The rounded theme is carried on to the inside of the enclosure as well with a shape that resembles the interior of a sphere. Element Enclosures also reports that this interior shape has all sorts of sonic benefits. To give our readers the full scoop, we decided to construct a typical MDF woofer box with the same internal volume as the EE1065 and do the full range of tests on it as well.

After the EE1065 was through our full test run, the Alpine driver was removed from the enclosure and installed in our “standard box” for its test run. The results of these measurements are shown with the pink traces representing the EE1065 and the black traces representing our MDF box. I know it only looks like one trace on a couple of the charts, but we’ll get back to that shortly.

Element Enclosures was kind enough to send us a pair of the EE1065 enclosures, the one that was loaded with the Alpine driver and finished in a gorgeous metal-flake green plus a completely raw example that represents the product which is received by retailers. The most straightforward approach to attaining an accurate measurement of the internal volume of the EE1065’s semi-spherical internal space was to measure the amount of water required to fill the enclosure and do the conversion from fluid units to cubic feet. This presented us with a perfect opportunity to test the claim that the EE1065 is waterproof. Water resistant is one thing, but waterproof is a bold statement about anything made from wood particles. I performed the liquid measurement on the raw enclosure about 3 weeks before beginning this review and just left the enclosure full of water. At this time, the only noticeable change seems to be an impressive collection of small dead insects floating on the surface of the water. The enclosure itself shows no sign of warping or decomposition and still seems to be in perfect condition.

Our water measurement showed the internal volume of the EE1065 to be about 0.55 cubic feet. This is a bit smaller than the 0.65 cubic feet that EE specs, but of relatively little concern.

Subjective
I did listen to both the EE1065 and our MDF box but there was a fair amount of time between the auditions. Given that we used the same driver in both enclosures, even the best-case scenario would require 10 or 15 minutes to swap the Alpine from to the other. I’ll be the first to admit that my sonic retention isn’t good for more than a few seconds with something that’s this close. A back-to-back A/B comparison is the best approach, but that just wasn’t possible. If we had used another Alpine 1040 in our test box, any audible or measurable differences could easily be attributed to small differences between the drivers. However, if the same driver is used in both enclosures, you can’t perform a proper A/B but at least the measurements will be meaningful. Due to this quasi-Catch-22 situation, we’ll have to break from our normal convention and draw our conclusions from the objective measurements.

Objective
Impedance measurements for the EE1065 and Alpine SWR-1040 combination show a maximum of 101 ohms at 49 Hz and a minimum of 5.7 ohms at 89 Hz. Average impedance measured 16 ohms. Out-of-car measurements show a rise in response of about 3 dB below 100 Hz, followed by a 12 dB-per-octave roll-off below system resonance. In-car measurements show an overall response that fits within a window of about 5 dB and a 1-watt sensitivity that averages 91.1 dB between 10 Hz and 50 Hz. The system exhibited about 3 dB of power compression on the 100-watt in-car sweep and a maximum of about 5 dB at 300 watts. Maximum SPL at 300 watts measured 117.1 dB at 50 Hz.

As mentioned above, our impedance and out-of-car measurement comparisons between the EE1065 and our MDF box show results so identical that there appears to be only one trace. In-car measurements show results that are nearly as identical. Of the very few differences that are visible, none was more than 0.5 dB or even repeatable from sweep to sweep. After auditioning and then measuring a multitude of subwoofer systems, I’m going to have to say that the sonic differences between the EE1065 and our MDF box would be nil.

There are still, however, several very good reasons to consider it. The first could actually provide an audible improvement over the “standard box.” Not the “standard box” that we built, rather, the leaky pre-fab and custom enclosures that we see all of the time. Throw a heavy pipe organ at most of these things and they sound like there’s a flock of pigeons swooping down to crap on your paint job. There are only two places that the EE1065 can potentially leak — around the banana plugs or around the speaker flange. With a regular box, there are 12 seams, a speaker, and banana plugs to potentially leak around. The second consideration is the waterproof issue. That pretty much speaks for itself if you have a jeep, a boat, or live in a humid tropical location. The final reason lies purely in novelty. When’s the last time that you saw a round sub enclosure? I mean other than the custom-hand-laid-fiberglass that that we all see at shows. You can have the enclosures painted to match your car or anything else that you wish. Know anybody with an airbrush and a twisted imagination?