I've been reading some really great things about all 3 of these sub lines. Can there really be that much of a difference?? Has anyone heard them side by side and is able to give a good comparison? I'm looking for home theater sub(s) and any advice is welcome. Thanks

If a sub cost 4 to 5x more than another, do not expect 4 to 5x performance improvement. They are subject to the law of dimishing returns. Once you reach some level of performance, in order to improve upon that level in a single package, the cost can increase multifold.

My suggestion to you would be to figure out your budget for a sub and then try to find the sub that suits you best within that budget.

Things never work that way. You can't expect paying X amount more you get X amount more performance.

People have compared the JL and found it worth it over the Hsus and SVS for more reasons than performance and sound alone. You have to take the whole set of features, sizing and construction into account too. All of it has been hashed out in this forum already

If you've got the money, then get the F113. Great performance in a small package.
If you don't, you can get something almost as good for significantly less.

Chris.

If you don't, you can get something almost as good for significantly less.

That being?

Hard to say for sure without direct comparisons, but the owners of the Seaton Submersive seem pretty satisfied. Also, the prospects for the not-yet-out 13Ultra seem good, but of course that remains to be seen.

I had not heard of Seaton before, so I googled it. You're right, it does seem to be an impressive sub, at least according to the 2 or 3 people who have them. It's not available till Fall. I then went onto the av123 site to check out their subs (apparently, Seaton is linked to them, somehow), and they are all "backordered" which translates to not available 'til Fall or Winter!! What's up with that?

The BMF sub from AV123 is still being developed. It will not be ready for sale for several more months.

From someone who has owned several SVS and HSU subwoofers and now owns a JL Fathom F112 I can say that the Fathom is worth it to me. I got a good deal on the F112, although for the same price I could have bought another HSU VTF-3 HO. But that really isn't what I wanted.

I recently upgraded my main speakers to Ascend Acoustcs Sierras in piano black. I didn't want two giant ugly subwoofers in my apartment. The Fathom F112 provides me with output equal to or greater than than my VTF-3 HO did and improved bass detail and articulation for music. It also comes in a beautiful and compact piano black design that matches perfectly with my Sierras. For me it is definitely worth it. I may even buy another one in the future.

--snip-- From someone who has owned several SVS and HSU subwoofers and now owns a JL Fathom F112 I can say that the Fathom is worth it to me. I got a good deal on the F112, although for the same price I could have bought another HSU VTF-3 HO. But that really isn't what I wanted.

I recently upgraded my main speakers to Ascend Acoustcs Sierras in piano black. I didn't want two giant ugly subwoofers in my apartment. The Fathom F112 provides me with output equal to or greater than than my VTF-3 HO did and improved bass detail and articulation for music. It also comes in a beautiful and compact piano black design that matches perfectly with my Sierras. For me it is definitely worth it. I may even buy another one in the future.

Now that there is no more M&K the combo you have is what I have been recommending to a lot of people.
It does bring up the question of:
a) what is the rest of your equipment
b) are you setting the LCR Ls Rs to SMALL?
b2) and x-over at what freq?
c) and if setting to small, are you sealing off the ports?

It's a very interesting can o worms.

Barry

Craigsub has done a major comparison of a good group of subs. They are listed in this thread.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=768150

Now that there is no more M&K the combo you have is what I have been recommending to a lot of people.
It does bring up the question of:
a) what is the rest of your equipment
b) are you setting the LCR Ls Rs to SMALL?
b2) and x-over at what freq?
c) and if setting to small, are you sealing off the ports?

It's a very interesting can o worms.

Barry

I'm using a Denon 2805 with the Sierras set to small and an 80hz crossover. So far it is sounding fantastic. No, I'm not sealing the port.

The Sierras and Fathom F112 is a beautiful match. Pricey, but it sounds wonderful.

p.s. I also have a BFD DSP1124 which allows me to get an even smoother response than just the JL's ARO.

As an experiment, block the ports with some foam like from one of those do-it-yourself pillows from a notions store.
I would be very interested to know what you think of that simple test.

Also do not put too much faith in frequency response when phase response is FAR[I] more important... of course it's almost infinitely harder to measure -- which is why nearly everyone ignores it.
But that's a terrific combo you have.

Barry

I actually did try blocking the ports, only because the speakers are getting more bass reinforcement from the walls than I wanted, especially the right speaker which is about two and a half feet from the side wall. Unfortunately, doing this exacerbated a dip that I am getting around 125hz, so I decided against doing that and used the eq in my receiver to tame the bass. The speakers are about 20 inches from the rear wall.

I'm not sure how to measure phase response. Why do you say that it is more important than frequency response?

Soundoctor....are you Barry Ober? Formerly of M&K? If so, you probably know David Fabrikant of Ascend Acoustics....or at least know of him. You should give him a call to discuss the Sierra if you haven't done so already.

As for the Sierra's phase response, have a look at what is said about the OPPIX crossover on the Ascend site:
http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/SRM1/srm1tech.html

Soundoctor....are you Barry Ober? Formerly of M&K? If so, you probably know David Fabrikant of Ascend Acoustics....or at least know of him. You should give him a call to discuss the Sierra if you haven't done so already.

As for the Sierra's phase response, have a look at what is said about the OPPIX crossover on the Ascend site:
http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/SRM1/srm1tech.html

Hi Curtis,

It's been a long time!

Yes I have talked to Dave.

In my opinion, (I'll say that again) IN MY OPINION, their OPPIX crossover is essentially the same as the M&K Phase Focused crossover, and we know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

Therefore I have chosen to recommend the Ascend products to all the people who email and ask me what they should do since M&K is no more. I believe the combination of the Sierra speakers and JL Audio subs represents and will continue to represent an astonishing, killer sound/value, and that means that whether you elect to set up a pristine 2-channel system or go for a 5.1 system with even a modest Denon, that the end result is spectacular.

You will notice from the Ascend website that it appears they are no longer in a relationship with Hsu. I am fairly sure that they will be developing a very nice sub of their own, and probably pleasantly cost effective, but not the engineering marvel that the JL is, with the world's best LF driver.

I of course have JL subs and they really do blow everything else away.

Barry

I actually did try blocking the ports, only because the speakers are getting more bass reinforcement from the walls than I wanted, especially the right speaker which is about two and a half feet from the side wall. Unfortunately, doing this exacerbated a dip that I am getting around 125hz, so I decided against doing that and used the eq in my receiver to tame the bass. The speakers are about 20 inches from the rear wall.

I'm not sure how to measure phase response. Why do you say that it is more important than frequency response?

Hello Person X,
(I'm not sure I can spell your name...)

Phase response is essentially EVERYTHING - and would require hundreds of pages to explain... suffice it to say that it is neglected because there is no easy way -- i.e. you cannot run down to radio shlock and buy a handheld phase meter -- to measure it.

While with various scopes and spectrum analyzers you can measure phase response RELATIVE TO A REFERENCE SIGNAL, what you cannot do witihout a tremendous amount of annoying setup is measure 2 acoustic signals phase response easily, because there are differing delays through everything, and it is very difficult to get a reference point in spacetime. There are some high end systems such as the Meyer SIM system but most of us cannot afford these...

Since there is a combination of phase shift and group delay through any circuitry,
it's the end result we care about. If we are recording a large instrument -- a piano or a harp -- these have what I call a large PHASE SPACE. The ratio of the fundamental frequency and all the harmonics is coming off the instrument in differing amounts from different places. We could only HOPE that all the parts of the recording/storage/playback/ transcription/remixing/storage/playback chain begin to cleanly represent this data properly.

This also opens up the entire can of worms about ALL the issues of the recording process. You could for example, have a piano RECORDING which was rather wrong in its setup and recording technique, and yet have the inverse phase and or frequency anomalies in your playback system and voila! It then sounds magically "right". I have a feeling that many times, when some reviewer reaches some audio nirvana and discerns some lovely palpable (I had to get that word in there) sound that it is the fortuituous sum of the errors. Do not for a moment think all your records and CDs are perfect and that your system is wrong - no, the anomalies are everywhere.

In addition, audio is a phenomena where 2 wrongs CAN make a right; you can take a thin, not very good voice and with a combination of mic LF proximity effect and EQ (and also remember that "EQ" specifically does NOT mean to make things equal!) and turn that into a "good" voice.

During every step of these processes, large numbers of anomalies creep in to the equation. The end result SHOULD be phase linearity (the buzzword of the mid-70's) throughout the crossover region, at least as defined by 1/2 octave below and above the stated xover point; therefore if the xover is 80 then the region from 60 to 120 should have a coherent wavefront where the signal from the "satellites" (an atrocious term) and the signal from the sub arrive at your ears at the same time, which we should define as within microseconds of each other.

If you have that setup right, and you then move a sub 3-1/2 feet (closer or further away), you have shifted its phase response 90 degrees at 80 Hz.

This is also the basis for the argument about ported vs sealed satellites; since the air coming out of the port is not necessarily in phase with the air coming off he LF driver, the entire acoustic signature of the box CANNOT properly sum with the entire acoustic signature of the sub cabinet unless BOTH are sealed.

IF you have ported speakers, at least the port should be in the back. You would then think theat when the front of the LF driver is moving INWARD that the air is coming out of the back of the cabinet and therefore there is a planar wave phenomena taking place -- and this is partially correct -- but also since the air is elastic there is a sliding phase relationship between air pressure coming off he driver and coming out of the port and this is what makes the FREQUENCY response suffer whan the waveforms sum in space in your real room.

As long as I'm being so long-winded I'll interject a further reason for sealed satellites which are rolled off, and that is that now the LF drivers in those cabinets are not being asked to reproduce for example 40 Hz, which would doppler modulate (frequency modulate, actually) an A-440 note coming off that same LF driver. Both the lack of this doppler effect, AND the cone excursion movement being releived of operating at those low frequencies an long excursions greatly allow cleaner signals at higher frequencies to pass through.

And on top of all this we have the uncertainty of knowing which way if any the EQ circuit you are using shifts the phase, which is why this is such an n-dimensional problem.

Years ago, Henning Moeller from B&K had a terrific demo of this, the result being that at the end, the audience was smiling so much their faces hurt.

He described a 3-way (mono) speaker system where there were 2 passive xovers, and the speaker cabinet was driven by a mono amp. The 3 drivers, LF, MF, and Tweeter were in a vertical line. Now he said, move the tweeter away from the listener 2". That's phase shift. Next you move the tweeter 1130 feet further away and you then drop the stylus on he record (which hints at just how old this discussion is) and then you don't hear the opening h.f. cymbal crash of the music for a full second! Now THAT'S phase delay!

At an LA Studio in the late 70's we did a very interesting test where we had a 3 way typical for the day system, except the tweeter, an annoying JBL model, was mounted inside the compartmentalized cabinet on a lead screw attached to a pillow block. On the front of this lead screw was glued a 3/4" vinyl hose which then was then draped over the front of the mixing console. You could stand there and rotate this hose and physically move the tweeters backward and forward almost 3" in each direction, and you could have a mono mic on a snare drum, have that signal panned to the center, and make the image wander all over in space, in fact there was a point where it would tighten up and feel absolutely real and as if it were the perceived "correct" size, hovering in space in front of you -- or appear diffused, and appear to be coming from sort of everywhere.

So phase is the big trick, and for the most part I find it appalling how much time and energy is spent attempting to get flat response in the frequency domain when most of what you are doing is making a mess in the phase domain.

By the way, the entire discussion of "Phase" switches (which are really incorrectly labelled POLARITY SWITCHES) on subs and the discussion of a variable PHASE control for the sub is how I met Ken Kreisel and wound up at M&K.

I had occasion to sell a pair of M&K subs to a customer and I wanted to know if there were any models which had a variable phase control on them, and further, if not then why not? I had been using Meyer processors to build pristine nightclubs using the 650 R2 sub which is a bandpass box, and the unique processor had a VERY interesting phase control on it which could be used to tune or in fact re-tune the phase anomalies OUT of a system; and the trick there was to take the processor out on the dance floor with a 100' Mogami umbilical on it, and play with this phase control while walking around with this rack mount unit in your hand. You could tune the peaks and dips (if you want to call them that) and change the apparent low freq focus of the dance floor, and perhaps more important, the area OFF the floor.

In your home theater room, it is my suggestion to NOT attempt to make the frequency response flat -it cannot be done in a room that size anyway without extensive real acoustics room tuning - but rather to allow the room anomalies to serve you. Adjust the phase and frequency response (if you must) for a reasonable, psychologically desired response at your sweet spot (after all, you are the king...) and let the anomalies fall where they may. Got a mother-in-law who hates bass? Great! find or make a null and put her there! Now she's happy! Got a kid who loves bass? Great - he can sit on the floor 10dB closer to the sub, and so now the louder HF signals are going over his head, so he hears more bass and less highs, and HE'S happy, plus his hearing is not being quite so damaged.

Barry

Hi Curtis,

It's been a long time!

Yes I have talked to Dave.

In my opinion, (I'll say that again) IN MY OPINION, their OPPIX crossover is essentially the same as the M&K Phase Focused crossover, and we know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

Therefore I have chosen to recommend the Ascend products to all the people who email and ask me what they should do since M&K is no more. I believe the combination of the Sierra speakers and JL Audio subs represents and will continue to represent an astonishing, killer sound/value, and that means that whether you elect to set up a pristine 2-channel system or go for a 5.1 system with even a modest Denon, that the end result is spectacular.

You will notice from the Ascend website that it appears they are no longer in a relationship with Hsu. I am fairly sure that they will be developing a very nice sub of their own, and probably pleasantly cost effective, but not the engineering marvel that the JL is, with the world's best LF driver.

I of course have JL subs and they really do blow everything else away.

Barry
Hey Barry....good to see that things seem to be fine with you.

I can't say enough about the Sierra, so I suggest to people to just try and get a listen for themselves. What Dave has accomplished is IMO, remarkable.

I had the chance to hear xcjago's F112....outstanding! Unfortunately, I can't afford one, and I am happy with my Hsu VTF-3MK3.