Clarion SRV 313 Powered Subwoofer

Product Details
Manufacturer: Clarion
Website: link
Typical Selling price: £139.99

Small oblate subwoofer with a remote control. Intended for use under seat in cars where the space for a ‘proper’ subwoofer is limited or is required for other uses. Most brands have a similar product, with Mutant, Kenwood, Alpine, Pioneer and even Focal having an offering but this one is unique in being equipped with a clever electronic circuit called MaxxBass”>. This reads naff as a bass brand but is actually from a hugely successful company. It is based upon a clever psycho-acoustic fundamental-recreation ‘virtual’ bass enhancement and while Clarion are alone in the in car market to license the technology for automotive use, there is a professional unit and Metallica’s sound engineer Mick Hughes has them in the racks for the loudest gigs on Earth. And as their rigs are not lacking in crushing girth, it seems clear that the process has merit even for full size systems.
The unit is a cast Aluminium chunk with a well designed speaker in it of the type with a Neodymium magnet, that is front mounted above the cone, not behind it as normal. This allows for a much shallower overall chassis and thus compactness for building into such a slim product. You get a collection of bits to go with it. These are looms of wire, fixing plates to secure it under your seat and a remote control on a long fat wire that connects to the unit that allows you to select one of four frequencies as crossover, or alter the phase by 180 degrees (useful if acoustics or daft connection alike turn out to be your problem, curing your ills with the flick of this switch) and of course adjust the gain. You also get a set of stick-on Velcro securing pads to stick the snazzy silvery remote head safely in your car where it won’t occlude any of your car’s driving controls. SRV313  was hooked up with a Pioneer DEH-P88RSII headunit’s subwoofer output and driving a Vibe BlackBox Stereo 4 amp which was playing some CDT CL-6EXT coaxes and a set of 6x9s in test enclosures that have a tiny compression driven horn in them. So, a tough and sexy rig could this wee woofer make any bass that was worthy of the name? Lets go see.. 

– Frequency response: 30Hz to 200Hz
– Power amplification: 60w RMS (30w + 30w) 120w peak
– Features licensed MaxxBass„¢ virtual bass enhancement circuitry
– 17cm shallow chassis dual voice coil woofer with front-mounted Neodymium magnet in flat band-pass die-cast Aluminium enclosure
– RCA stereo or high level speaker input long speaker level loom included
– Signal to Noise Ratio: 80dB
– Crossover frequency switch choices: 50Hz, 75Hz, 100Hz or 120Hz
– Phase and gain controls on remote
– Blue LED Power indicator
– Complete with power and speaker level input loom, remote wired bass controller and fixings, including Velcro remote head mount
– Dimensions of main unit: (WxHxD) 310 x 65 x 210 (mm)
– Dimensions of remote control head: (WxHxD) 100 x 28 x 25 (mm)
– Mass of main unit: 2kg
– Mass of remote control head: 220g
Review by Adam Rayner
In an ideal world, we would all drive our heart’s desire motor car and it would have awesome sounds in it. I want a set of those £8,400 amplifiers from Audison and some of those £600 woofers from Morel. Or maybe a JL W7 or two and some Pioneer ODR kit – or maybe wire my whole car with top end Chord interconnects!
But in the real word we have constraints of sanity, cost and cubic. Or the room inside your ride. A new angling chum drives a Landy for the fishing tackle but has a BMW Z3 for fun and there ain’t no room for bass in one of those unless you use foot well space and are very short.
Thus, there is a market for the under seat woofer. A small active chunk slim enough to fit but hopefully able to underpin the weediest speaker systems. In fact I failed signally to review this thing in its proper context. It was really like trying to test an outboard engine for an inflatable zoomy-boat on the back of a formula one power boat, so I had to get real as at first I was unimpressed.
Then it sank in. The Vibe BlackBox Stereo 4 is a bloody animal and the 6x9s just had to be disconnected to imitate a 2.1 install. Then of course, I have some ridiculously good aftermarket coaxials in the test enclosures and they are on a full one hundred watts and their cones are the same size as my woofer�s and they have HUGE boxes by experts Acoustic Wood. So, I gained them right back and considered that test benching the woofer was also wrong as the MaxxBass process is dependent upon cubic. (There�s a diagram on the website about it and their website is interesting, too.) And finally was able to reach some sort of conclusion.
It is a good looking little spud and the MaxxBass processing needs to be heard in a car for the benefits to become apparent I reckon.
The gain and crossover controls are smooth in operation and offering a phase flip switch is a boon. I like the design and looks of both the main unit and the remote. I reckon it�d be best in the smaller install and if you have nothing but a pair of four inch drivers in your dash, the SRV313 can make a huge difference to your world.
Not as a subwoofer as such but more a device to simply re-inject the bassier end that is missing if you have tiny front speakers. Not any kind of boomer but an easy to install and easy to use neat adjunct for the car with no space and weeny sound system. It won’t shake your butt but it will make your sounds richer if they are impoverished.
Sound Quality 7.0
Build Quality 8.0
Power Handling 6.0
Efficiency 7.0
Value For Money 8.0
Overall rating 7.2