OEM Audio: Full vs Robust Review
 

There are a ton of reviews about how great this product and the customer service is. Those reviews are no lie. What you don't see many people talk about are the bass preference choices. I know myself and a few others have struggled with making a decision on which bass profile to select for our subwoofer. Thanks to Daniel over at OEM Audio I've been given the opportunity to try them side by side and compare the difference between an amp configured for Full or Robust.

Here's what I found:

FULL: Highs and Mids are extremely clean. The subwoofer does a very good job of blending with the music, but at some points almost blends too well. The Full configuration basically feels like if you opted for the better speaker package that usually come with the higher trim model vehicles. It's nothing that sounds "aftermarket" by any means.

Most of the music I listen to is Salsa/Latin music with a lot of piano and horns. The Full bass profile had all of this perfect. Everything was extremely crisp and clear. The only issue was that about 80% of the music I listened to I couldn't even tell if the subwoofer was firing. I started listening to more Hip Hop/R&B type of music and then it was obvious that the subwoofer was firing correctly, but it was still underpowered for my taste. It sounded like the subwoofer was only working at about 50% power. Although I had great sounding highs/mids, the FULL profile left me missing that punchy low end that I had before with my old 8" subwoofer.

I often found myself adjusting the EQ settings to get a little more bass, but what I found is that the EQ was just making the bass louder, but actually didn't give it a deeper punch. I hope that makes sense.

ROBUST: I recently had a Robust amp sent out to me so that I can compare the two side by side. First impressions are incredible. NOW it sounds like there's actually a subwoofer in my trunk working at 100%, and it's so much more clean and crisp than my old subwoofer ever was!
With the FULL profile I was listening to my music at about 50 volume level in order to have that sense of full and powerful music.
Now with ROBUST the music sounds full and powerful just at 35-40 volume.
The bass has a much stronger/deeper hit to it now, but I have to stress that it's still very controlled. It is not overpowering to any of the tracks I have listened to.
The ONLY time it sounded like I needed to turn the subwoofer down was when I had my rear seats folded down. With the rear seats up the subwoofer sounds incredibly deep, dark, powerful, yet balanced.
With the highs being so damn crisp, I honestly think that even with the subwoofer set to Robust the highs still pull through great.

I want to add that with the FULL profile the subwoofer appeared to struggle pushing through the road noise when on the highway. I often found myself sitting in my parked car listening to the FULL profile and thinking it sounded great. Then once I got on the road I would be dying to mess with the EQ because the subwoofer was all of a sudden faded. With Robust, even at lower volumes and road noise, all the frequencies push through perfectly.

So yeah, basically my experience has been this:

If you want cleaner highs, mids, and decent lows that won't really draw attention to there being a subwoofer in the trunk, then go for FULL.

If you want cleaner highs, mids, and a punchy, clean, aftermarket sounding subwoofer that has plenty of power, then go for ROBUST.

Maybe it was previously owning a subwoofer that swayed my option, but the way I see it was I hated having a bad ass sub enclosure with a great subwoofer in there, but not using it to it's full potential. I felt like, "Yeah, I have a sub in the trunk, but it's only set to 50%..."

I'm blown away at how the subwoofer was able to change with just the bass configuration being adjusted. This subwoofer is definitely a beast! If you want it tamed, go with Full. If you want to let that beast loose, Robust will kick you in the pants without being messy. :)

(I also gotta add, OEM Audio has by far the best damn customer service I've ever experienced! Thanks, Daniel!)

If only there were a switch to change (or even a programming cable we could buy to switch). I'd love to see how these change my balanced reference config.

Agree. In my opinion Full sounds more "Balanced" to me. I think Robust sounds "Full".
From what I've read about Balanced, I think the bass workload is distrubuted throughout the interior speakers instead of just primarily focusing on coming from the subwoofer.

It's honestly about preference. Full sounded great on a lot of mainstream music, but I listen to a lot of "Pandora - Spanish Harlem Orchestra". If you listen to that playlist you'll quickly notice that the low end is barely there on a large amount of songs. Robust was a great fix for filling out those weak low ends on those salsa tracks.

Thanks for the review. I felt a similar way regarding the two; Robust for me was offputting after using it for about 3 months as it drew too much attention to the bass and didn't blend it as well as the full as you mentioned. I also listen to heavy bass/EDM music which probably has more bass than most tracks so it was slightly overwhelming and I actually had to turn it down.

Pretty cool you were able to hear both side by side even though you aren't at the OEM Audio+ office. I actually went into the office and Daniel sat with me as I switched back and forth between the three trying to decide lol. Again shows to their amazing customer service.

On a side note they are releasing a system for the new 2015 WRX/STI which is similar to ours (1" tweaters, 8" woofer, DSP amp and sub amp) but it also has an option to upgrade from the 400+ to 500+ which is an ADDITIONAL 8" sub. Hopefully that option will make its way to our cars for a decent price eventually. A bass profile switch would also be cool but I feel like it's unlikely since it hasn't been done yet.

The SL series exists for the 86 platform which includes dual subs and more.

Question:
does the OEM+ connect the subs with RCA at any point? could a bass knob be wired in line?

No. There might be a way to modify it but as it comes everything just plugs into the existing pin harnesses, no RCA ports. What are you trying to do with RCA?

Wow never realized there was an SL. 3000 sounds a bit steep though. basically 1500-1800 more for the extra enclosure+sub+subamp and (2) 4" front speakers and (2) 4" rear speakers. Looks like a pretty beast system though.

Oh, I was just thinking that from reading this, robust is the way to go with a rca bass knob wired in line

Super helpful post, @ericmpena.

Should help me decide if I ever pull the trigger on the OEM A+. :-)

DJ

Full and Robust are very different. I'm surprised there weren't many comparison reviews about that, but I'm glad I was able to give my opinions. If anyone has trouble deciding I would advice then to just answer a simple question:
Do you want your audio experience to sound classy, clean, and simple? Or do you prefer the sound of a solid aftermarket subwoofer to go along with your cleaner highs and mids?
Daniel from OEM Audio said that about 80% of their sales go with Full. Both sound great in their own ways. Hopefully this review helps people make the right choice!