RBH S-12HPS Micro Subwoofer Review

At slightly larger than a 12-inch cube, it packs about as much driver into a cabinet this small as one could want. We are going to put it through its paces in a room where much larger subwoofers have performed.

RBH was founded in 1976 by Roger B. Hassing (thus the RBH moniker) as primarily an OEM entity. Their main focus at that time was working with several name-brand companies, providing them with speaker drivers, custom-made to the client’s specifications. In 1986, RBH moved to Utah and set out to change its business model from an OEM supplier to a speaker manufacturer. To call what they have done a success would be an understatement. One short visit to their website will show off a variety of products from subwoofers to bookshelf speakers to floor-standing behemoths such as the 92-inch tall SVTRS-FRS, which weighs in at 312 pounds! What can this modest-sized subwoofer do for the music and movie lover who wants more bass in less space? Read on as we run it through a serious torture test.

RBH may not be the best-known name in loudspeakers, but the company has such a wide scope in terms of the speakers they manufacture that it shows a dedication to the industry (and our hobby) and warrants a deeper look. The S-12HPS (which stands for Subwoofer, 12-inch driver, High Powered and Sealed) is one of 31 subwoofers the company produces. This slightly larger than a one cubic foot micro subwoofer has a big brother called the UNRIVALED 221 subwoofer system with two 21-inch drivers.

RBH takes its products seriously and presents them with a healthy dose of pride. All design work is done in-house, from the drivers to the amps to the DSP units.

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The RBH S-12HPS is a very straightforward concept, right down to its sealed box, front-firing 12-inch woofer configuration. The driver is a sturdy aluminum cone, which gives the feeling of a luxury product that may tempt one to leave off the grill to show it in all its glory. While the company does not specify the linear throw of which the S-12HPS is capable, it’s obviously a long-throw design that promises to deliver on the deep bass which RBH assures us will happen.

The included amplifier is definitely a high-end product with its 800 watts of output, DSP chipset, and vast array of inputs and outputs. Dual XLR and RCA inputs and outputs will allow one to daisy chain multiple units, should one wish to add more potency to the system later on. This is of particular interest as it allows upgrading by doubling or quad packing up a single unit without needing to sell off the initial subwoofer. Phase and volume controls are included in the amp, and overall, the amplifier has the specs and feel of a high-end product.

The HDF cabinet is heavily braced and passes the ‘knuckle test’ with ease. This is no mass market, small subwoofer designed to add thump to a system. The S-12HPS looks and feels like a premium product.

Over the last 30 years, well over 200 subwoofers have been in and out of our two primary listening rooms, with the largest weighing in at 460 pounds. The RBH S-12HPS and its 36-pound weight made it a delight to configure into our high-end listening room. Our review sample was in the Satin White finish, which would not look out of place in the most modern home, condo, townhouse, or apartment. Unboxing the S-12HPS was a simple task, with the toughest decision being the choice of speakers with which to pair it.

I ultimately decided to match it up with the Advance Paris MyConnect 250 receiver/amplifier and a pair of Magnepan LRS floor-standing speakers. Speaker wires and interconnects were provided by Clarus Cable Systems, with the subwoofer plugged into a Clarus Duet Power Supply. The Maggies were selected because they really need help below 70 Hz and are a difficult match for any subwoofer with their lightning-fast responses to input signals. All too many subwoofers sound like simple boom boxes when mated to the Maggies, and between their $1,000 current price tag and the Advance Paris MyConnect 250 $5,000 investment, we were looking at a system for $7,600 plus cables. In the arena of high-end sound, this is a modest sum of money.

The Advance Paris MyConnect 250 and Magnepan LRS are also in the arena of ‘lifestyle’ products, with the MyConnect 250 having a built-in CD player along with an excellent DAC, which I used to stream the sound from our smart TV for movie watching. The MyConnect 250 also includes a dedicated pair of RCA subwoofer outputs with selectable crossover points of 75 or 150 Hz. The 75 Hz position was selected, and we were ready to explore music and cinema.

The third track, Dede Priest’s Blues Wine, was again revelatory in the bass through the RBH sub, which kept up with excellent pitch and timing with the small Maggies. Her vocals and the bass line require an allegiance to agility to go with the power. If the subwoofer isn’t agile enough, the bass line gets to sounding muddy. This was not an issue with the RBH-Maggie combination. An additional benefit was how much more focused the vocals were with the RBH subwoofer engaged, while the overall sound stage felt larger and more natural.

Moving on to Marcus Miller’s ‘Power,’ and its fantastic bass guitar once again showed the prowess of this micro subwoofer in terms of bringing the listener macro bass. With its bass guitar hitting above and below the 75 Hz crossover point, any smearing of the signal by the aluminum woofer would easily be discerned. The S-12HPS handled this track with ease, elevating the Maggies from polite performers to blues & jazz-loving power players. On every track from the eclectic group of performers played on this disc, the RBH S-12HPS took one of the audio world’s all-time bargain speakers, the Magnepan LRS, and transformed it into something more and better while never doing any harm. RBH, you are off to a great start!

The S-12HPS continued its job that was started with Dynamic Experience IV with authoritative bass notes that again made the Maggies turn from small speakers into large ones. We aren’t talking Legacy Focus XD or Audiovector Trapeze RI big, but for a $2,600 speaker and subwoofer system, a lot closer than one would expect.

Opening with the title song and its hard-driving bass line plus lead guitar work, the impact of the RBH was again immediately apparent. What is usually a small stage with limited dynamics opened wide and deep, combined with a healthy dose of gravitas. As we slid into ‘The Happiest Days of our Lives’ and ‘Another Brick in the Wall Part II,’ things just got better. Everything was hitting hard, from bass drum to snare thwacks. The ladies providing harmonics were now centered at stage right. Remember the scene in Captain America: The First Avenger when Steve Rogers entered the machine as a 130-pound weakling and exited as a 220-pound wall of muscle? The RBH took Roger Waters’ performance in the Maggies from 4H status to hero machine. This disc set is over two hours long, and we can’t cover every song. One more is something we can do, though. ‘Money’ was flowing through this system like one of those 21 percent Certificates of Deposit, which were available in the early 1980s. We had gobs of rhythm, pace, depth, and soundstage. It was time for some seriously fun air guitar and air saxophone. The RBH S-12HPS is the real deal and a great tool for someone who didn’t think bass, REAL bass, was something he or she could expect from such a modest-sized enclosure.

Marcus Miller rejoins us on track three (Run for Cover) with its opening percussion featuring the bass drum with subtle sonic cues all around. Marcus kicks in at the one-minute mark, and without the sub, he’s more akin to Kevin Hart. Adding the RBH to the mix made Marcus as big as life, and the talent that RBH has baked into the S-12HPS in terms of pacing was again front and center.

We wrapped up Sanborn’s live performance with ‘Smile,’ which opens with a piano solo that again demonstrated the S-12HPS can take ‘regular’ music and enhance it by putting that solid floor below 80 Hz into one’s room. We were getting ALL the keyboard work from the piano, including the deep stuff. One might not even notice it wasn’t there unless one experienced it when it WAS there. By now, with all the listening tests done to date, it had become clear that the RBH would enhance any music that came its way. Let’s try a movie because a lot of homes with two-channel systems could use those systems to enhance video.

Up next was the rather terrifying scene in which the Wraiths, realizing the Hobbits had escaped on the raft to cross the lake to safety, thundered off on their 2000-pound steeds to head off our diminutive heroes to be. The thud of each hoof was powerful and compelling, with the RBH backing up the Maggies.

The star of the movie in terms of requiring powerful bass is in the deep cavern when Gandalf is doing battle with Balrog. This is a several-minute-long manifesto of bass and enormity of scale that the RBH enhanced with a smile on its face. By the time Gandalf informs Balrog that “You Shall Not Pass!!!” we mortals want to cheer for his sheer bravery. Take the RBH out of this system, and we might think Balrog is a blowhard.

RBH has met its goal of making a small subwoofer that can deliver deep, powerful, tight bass for a more than reasonable price. A single unit should be more than plenty for most moderately-sized home theaters.

Going for (or building up to) multiple units for a larger theater could make for some outstanding and high-quality bass coverage.

The RBH S-12HPS at its $1,600 price point has a lot of competition. The company allocated its design funds with solid engineering in mind. Instead of a paper cone, they used aluminum. The amp is a stout 800-watt beast. It has proper DSP controls, which makes overdriving the S-12HPS a difficult thing to do. The owner of this RBH sub gets an amp with all the inputs and outputs that one could ask for, including an Ethernet port for future updates. The cabinet eschews MDF for HDF, the type of enhancement we rarely see in this price range.

This is a subwoofer that can grow over time with the unusual in-its-class ability to daisy-chain multiple units. It’s powerful yet agile. It is petite yet plays big. It makes music better and cinema more watchable. It can be hidden behind a sofa or in a corner, hardly being noticed in the arena of Domestic Acceptance Factor.

Who is its intended audience? While the first audience will likely be at an RBH dealer with some of the company’s bookshelf speakers, it would be a mistake to limit the audience to just that demographic. Anyone who has speakers that need help delivering bass to near 20 Hz and doesn’t want a large box spoiling one’s décor would find a friend in the RBH S-12HPS. It’s well engineered with a build quality that promises a music and movie enhancer with a shelf life measured in decades, not years. The RBH S-12HPS should be on the short list for anyone looking for a compact, powerful, and musical subwoofer.