I've used my pair of KW181's three times now with great results.
Gig #1
Genre: Metal
Crowd: 100-150
Venue: Hall at a club, 400 capacity aprox
Gig #2
Genre: Soft Rock/pop
Crowd: 100
Venue: Function room at a pub, 150 capacity approx
Gig #3
Genre: Industrial Metal
Venue: Same as #1
Overall they had plenty of output for all shows, covering kick and bass guitar aswell as synths and playback material for #3 delivering chest pounding bass right where it counts. The RMS level is great on these subs, playback material will really get them going. Kick drum gets a decent thump going on, with enough peak power to keep up with fast double kicks, definition is great of the gated compressed kick drum with a D6 and trigger sources. The playback drums were equally represented, with dynamics showing the full extent of the ability of the subs.
I had them centre coupled for gigs 1 and 3 and tops on subs for 2. Aux fed for 1 and 3 and LR for 2. I felt I should've run them aux fed for 2 aswell as the BE was HPF'ing a lot to get the rumble out.
Side note, I used the included pole with the matching tops just to see how stable it is, I would strap it and they are fine, perfect height, you need two people to get the top up, I tried the sideway and walk it up trick but I couldn't pull it off.
I liked centre coupled more than split. I tried on their sides and flat and felt no difference with the ports on the ground compared to sideways. May be a difference upfront though with more port coupling. Want to try 4 centre coupled in the future.
Great inputs on the back, cables are great, power switch is easy to find in the dark.
Casters are top notch, although it can feel a little awkward tipping them off their casters at first until you get a feel for it.
I A/B'ed them between normal and DEEP mode, I found lower RMS frequency responce but the same output level and the same level of distortion at high volume. You do get some but it is pretty minimal.
It is pretty hard to hit the limiters on the subs I have found, in some cases I've had plenty of headroom and the right amount of sub level. You don't find that too often in the smaller end of the market.
Keen to get the covers asap.
For an active midrange subwoofer these things have some serious output, stay pretty damn clean and go very low. I'd be surprised if any other competitor really beats this sub by much, JBL618XLF/HD1801/Yammie DSR etc, they all sound quite similar with their own particular selling points breaking them apart. I.e. some will go louder but not sound as good, others will be lighter but no casters, inputs won't be as good, not as many features. There are always trade offs and I found the KW181 best fit my needs with the casters, cover, good input panel, great sound, decent volume, small size, medium weight and easy coupling were what sold me on it over JBL etc which may be louder or clearer but not as reliable or as many user friendly features.
The matching three way tops aren't too shabby either.
I plan on getting 6 of these in total, 4 by new years, 6 later on down the track aswell as another pair of tops.