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!)