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Sony SA-WM500 150 Watt

Mid priced home theater subwoofer.
The Good

The Sony SA-WM500 provides decent bass for average home theater system. Its large dynamic range and relatively distortion free sound will meet the needs of most home theater owners. The Sony SA-WM500 comes in a simple black enclosure that will blend in with most surroundings.

The Bad

Unfortunately, the Sony SA-WM500 is not suitable for music systems that will be used to play bass heavy music. The home theater subwoofer has a somewhat sluggish bass response time (while perfectly suitable for movies) that does not pair up well with a variety of music genres. Audiophiles and enthusiasts will want to look elsewhere.

Full StarFull StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty Star The Verdict

The Sony SA-WM500 is an excellent choice for the home theater crowd. Its inexpensive price and solid performance pairs well with most home theaters and can be an affordable upgrade to most stock home theater kits. Audio enthusiasts will want to look elsewhere if they need a new or replacement subwoofer for their music system.

Staff Reviewed (Default Seal for Staff Written Reviews)

Sony Makes a Great Home Theater Subwoofer

The inexpensive price and the solid overall quality makes this a good buy for those in the market for a new theater subwoofer.

First let’s get the prerequisite disclaimer out of the way: this is not a magic subwoofer, you cannot expect to get the same output from this sub that you would expect from a high-end Infinity model. That said, the Sony SA-WM500 is a really good choice if you are in the market for a low priced home theater subwoofer.

The bass response on the system is relatively lively. There are no muddy tones when watching movies and the sound is distortion free at mid volume settings. I noticed that at higher volume settings, distortion artifacts begin to arise. This may be a problem for some people, but I didn't mind as the mid volume level is plenty loud for movie watching. Sony claims a bass response range of 24Hz-170Hz. I thought this was a little questionable and loaded up my sound test CD. My sub (sometimes there are manufacturing discrepancies) bottomed out at around 35Hz and introduced distortion around 40Hz.

While this is a great home theater subwoofer, I would not recommend using this in a music system. The bass response is good enough for movies, but not as suited to music playback. When tested with a fairly bass heavy techno CD the subwoofer barely sounded like it could keep up and the tones were a little muddled. Naturally, what you hear depends on your music selection. If you are more of a country fan, the Sony SA-WM500 will do okay with keeping your music quick and clear— techno, classical and heavy rock lovers should steer clear though.

I would recommend this sub for an inexpensive home theater setup. For folks who have purchased home theater packages from large retailers this is likely a huge improvement over what they currently have and anyone looking to “roll their own” would be wise to check this option out. Enthusiasts and music fans will probably want to look for something else though as the weak low range and slow response time will only lead to buyer’s aggravation.

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