Subwoofers — AUER ACOUSTICS Gravis SU12

The Gravis SU12 is the smaller of two active subwoofers from AUER ACOUSTICS, a loudspeaker manufactory in Amerang, Bavaria, between Wasserburg am Inn and Lake Chiemsee. The brand first appeared as RA Acoustics, named after founder Robert Auer, and presented its opening range on 10 May 2024 - the Magna and Parabola floorstanders together with the Gravis subwoofers. The launch price was EUR 9,000 per unit.

Key specs that matter

A single 12-inch driver fires forward from a sealed cabinet and is driven by a 1,000 W amplifier module with DSP control. AUER states that the SU12 reaches down to 20 Hz and can excite subsonic content at around 10 Hz. The complete subwoofer weighs 70 kg. Like every loudspeaker in the AUER catalogue, it uses a closed enclosure rather than a vented one.

Engineering and use context

The housing is built from solid tankwood, the pressure-formed engineered wood that AUER uses for all of its cabinets. Inside, the enclosure is braced several times, and its outer shape avoids parallel walls. According to the maker, this combination keeps cabinet resonances and internal standing waves from affecting the output. AUER links the pairing of DSP control and a sealed box to consistent low-frequency results in different rooms. All cabinets are made by hand in the Amerang workshop, with the material for each part chosen to suit its acoustic job. Robert Auer trained as a carpenter, designed his first loudspeaker models at the age of 15 and sold well over 100 of them from a small workshop. He then built an injection-moulding company making plastic components, which grew into a medium-sized business, before returning to audio and founding the loudspeaker manufactory in 2021, where he also heads research and development.

Pairing

AUER developed the Gravis subwoofers to extend the Magna and Parabola floorstanding models from the 2024 launch. The Parabola line consists of three passive towers, S1, S2 and S3, which were priced from EUR 20,000 to 40,000 per pair, while the Magna models already carry their own powered bass section. Since then the company has moved its floorstanding range to the VERSURA series, which runs from the V0 through the V1, V1H, V2 and V4 to the V6, all with tankwood cabinets, and of these the V4 has a side-mounted 32 cm bass driver of its own.

Alternatives

The AUER ACOUSTICS Gravis SU18 is the larger sibling, moving to an 18-inch driver with the same amplifier rating at EUR 11,000 per unit.