with a typical action movie sound mix.

“Ambulance” ended up having tons of bass, and both the 1723 1S and 1V handled it with aplomb. The many car crashes and explosions were delivered with a thunderous impact, but Lorne Balfe’s music score had at least as much low-frequency verve as the effects’ noises, and the subs reproduced it with seat-shaking power. His score was half synthesizer and half orchestral, and it pulsated underneath the action which gave the movie a propulsive and engaging energy. The massive bass ability of the subs helped to make the ridiculous action set pieces a lot more fun than they would have been otherwise. Midway through the movie, I switched from the 1S to the 1V, and while there was a difference in low-end oomph, it was not huge. I did prefer the 1V’s addition of infrasonic grunt, although I would have been quite content with the power and imperturbability that the 1S was capable of. While “Ambulance” was overlong and over-the-top, it proved to be a rare thing: a Micheal Bay movie that I could watch. The Arendal subs helped to make it enjoyable, and the movie greatly benefited from their capabilities.

Arendal Sound 1723 1S & 1V Subwoofers Measurements & Conclusion

Testing on the Arendal 1723 1S and 1V was conducted with the microphone facing the woofer at a 1-meter distance with measurements scaled back to a 2-meter distance by subtracting 6dB. The temperature was recorded at 65F degrees with 70% humidity. The subwoofer’s gain was set to maximum; phase was set to zero; and the low pass filters were set to bypass.

The above graph shows the measured frequency responses for the Arendal 1723 1S and 1V subwoofers. The responses of both subs seen here are very flat and linear. The 1723 1S has the typical 2nd-order slopes characteristic of sealed subs. This type of roll-off is more conducive for low-end room gain, especially in small to medium-sized rooms. Small rooms will really shore up the low end of the 1S, and users should be able to get a solid response to deep bass frequencies with that type of roll-off. Most commercial sealed subs use high-pass filters that create a steeper slope in order to protect the driver, but Arendal probably didn’t think that was necessary since this driver is so robust. A nice aspect of these responses is the good, high-frequency extension allows for higher crossover frequencies for those who could use that, such as in a multi-subwoofer setup, where higher crossover frequencies can be used to address room modes higher than the usual 80Hz crossover. Also, these subs are likely to have more headroom than most home audio loudspeakers in that mid-bass range, so a higher crossover frequency can net the user more dynamic range. The 1V has a solid response all the way up to 200Hz and the 1S is flat up to 300Hz.

Each sub has three preset responses that the user can choose from. They can be useful if the user is getting too much low-end boost from room gain and wants to take the deep bass down a notch or two. I would recommend the EQ1 setting for most people to start with. The 1723 1V comes with a port plug. I didn’t test it with the port plug installed, and I don’t recommend that anyone use the port plug with the 1V. All it does is reduce deep bass headroom, and it defeats the point of getting a large ported subwoofer. By including it, I think that Arendal is catering to the crowd who believe that running it sealed must somehow improve its sound quality. This just isn’t so. Sealing a port can slightly reduce group delay at very low frequencies, but not enough to make an audible difference in a sub like the 1V since its time domain performance is already so good–but we will get to that when we discuss the group delay measurements. 

The above CEA-2010 measurements are short-term bursts that show the subwoofer’s clean peak SPL before heavy distortion sets in. Our measurements have been referenced to 2-meter RMS, which is 9dB down from the standard requirement for the measurements to be shown at 1-meter peak. However most publicly available CEA-2010 measurements are shown at 2-meter RMS, so we followed that convention.

Our measurements here are pretty close to Arendal’s own published measurements, although there are a few deviations, such as significantly more output at 63Hz from the 1S than what Arendal managed. This is a strong set of measurements, and both subs have lots of headroom, as we heard in our own listening. A couple of highlights in these measurements are the steady 115dB+ across the midbass range of the 1S, and the tremendous 101.2dB of output at 16Hz from the 1V. The 1S and 1V stay pretty close in headroom until 31.5Hz and below where the 1V’s port advantage starts to really dominate. At 16Hz, the 1V has more than an 11dB advantage over the 1S, meaning that the 1V nearly quadruples the 1S’s headroom in that range. At 12.5Hz and 20Hz, the 1V leads with about a 9dB advantage, tripling the output potential of its smaller sealed brother. The message is clear: if you want big deep bass, go for the 1V and run it in ported mode. Sealing the 1V with a port plug almost completely removes this advantage.

This burst test data places the Arendal 1723 1V solidly in Audioholics’ Bassaholic ‘Large’ Room Rating, meaning it should be able to handle a room of 5,000 cubic feet. The 1S misses that ‘Large’ Room Rating performance criteria by 1dB and so nets a ‘Medium’ Room Rating. In some cases, I give a sub a pass to take the larger room rating if it is so close, but I won’t do that with the 1S because users would have to run it pretty hard to fill a 5,000 cubic foot room, especially for deep bass playback. For music only, it could probably handle a larger room size, since music rarely has any content below 40Hz, and the 1S wouldn’t struggle to play anything above 40Hz at loud levels, so determining the proper room size for it would depend on the intended content.

For information on how the room ratings are determined, please read our article “Bassaholic Subwoofer Room Size Rating Protocol”.

Testing for long-term output compression was done by first conducting a 20-second sweep tone, where 50Hz hit 90dB with the subwoofer 1 meter from the microphone (graph has been scaled to 2 meters for easy comparison with our other review measurements). We then conduct further 20-second sweeps by raising the gain by 5dB until no more output could be wrung out of the subwoofer. These tests show us the long-term continuous headroom that the subwoofer is capable of. We can see that both subs do compress the low end and change their response shape at higher drive levels. Most subwoofers (but not all) do this to some extent. Both subs are capable of a continuous 110dB at 40Hz and above, which is good news for those of us who like loud electronic bass music. The 1S could put out a continuous 95dB at 20Hz whereas the 1V managed 100dB at 20Hz; those are nice numbers for a sealed and ported sub, respectively. Overall, this is a good showing and demonstrates that these subs can maintain a high loudness level for much longer than a short burst.

The above graphs show the corresponding total harmonic distortion to the long-term output graphs. Essentially, they depict how linear the subwoofer remains for the corresponding drive level seen in the long-term sweeps. The quantity being measured is how much of the subwoofer’s output is distortion, shown here as a percentage. At nominal drive levels, the 1S and 1V exhibit very low distortion, but at very high drive levels, the drivers can exhibit some stress at lower frequencies. The 1S follows a typical sealed enclosure distortion profile when no high-pass filter is used to eliminate low-frequency playback. Arendal allows the 1S to have a standard 2nd order roll-off that is natural with any sealed loudspeaker, but the cost is greater distortion products in low frequencies as the amplitude goes up. For every octave lower that a driver in a sealed enclosure must reproduce at the same amplitude, the excursion demand quadruples, so it quickly becomes very taxing for sealed subs to play deep bass. The good news is that the low-end room gain (specifically, pressure-vessel gain) will boost the fundamental frequency of the intended signal over that of the higher-frequency distortion products, so the ratio of distortion products goes way down as more room gain can be had. Pressure-vessel gain increases as the size of the room decreases, so smaller rooms will yield cleaner deep bass. For the 1S, that only becomes beneficial at higher drive levels, since nominal levels are very undistorted, with the 95dB sweep never rising above 10% THD, even down below 12Hz.

The 1V shows familiar harmonic distortion curves for a ported subwoofer. As frequencies decrease, distortion creeps upward until the frequencies reach into port-generated output, and back pressure from the port thwarts the driver’s excursion, thereby keeping it in a more controlled range of motion. The low point in the saddle of the distortion curves shows where the resonant frequency of the port is. Much like the 1S, distortion is very low at nominal levels; again, the 95dB sweep never goes above 10% THD, even down to 12Hz.

The above graphs depict measurements of the constituent harmonics from the long-term output sweeps and are what the total harmonic distortion measurements are composed of for the 2nd and 3rd harmonics. These individual harmonics can give us a clue as to what might be the cause of some quirk or non-linearity. We are only showing the 2nd and 3rd here because they more or less reflect the higher even-order and odd-order behaviors, although higher-order harmonics tend to be much further down as a percentage of distortion compared to the second and third.

Both the 1S and 1V exhibit a combination of even- and odd-order harmonics. Odd-order harmonics don’t really crop up until extreme stress levels on the driver, but even-order harmonics look to be occurring a bit more readily, although only in minor amounts, except at very low frequencies and high drive levels. One interesting thing we see is that the elevations in even- and odd-order distortion products seem to trade places around the port tuning frequency in the 1V. Port output seems to suppress even-order distortion products in favor of odd-order ones. That means whatever is inhibiting a single direction of the cone’s travel looks to be inhibiting travel in both directions where the port kicks in. This isn’t a bad or good thing, rather it is just an interesting note for loudspeaker design enthusiasts as an academic curiosity.

Group delay is the measurement of how much time it takes for individual frequency bands of an input signal to be produced by the speaker. It can indicate that some frequency components are developing slower than others or are taking longer to decay. It is generally thought that 1.5 sound cycles are needed for group delay to be audible at bass frequencies, although there is an argument that group delay should remain under 20ms to be completely unnoticeable, but that is likely meant for mid and upper bass frequencies.

The showings by both the 1S and 1V here are terrific and well above average. Neither sub exceeds the strictest threshold of 20ms until below 30Hz. Neither sub exceeds one cycle in any traditional subwoofer frequency range either. There is an enclosure volume resonance that pops up above 1 cycle at about 160Hz in the 1V and 180Hz in the 1S, but those will be filtered out by any sensible crossover frequency. The 1V also exceeds 1 cycle at around 10Hz, but that is far too deep in infrasonic bass to matter and would be totally inaudible.

Going back to our discussion of the time domain characteristics of sealed versus ported subwoofers, the 1S and 1V are very much alike down to 30Hz where the port contribution does hike up group delay on the 1V compared to its sealed brother. This isn’t likely to have an audible impact because it rests largely in a frequency region where human hearing is relatively insensitive. What is more, there just isn’t that much content with activity in that region. Movie effects can dip down into that range, but music rarely does, so the complaints that ported subs aren’t ‘musical’ is nonsense for any well-designed ported sub, such as the 1723 1V.

Conclusion

Before bringing this review to a close, I will briefly go over the strengths and weaknesses of the products in question, and, as usual, I will start with the weaknesses. The 1723 1V and 1S are such well-rounded and well-designed subwoofers that they don’t give me much to complain about. I could complain that the 1V is very large and heavy, but you can’t have a deeply-tuned ported sub without its corresponding size penalty. They can incur some distortion in deep bass when pushed hard, but they have fairly ambitious low-frequency extension performance targets, at least in their ‘EQ1’ mode (which is the mode I would run them in), and it would be difficult to achieve those with zero distortion. I didn’t hear any distortion in my own listening of either sub. Some might criticize them for not having the most possible output for the price point, but these are not ‘output-above-all’ designs, and if they were shooting to win all the SPL drag races against its competitors, they would suffer in every single other respect–not a worthwhile trade-off, in my opinion. So, in my view, any would-be criticisms are met with reasonable counters.

Let’s now go over their strengths, and since these are such well-rounded designs, it is difficult to decide where to begin. As subwoofers, their main mission is to reproduce low-frequency sound, and they do this very well. They are highly linear and well-composed subs with very good dynamic ranges and bass extensions that rival or exceed their competitors. Most sealed subs in the same class as the 1723 1S use high-pass filters to create a much steeper roll-off, but those response shapes don’t get as much in-room deep bass. The 1V’s sub-20Hz port tuning frequency gives it real output into infrasonic ranges, and it managed to hit 90dB at an ultra-deep 12Hz in our burst testing. The dynamic range of these subs is nothing to sneeze at either, with both delivering 115dB output in mid-bass, and that is a fierce amount of punch. Their excellent time-domain behavior keeps all of that bass buttoned down, and the 1723 subs don’t have a hint of overhang or delayed response.

Aside from the sound quality, the 1723 1S and 1V’s greatest strength is their build quality. HDF construction and extensive bracing make them tank-like. Their sheer solidity, together with their elegant industrial design, raises them to luxury-class products. Their attractive appearance is another asset of theirs. The modest size of the 1S enables it to fit in many more domestic situations than the much larger 1V, but the 1V’s handsome styling makes it a more acceptable addition to the room than if it were a plain black box like so many subs. What is more, the dimensions of the 1V make it a perfectly well-disguised end table, especially if you wanted some near-field punch with its side-firing driver facing toward the listening position. It will provide a tremendous amount of slam from being in such close proximity to the listener.

The feature set on the amplifier is among the best that can be had. Left and right inputs and outputs for both balanced and unbalanced connectors make the 1723 1S and 1V versatile and accommodating of a wide variety of setups. The ability to EQ these without the need for an outboard equalizer makes these a great candidate for simpler setups that don’t have automated room correction systems. The ability to fine-tune every parameter both onboard the amplifier plate as well as from the user’s phone or tablet makes the 1723 1S and 1V exceptional. Most other subs with app control can only access many of their functions from the app and not the sub itself.

The pricing for the 1723 1S and 1V subs is not inexpensive, but you get well-built, high-fidelity, stylish, feature-rich, versatile subwoofers in return. When you factor in the 10-year warranty, top-notch customer service, and shipping costs included in the price, I would say it is a very good deal. Arendal allows a 60-day trial period and will cover the not-insignificant return shipping costs if the user does not wish to keep the product for any reason. I think they can afford to offer such a generous program since few people will be returning these once they hear what they can do.

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Build Quality
Fit and Finish
Ergonomics & Usability
Features
Dynamic Range
Performance
Value