We took the SubPac S2 for a test drive to see what all the hype is about...

A photo posted by World of Stereo (@worldofstereo) on Sep 18, 2016 at 11:14am PDT

  I have to admit that I was bit incredulous when another company came along touting a seat-back subwoofer. We've seen them for gaming consoles and high end entertainment systems, but SubPac is one of the first to target the DJ and producer market specifically and the fact that they were offering a wearable was a bit intriguing.

  The first test we ran it through was at home with a general listening experience in mind. The S2 (specifically designed to be attached to a seat) came in a well designed package that protected the unit well and made identifying the different pieces needed for a setup a breeze. My first impression of the unit it's self is that it it's well-made, with a sleek, all-black design and high quality fabric. The straps used to the attach the S2 to the chair were easily connected to the unit and I had it strapped to the chair in no time. The unit comes with an AC adapter that will charge your unit and it comes with a decent charge, but we plugged it into the wall anyway so it can charge while we'll checking it out. We used a very simple system of the included 1/8"-1/8" jack out of an iPhone 6s running Spotify pro and the 1/4" out of the S2's battery pack to a set of Pioneer HDJ-2000's so we could easily bounce around to different genres with a high quality stream. 

  My son insisted we try out "It's Going Down for Real" by Flo Rida and his face immediately lit up when the first 808 hit and the unit began to vibrate. It passed "the kid test." I noticed as an outside observer that the unit didn't make much noise at all. If you intend to use it at home or in a dorm where other people might be sleeping it would definitely be a great substitute for an external subwoofer and certainly a great entertainment device if you're just looking for a nice kick for your gaming or movie setup.

  For the next test I took it back to the worldofstereo.com offices where my full recording rig now resides and ran a 1/4"-1/4" jack out of the second output of my Apollo Quad I plugged my Shure SRH1880's into the S2 pac and again the setup was super easy and I had bass on the back of my chair in no time. It took me a second to get a handle on the balance and audio levels, but I feel like with a little time and attention you can get a reasonably accurate sense of solid low frequency monitoring levels without the headache of an external sub and neighbors. As with any studio project, I suggest you A/B your work against complete recordings within your genre for reference, plug in your SubPac and go nuts!