The Sonus faber Gravis II balances compact size with high-performance bass — and it looks gorgeous at the same time, with a multi-layered wooden cabinet and luxurious soft leather top. Its 10" ultra-long-throw woofer is powered by a 350-watt Class AB amplifier, giving this sub the finesse to reproduce subtly textured bass in your dedicated two-channel music system and the sheer muscle to treat your movies right in a home theater setup. A down-firing passive radiator helps extend the low-bass output.

The Gravis II's rear panel offers a suite of controls and connections that give you plenty of options to add this sub to your system. There's a dedicated LFE input for use with a home theater receiver, and mono-RCA line-level and speaker-level inputs for connection to just about any stereo receiver or integrated amplifier. The LFE input and line-level/speaker level ins are also simultaneously active, letting this sub pull double-duty for separate stereo and home theater setups. There are even two separate volume knobs to make that a little easier.

A low-pass filter lets you customize what frequencies are handled by the sub, while the phase switch helps you match the sub's bass to your room. There's also an auto on/off standby switch lets your sub turn on automatically when it senses a signal from your receiver.