Look at the charts on the prosoundshootout.com website,12pi distortion is very low. This is why the 12pi sounds tighter. It makes less distortion than the labhorn,you can hear the difference bigtime. It also makes more bass. The labhorn has a suckout below 50hz so the 12pi sounds deeper and more powerful. don't even think about bumping up the deep bass on a lab to compensate because if you push up the bass at say 20hz then it will make mostly distortion. 12pi doesn't have this problem. It only makes the real sound,no distortion,so what you hear is real signal period. Michael