Outlaw Audio LFM-2 Review

[dieselpower1966]

Hello Shackers,
I just wanted to post a review of the new PAIR of Outlaw Audio LFM-2 subwoofers that my wife bought me. First the ordering experience. My wife had called Outlaw to place the order for the pair of LFM-2 subs, purchase price $583.89 including Fedex shipping which took 6 days to arrive from California to Rhode Island. I was very surprised that they shipped from California because Outlaw Audio is located in northern Massachusetts. However the only thing in that building are salesmen, designers and engineers.
Outlaw actually outsources all of the work. I did not realize that and I'm pretty sure that a lot of people don't either. The delivery finally arrived. I was happy to see that there was no damage to the outside of the delivery boxes, they were fully intact. upon opening the box I was surprised to find another box inside of that one. Upon opening that box I found my new sub. It was wrapped in a soft black cloth and was paddes by the best styrafoam that I've ever seen, not the cheap stuff that falls apart when you touch it. Upon unwrapping the sub the first thing that I noticed was the rounded edges, no square box here. The port is 4"x8" and looking up into the sub I could see the filling on one wall, and the unfinised mdf board that is used for the construction. The 8" driver material appears to be of a woven fabric which I cannot determine, however it has a very nice thick butyl surround. The sub comes with a thick 6' seperate power cord, carpet spikes and what they call a dimpled dome. Since I have wooden floors I used the dimpled domes to protect the floors. It was curious though that the doubled threaded rod used to attach the spikes must be screwed into the spikes first, then into the bottom of the sub. I first threaded the rod into the sub, and it kept going. obviously there is no "stop" on the threaded insert, so you could lieterally screw the rod all the way into the sub.
I put the 2 new subs together on the floor, ran the rca cable from the sub out on my Onkyo 675 via a
Y-cable then to both subs. I used the crossover in the Onkyo set at 80hz and set the crossover on the subs to bypass. (which is also interesting because the owners manual says to set it to bypass when not using the subs crossover, however, the bypass switch only says In / Out and not bypass), so I called Outlaw Audio, the girl in the tech department did not understand what I wanted to do, so I was transferred to another person, after a short, or long 5 minute hold. I was told that "Bypass Mode" is with the switch in the "out" position. I then connected the power, turned the volume Halfway on the sub, plugged them in and turned on Godzilla. This movie has a lot of bass. I had to go out for a couple of hours so I let the movie play as warm up or short break in period. Upon my return, my wife and I positioned everything where they were asthetically pleasing and my room would allow. I put one sub under the left front speaker, and the other under the right front speaker essentially using them as speaker stands as well. I broke out the Radio Shack spl meter and my test tone dvd, calibrated everything, both subs were calibrated individually. Then we sat back to audition our hard work. We were not disapointed!! These subs rock hard, they are smooth sounding as opposed to muddy, they play very deep, and loud especially since they are corner loaded, every little think in my room was rattling! I had to turn them down to the point of eliminating the rattles. During Godzilla, when she is walking through New York, It fealt like someone was slapping me in the chest, my wife commented on that as well. So not only did you hear the woofers barking loud and mean, but you fealt it as well!! This is what my house fealt like.
The positioning of my subs may not be optimal, however they work well there, and again it's asthetically pleasing. Later on I can experiment some more on different placements. I don't have any fancy measuring tools so unfortunately I cannot take those types of measurements, I can only comment on their performance through my senses, and these 2 subs knocked me just about senseless.

I will post pics this weekend.
John

[chas]

Great review John...looking forward to the pics.

Great price on a pair of these...

[dieselpower1966]

ok,

so I've spent the last 2 hours trying to upload my photos. I can upload them to "manage my attachments" but I cannot get the photos up on this page so others can view them.

can someone help me out??

thanks
John

[dieselpower1966]

Never mind, I don't know how I got them up but they are.

Please feel free to comment, any praise or criticism is appreciated.

John

[John_Williams]

I have heard good things about the Outlaw subs. Sounds like you have a sweet setup. I would now suggest a parametric equalizer to level out any room peaks, etc. I have the SVS 22-31PCi (NSD) and I believe that the equalizer was my best upgrade by far. Nice tight bass across the whole spectrum. The BFD guide on the Shack is phenomenal. Enjoy the new subs!!

[dieselpower1966]

A bfd or anything else at this point is beyond our monetary reach at the moment. but i will keep the suggestion in mind.

So I've had the Outlaw subs for 1 week now and they are sounding better with each use. I have put several bass heavy movies through them, not in any special order but they are

U-571
Godzilla
Transformers
The Decent
And my favorite Audio DVD The Eagles, Hell Freezes Over

These subs hit very hard, go plenty deep and are quite musical as well.
I know that with 2 subs they're not going to play any deeper. But, what I do get is much better overall nuetral tones. And since they are corner loaded I do get ruoghly an extra 6 dbs out of it.
I did notice one very minor issue with the auto on/off, it either takes a very long time to cycle, and only once did they not sense the signal. Not a big issue for me, I'd rather turn them off and on manually any way. On the back of the subs there are 2 indicator lights. Red for off, and Green for on. They actually have a nice glow reflecting off my wall, but not so much to be a distraction to me.
Again I appreciate any and all comments.

Dieselpower1966
John

[irvin]

Great Review and nice pics

[dieselpower1966]

I'm back with a follow up review of my Outlaw LFM 2's

I know mostly every one here is big on SVS, I'm not knocking SVS because I have no personal experience with them. and I'm sure with such a huge following they must be awesome.

However, I do have to promote the Outlaws. I have 2 of the LFM-2's

Pros:

Very nice look/style to them
no square box
no sharp edges
Gorgeous plexiglass top
very nice spike feet and cups for them
very good sound for both theater and music (these are not one note subs)
auto on works well, but I prefer to switch them off and on manually
downfiring speaker and port (means pets and kids cannot get to them)
amp puts out very good power (they shake my **** from 12' away)
they play very loud and deep!
In my room they easily go over 110 db (according to my radio shack spl meter)


cons:

I wish I knew how low they go in my room (I have no way to measure the low extension in hz.)


Summary:

I am very impressed with these guys and am extremely happy with the purchase.

Dieselpower1966

Any questions, comments, and feed back is appreciated

[Sonnie]

Grab yourself a Galaxy CM-140 SPL meter and REW and measure your low frequency response, then you will know what you have in those subs.

[bobgpsr]

Sonnie, he says he already has a Radio Shack SPL meter. Why not use that with REW? I did not think the difference was that major. Of course there is the confusion of which cal file to use with REW.

Diesel, I hope you could get a PC with an Aux Input RCA jack audio connection to your RS SPL meter and line outputs close enough to your AVR to test actual low freq room performance with the free REW software available on this site.

[dieselpower1966]

bobqpsr

I wish I could use the program, but I don't have a laptop but thanks for the suggestion

dieselpower1966

[a1161979]

dieselpower1966 wrote:

bobqpsr

I wish I could use the program, but I don't have a laptop but thanks for the suggestion

dieselpower1966

Just do what i did and do a 20 meter cable run from you computer... hell when i step up a mates i took the computer with me and set it up in his living room one arvo because he didnt have REW or a SPL meter Its an afternoon job cause it takes a hour or two but its well worth it, plus like Sonnie said it would be great to know how they are really sounding