BIC America F12 sub anyone ? - Page 84

I am currently set to "large", as the receiver does not know I have a subwoofer. Yes, I will be changing my speakers to "small" once the subwoofer is in.

Then you'll be good to go. IIRC, you'll just need to go into the Denon's GUI menu to set up 2-channel sources to include your sub and set your mains as "small" there also. You will not need to make any additional connections between your sub and AVR, and you will not need to change settings on the sub when you switch sources.

Great! Thanks for the info. I'd hate to have to change settings as my wife would never learn them.

I poked around in my Denon 590s menu, and could not find a setting for 2 channel sound. Does anyone know if the 590 has such a setting? And, if so, where in the menu would I find it? I would like to be able to do this for listening to CDs, when I do listen to CDs or the radio, I have to crank the volume knob on the sub to get much bass out of my system.

According to Page 42 of the PDF OF THE DENON 590 MANUAL, if you set your input source to STEREO, and press the D/ST button on the remote, and you will allegedly have "sound from the left and right speakers and the subwoofer".

Thanks for the tip!!

I have the same receiver and sub. Once you select your input to your CD player, it should automatically decode the source audio as 2 channel. Each input has separate settings so make sure you go through and check your levels, EQ settings and everything else. As long as your sub is enabled for LFE in the options, you should have left, right and subwoofer for music.

What I like doing is pressing the Music button on the remote and picking the Pro Logic Surround option for listening to CDs. It maintains the left, right and sub but somehow perfectly balances the center and rears into the mix. It sounds pretty awesome and I can't go back to stereo mode anymore.

Make sure your sub has your speakers set to small even if they are towers. Also, you may need to lower your LFE hz on your subwoofer and check that the levels for the sub are the same under the CD and radio inputs. I recommend 80hz.

I don't have a "CD" player connected to my receiver, I just play them through my Blu Ray player, does that make a difference? And all of my speakers are set to small, and I think I have the crossover set to 120 HZ if I remember correctly. My fronts and surrounds are Jamo C406 bookshelf speakers, so small is where they should be set regardless, haha.

is there any danger in placing this sub right next to a window? Should I be worried about something happening to the glass?

After running Audessey a few times, all is well. I do use a separate CD for all my redbook CD's and only use my Oppo BDP93 for SACD's and DVD-A's. The F12 definitely kicks in for 2-channel stereo.

I've played around with the extra listening modes. I need to spend more time with them.

lol. Suppose if your glass is single pane from the 40's or 50's you might have a problem but most windows can handle anything the F12, or most any other sub, can throw at it.

I know this might sound like a silly question but has anyone here used, or considered using, the F12 or multiples as mid bass subs? These are note overly powerful, nor do the play extremely low, but it seems as if they have pretty good midbass punch.

Just a thought.. lol

Hey folks, any of you compared the F12 to the BIC V1220 downward-firing variant? I'd assumed that they were the same sub in a different cabinet, but on the BIC website they are rated as having different freqency response (25-200 for the F12, 23-180 for the V1220) as well as different amplifier ratings (150W RMS 475W peak for the F12, 200W RMS 430W peak for the V1220). Both have "Venturi" ports, although I don't know what "Venturi" actually means (I'm guessing its the name of the designer?). The specs suggest the the V1220 is better for extension while the F12 is better for spl. Does anyone have any experience with the V1220 that might back up or contradict my intuition?

In my opinion after measuring both of them the F12 is the superior sub in look and capability, but they both measure about the same when it all boils down. The driver on the BIC F12 seems of much higher quality as compared to the V1220.

Here are some measurements of both the F12 and the V1220 in my room.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1391243/bic-v1220-and-bic-f12-omnimic-frequency-response-graphs/0_50

That's really helpful. I was hoping for some sort of qualitative comparison. I didn't imagine anyone would respond with frequency response graphs from an A/B comparison! Thanks for sharing the experiment -- and also for the opinion regarding driver quality.

Get the F-12"s Point them anywhere you want

Receiving my F12 tomorrow! The sub will join a pair of Monitor 60s for main, CS1 center, and old Yamaha HTiB surrounds. It will also be replacing the massive, hard pounding, powerhouse of a sub that came with that Yamaha HTiB. I'm talking 50 watts and 6.5" of sub 15hz fury!!!!!! lmao

I'm positive that the F12 will be a MASSIVE upgrade from what I currently have. Only bad thing is that it will be hooked to my old Onkyo TX-SR304 receiver for the time being. No room calibration or anything of the sort. Plan is to replace it with a Denon before too long though, which I'm sure will yield a nice step up in sound quality as well. I have yet to experience any of the HD codecs since my receiver had no HDMI inputs.

Anyhow, can't want to get the F12 in and hooked up. I only have my 12ft sub cable, so I'm limited to where I can place it for now, but I do have a 25ft cable on the way from monoprice. Hoping to be able to place it beside my main listening area, but will only leave it there if it sounds the best there. Definitely doing a sub crawl. Sub will be used 100% for movies.

Hope to post up some pics and thoughts soon!

Got it all hooked up. Sounds great. I definitely need to get a new receiver though. Calibrating this thing by ear has proven to be a nightmare. I have all speakers set to small, sub set to yes, and crossover set to 80. Just doesn't feel quite right yet, but I can still say that it is a massive improvement from the little 50watt 6.5" 'sub' that it replaced.

First off, I am wondering if the sub is placed in the proper position. If you are not noticing the sound and effects of your sub, it is very possible that the sub may be in a null in reference to your listening position. Before you can judge your sub, it has to be set-up properly.

Setting up and calibrating a sub requires due diligence and homework. This may not be the forum to start discussing your sub set-up (there are many threads already on this, just "search").

http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/speaker-setup-guidelines/subwoofer-placement-guidelines

Thanks for the reply. I definitely know how placement is key. I did move it to my front sound stage beside the left main speaker. Definitely sounds better than where it was previously located. Just received my 25ft sub cable, so plan to do some experimenting this evening or tomorrow with placement and plan to do the sub crawl. Unfortunately, due to room size and furniture positions, there is really only 4 places I can put it; 3 of which are in corners. But I will definitely pick the best sounding of the 4.

Thanks again.

Hey guys. After reading this forum, and some other opinions on the net, I decided to pull the trigger on this bad boy. It should be here next week. I'm pairing it with a couple of Monitor60's, a CS2 center, and a Onkyo RC-360 receiver. My current Onkyo speakers will make up the balance of my 7.1 channel system. I can't wait to hear how it all sounds.

BTW, I was debating between this BIC America F12 and the Polk PSW505. It seems about 80-90% of posters prefer, or advise,to go with the BIC. I'll let you all know what I think once they all come in.

Does anyone have any rattle problems with their F12?

I may just have my sub turned up too loud but thought I would get some opinions. Currently, I have the gain set to 3 and my receiver set to 0dB for the subwoofer. It's loud enough to shake the walls and sounds good but at certain low frequencies, usually sustained bass (like the ship landing in the movie Alien), the speaker will start rattling. It sounds like it's mostly the grill but may be the casing as well.

Anyone else have this problem? Should I low the gain on the sub or just lower the levels on the receiver to a negative db?

I found that when turned up, certain content would cause the grill to make noise. I usually took the grill off when watching movies at or near reference or when listening to music at or near reference.

I have an Onkyo txnr609 with montior 70s, monitor csi and bic F12. I set the gain on the subwoofer to max. The receiver sub gain is 0. When i first got the sub everything was fine. The bass was way louder. Now after I turn the receiver volume pass 50 the bass seems to go down. The subwoofer crossover frequency is 100 and the phase is set to 0. I hope someone can help me with this. This is when I'm playing music most of the time. I

Most people set the sub gain to about the 9 o'clock position. You have most likely overdriven it and damaged the speaker.

I just ordered one of these & it should arrive late in the week. I can't find a used manual online to find out if it has an "Auto On" feature. Can someone tell me? Thanks!

It has Auto, on and off. I used Auto when I was using the one I have.

Thanks!

Got the F12 yesterday & couldn't be happier! For a couple hundred bucks it must be the best sub on the planet.