BIC America F12 sub anyone ? - Page 13

Does the BIC F12 come with the BASH amp designed by Dr. Hsu or is it only the older model H-100 that comes with it?

It is a BASH amp, the driver is HSU. I believe most or all of the BIC subs come with BASH amps and drivers by HSU.

I don't think so. The only one listed on bic's website that says anything about Hsu designed is the h-100. And it states that it is a "bash designed" amp. I'm not trying to bash (no pun intended) on anyone, but I think some people may be a little mislead about the f12. I could be wrong, but that's what their website says.

Edit: It also says the new pl-200 was designed with Hsu.

I also ordered from Provantage but did not have your bad experience. Mine came, as scheduled, in the original factory box (like page 1 pic)

paid 187.43 delivered. but i just looked at their site. Now 162.49 delivered

Big River also has it for $163 shipped.

Amazon has it for the same as Big River... I currently have a V1220 in a 25X15X10 living space that opens up to a similar size kitchen. I want two subs but don't need overkill... can I pair a F12 with the 1220 and be good or do I need to go with two F12's? Thanks...

I don't remember where I read it but I did see something that said the driver of the F12 was an HSU design, not a driver bought from HSU by BIC but 'designed by.' When I see it again I'll be sure to post.

Should work OK, very similar specs. Give one F12 a try with your 1220, if it doesn't work well, get another F12. With all the adjustments available on the F12 & 1220 I'm sure you could tune and adjust it to your liking. I love my F12 and another one would be overkill but I think it would be enjoyable, not gonna happen though.

How would this compare to a Parts Express Dayton 10" front -firing sub?

Sounds good. My only real concern is the front firing vs down firing... I assume that I'd want the front in front of the listening area and the rear behind me on the couch? Anyone have a different take? Thanks...

FYI big river is Amazon...don't know where it started but it's getting old

Try it how you think would work and mess around with them to see what set up sounds best, trial and error.

Thats fine and dandy, but normally a company doesnt want the junk back, at your expense..

I ordered an Antec 1200 case from Newegg and the side window has some minor damage...I called antec and they just next dayed me a whole new side panel...

(they know its cheaper then dealing with sending anything back).

Hooked up my old Technics direct drive turntable last night after I bought a new stylus for it. Spun some of my old rock albums from years gone by, HOLY CRAP did it sound incredible! The bass was like nothing I've heard so far from mp3's or even bluray's. I was kinda thinkin it would sound scratchy and old and remember my woofers really dancin when playing records and the F12 did too but it kept up and was so tight and solid, could really feel the pressure in my chest! I'll be going to flee markets to find some more vinyl. Still more than happy with my F12 purchase. Thinkin about building a home theatre and may get a second F12 to blow people out of their seats during movies.

I work for a state University as an AV integrator. I have been doing this for over 27 years. At home I used to have a Home Theater set up that consisted of a Klipsch center channel, Klipsch Heresey left and right fronts, Polk Audio FX3i side surrounds and JBL Rear channel in wall speakers and a 12" Klipsch powered sub all connected to a Kenwood THX receiver. This was in my basement which has concrete floor with carpeting which had no padding, it is indoor outdoor carpeting. When I would run movies, the furniture would shake and you could feel the pounding in your chest. When upstairs in another room, during a dynamic part of a movie, it would sound as if an impending thunderstorm was moving in.

Why all of this you may ask? The university needed to equip a large room with a surround system for use by students to watch movies in. I researched a few systems and based a lot of my criteria on specifications. I needed to come up with an inexpensive speaker system that could handle the demands of a large room with a 30 ft. ceiling at it's peak. One of the base criteria that I use is the sensitivity of the speaker since we were using a cheap surround amplifier that we already had and I needed to drive the speakers with this low powered receiver. I would have preferred to go with the Klipsch but I came across the BIC Acoustech line I was really impressed by their stats and their Klipsch knock-off design. I took a chance and ordered the following from an online dealer who sells both Klipsch and BIC Acoustech lines.

BIC Acoustech H-100 Subwoofer
BIC Acoustech PL-28 Center Speaker
4 - BIC Acoustech HT-63 Surrounds

The Center channel speaker has 8" drivers which are great for a large room. My opinion is that this is the most important speaker when watching a movie since most of the dialogue and many other up front sounds emanate from the center channel. This is a huge speaker and was capable of hanging on the wall below the screen.

The H-00 subwoofer was placed on an 8 foot tall cabinet that is custom made and it has a top that is 4 inches thick so there are no vibrations. This was placed in the corner of the room atop this built in cabinet.

I used four HT-63 surrounds as the left and right front and left and right rear speakers. The amp is a 5.1 surround sound amp. All of the speakers needed to be able to be hung high on the walls to keep vandals from removing or poking out the drivers. I was able to mount the HT-63 surrounds so that they criss-crossed the main viewing area of the large room. These have Dual 6 1/2" woofers and one 6 1/2" mid/high frequency horn with one woofer pointed sideways, one firing to the front and the mid/high frequency horn firing at an angle.

When they came in I set them up in another room which is a 200 seat auditorium for testing. I was impressed by their overall performance when I played a test DVD (The Fifth Element). Even in this size room, the bass was crisp and had a lot of punch, the center was excellent, the surrounds played great and I was happy that I made the right purchase.

We installed the surround speakers about 10ft. off the floor. The center channel could only be installed directly below the screen at about 6 ft. We set the sub at the middle for the amplification and the crossover at 120 Hz since the center and surrounds had decent sized drivers in each and I felt they could handle anything well above this range.

The system sounds excellent in this size room. My guesstimate is the room is at least 30' X 50' with a 30' ceiling.

I was so impressed by these that I just ordered an F-12 for my own living room after reading about the H-100 on this thread and their being the replacement.

I had to sell most of my Klipsch speaker system recently due to some financial difficulties so I have started to rebuild my home system. I just purchased a Polk Audio CS1 center channel and two Polk Audio M10 speakers for the left and right front speakers.

I hung the Polk Audio FX3i surrounds that I already had on the rear wall and set them to bipole.

Until I get the F-12 I will be driving everything with the Logitech Z-5500 system that I used for my Surround in my living room for the past 2 years. I've had no complaint about this system as it has been adequate but I felt it could be better. I think I blew my Logitech center channel speaker while watching Valkyrie because it wasn't the same afterwards. It started distorting and making a sound as if I was over-driving it which is what prompted me to start replacing the speakers.

With the new F-12 I will be driving everything with my Kenwood Receiver which I will replace at a future point. At the moment I do not need to have HDMI switching on my receiver since I can do all of that with my LCD TV. It has optical output which I will route through the receiver's optical input.

Splicer, you sound like a know it all yet you can't understand that we are not idiots, we can read between the lines when it comes to looking at manufacturer's specifications. Anyone who has purchased anything audio/visual knows what to look for when it comes to specs and such. Misleading or not, this is an excellent sub for the money. I spent $600 on my Klipsch RW-12 sub and it was a nice sounding sub but I cannot afford to spend that much and I am sure I will be happy with this one in my living room since I have heard the performance of the H-100 already and it sounded pretty nice to me. To each his own.

Splicer, you sound like a know it all yet you can't understand that we are not idiots, we can read between the lines when it comes to looking at manufacturer's specifications. Anyone who has purchased anything audio/visual knows what to look for when it comes to specs and such. Misleading or not, this is an excellent sub for the money. I spent $600 on my Klipsch RW-12 sub and it was a nice sounding sub but I cannot afford to spend that much and I am sure I will be happy with this one in my living room since I have heard the performance of the H-100 already and it sounded pretty nice to me. To each his own.[/quote]


WOW, thats quite an essay Jack!
I got so sick of seeing splicers comments I disabled him in the options section, much easier reading. Apparently almost every forum gets one of these guys that knows more than the rest of us and needs to tell us all how dumb we are. I've looked through a few other forums here and it's true, someone always chimes in with some rediculous comments that has nothin to do with anything in reality and argues with everyone!
I understand the H100 is similar to the F12 and my F12 has been more than enough for my ht and listening pleasure. I'm always surprised when I have people over, when I crank it they can't believe the bass and they have to know and see where it's coming from. I guess most people don't have a sub or what they have is inadequate. One guy said "my woofer doesn't do that!"
2 F12 have made there way into homes based on what they heard at my place.

Thanks Sound Master. The F-12 has the same specs and from my ear, they sound identical. The only difference that I can tell is the box and the different colored cone. Of course the H 100 is prettier but I am looking at performance, not beauty. I was considering using a car sub enclosure and running it with a separate 200 watt amp but figured I would be spending as much just for the basics as I would by buying the F-12. I was also considering two other subs, the Polk PSW10 and the YAMAHA YST-SW216BL both of which I have read good things about. I felt both were underpowered 10" drivers and knew what the H-100s sounded like and at a few dollars more felt that I was making the right decision by purchasing the F-12..

Got the F-12 yesterday from Provantage. It came in the original packing material. I would have been livid if it came like the other guy's that obviously got a display or returned item.

I spent the whole evening rewiring the surround system because I replaced the AVR and located it in a different location. I went through the tone set up on my AVR so that everything sounded like it was at the same level. I didn't bother with speaker distance at this point since I wanted first to see what the F-12 level was in "real life" while playing a Blue Ray DVD on my PS3.

I wanted to play something dynamic so I put on one of the Netflix BR movies I had at home. I had my choice of "Australia" or "Friday the 13th" and I chose the later. (At the time I didn't think of it but I could have put on my copy of "The Dark Night". I will probably test that out tonight.)

The F-12 sounded great though I had the volume up a little too loud but the bass was nice and tight. I couldn't turn it up very loud as my wife was sleeping and I didn't want to disturb her. I'll adjust the overall volume tonight before she goes to bed.

My placement for the F-12 is on top of my Entertainment Center to the left in the corner. It looks a bit odd up there but I didn't want to take up the floor space in front of the Entertainment Center. I was worried about rattling when it hit the low frequencies of dynamic passages but I haven't heard any yet. The Entertainment Center is fairly heavy-duty so this might not be a problem, at least I hope not. I am sure running "The Dark Knight" this evening will test this out. Otherwise it's back to the floor location.

I stated it above and will reiterate that, to me, the two most important speakers in a surround system are the Center and the Sub. Though the Polk CS1 does a good job as a Center channel speaker, I am seriously considering purchasing the BIC FH6-LCR center channel speaker and using the Polk CS1 as the rear channel speaker. Because the Kenwood AVR that I have is a 6.1 system, the following is the configuration: Front Left and Right, Center, Left Surround, Right Surround, Rear and Sub. You have to buy most speakers in pairs so I figure a decent Center channel ought to work out perfectly and you purchase them as a single speaker. The Polk CS1 weighs in at 13lbs and has a rear port so I will have to figure out a way to mount it.

More later.

That's a pretty interesting story you told a couple posts back there Jacksfork. I see you like to place subwoofers high in the "AIR" according to your previous posts... I can't imagine having it on top of a ET center, but if it sounds good up there, and the wife doesn't mind, that's all that matters. Glad you are liking it so far. It's also good to hear that provantage has been doing better with their sales. I'm still thinking about getting another one of these some day? It seems I have enough bass already though, according to my wife...

I'll tell you, after 4 months of ownership, this little sub continues to amaze me for the money. I watched the new Jeff Beck Blu-Ray "Live at Ronnie Scott's" in DTS HD Audio the other night, and when the drummer was hitting the double bass pedals this sub never missed a beat. It was loud and tight, and it handled it very well. Btw..if there are any Jeff Beck fans out there, I "Highly" recommend this BD.

I can see guest's purchasing one after hearing it in your set up Sound Master Bic. The general public doesn't really know what a good sub sounds like, and once they hear it, they want one for themselves. And for the price of this one, you can't go wrong.

After lurking in this forum for a little while I finally decided to pull the trigger on the F12. Amazon dropped their price and I got it for 187 shipped, which isn't too bad. There are 2 left in stock at Amazon.com so if anyone else is interested jump on the deal fast.

Well, it didn't work out atop my Entertainment Center. When it hit the lowest of the lows, it rattled too much. I ended up placing it on the floor. However, I it gave a great performance when playing "Australia" on Blue Ray. When the Japanese were attacking Missionary Island and Darwin, the explosions packed the right amount of punch in the chest and didn't rattle the windows too much. ;-)

You could feel the furniture vibrate. The whole room shook and it was all clear and undistorted.

I wouldn't normally hang a sub high. I wanted to do this for my home to save floor space. I did it at work because it was out of harms reach in a plce where it would be hard to get to and we could lock it down with a security cable.

There is nothing wrong with placing or even hanging a sub high so long as the dynamics of the room is OK. We have a 200 seat auditorium I run that has a JBL Model 2241H (18" Sub) hung with 3 JBL 4425Bi-Radial Studio Monitors with 12" subs and a huge bi-radial horns which makes up the front left, right and center speakers. The Surrounds are JBL Control 25s of which there are 2 on the side and 2 on the rear walls. We have a Dolby Digital decoder which is fed into three 2 channel amps which power the 5.1 system. We also have a Kinon 35 MM projector by which we show movies for film series and such. I'm lucky enough to be the projectionist since I have had experience with that in the past. I call this place my home theater system away from home. We don't have an HD Video projector but we have a Sanyo that is native 1024 X 768 and it puts out 6500 Lumens on a 20 ft. wide screen. Sitting in the front row you can see the pixels but from about the third row back it looks pretty good. If only it were attached to my home, it would be better.

At home the Entertainment center covers the wall of the room it is in. To the right of the Entertainment center is a small closet which is next to the front door entrance. There is no place to put the sub unless I put it in the closet and opened the door whenever I would have the surround system on. Don't think I haven't thought about that but my only problem would be to have to usurp the space from my wife's basket of shoes. :-P

So, I have located the sub about 2 ft. in front of the Entertainment Center along the side wall. Faced it sideways towards the rear of the room and it works fine. I need to run Dark Knight to test how the Entertainment Center handles the port firing at it from 2 ft. I may have to move it further into the room.

If all else fails I wonder what it would be like in a far corner of the room opposite the Entertainment Center?

As others have said it works best to try different places in the room to get the best results.

Still thinking about that closet location...

"If all else fails I wonder what it would be like in a far corner of the room opposite the Entertainment Center?

As others have said it works best to try different places in the room to get the best results.

Still thinking about that closet location...[/quote]"



Hey again Jack, gotta say I don't think the closet will work for you. I think that will act like a large enclosure and just sound boomy and echoy. Could be wrong, let us know.

So my F12 got delivered today from Amazon. It arrived in the original Bic America box and it arrived damaged. Here are the pics:
Attachment 146622
Attachment 146623

I am little surprised that Amazon did not put this box inside one of its own boxes. I've never received anything from Amazon that wasn't inside of another Amazon box.

There was a tiny ding on the subwoofer when I took it out of the box. You can hardly even notice it and I'm ok with it, but I called Amazon to see what my options are and they said they would overnight me a new sub. So, I'm going to see what this new one looks like before sending the old one back.
Attachment 146624

Here's a picture of the small amount of damage. You can hardly see it.

Once I get this straightened out I'll hook it up and post my thoughts about the sub.

Just ordered two of these from thenerds, these better blow my face off.

"



Hey again Jack, gotta say I don't think the closet will work for you. I think that will act like a large enclosure and just sound boomy and echoy. Could be wrong, let us know.[/quote]

Yeah, I thought about that too though I won't have a chance to find out since my wife now has two baskets of shoes and said she couldn't give up one as she claims to wear all. Did I marry a centipede and don't know it?

For now it stays in place.

Dang MechaPoitier! I'd still have been a bit PO. Mine shipped in the same packaging from Provantage and went Fed Ex and didn't have nearly a scratch on the box let alone the SW.

Watched "The Uninvited" tonight and there was a single lightening/thunder in a scene and it actually sounded real. Very deep and you could feel the thunder.

I bought two of these, should I stack them or just set one on each side of the towers?

Depends on your room and how even the frequency response. Stacking them will give you the most output however since each sub is located in the same place you'll be hearing the same frequency response at your listening position. If you don't have any huge peaks are dips in the response from your listening position that would probably be your best bet.

Setting the subs in difference locations has the potential to even out any peaks or dips caused by the room and is a huge benefit of running multiples but it can take more time and trial and error to get optimal results.

If you want to check in to measurement software such as REW which is a free download, SPL meter and a few cables this will let you know what effect your room is having on the response.

I've never seen subs 'stacked' in a pro environment, high end audio stores, studios... none of them stack their subs but have them placed at the left right positions. I saw a super high end set up a while ago, he had 4 Paradigm top end subs set up one in each corner of the listening space close to the mains but not in the corners of the room. It was mind blowing but thats several thousand watts driving 4 Krell Modulari Duo Reference speakers which on their own are $300,000+!! The Krells alone are more bass than most people will ever hear but with the Para's it physically moved the hair on my head, quite a set up but my point, no stacking. If your room is too small you may have to stack but if it's that small, 2 F12 will be overkill anyway. Let us know as soon as you get them set how it is, I've been considering another one myself.

Thanks for your input!

The wife says both F12's were delivered this morning. That's the first thing I'm doing when I get home from work. I'm pretty excited to try these out!

These don't need to be broken in, right?

I have a question.

With the port on the back, how far away from the wall do I need to set these?

I only have mine a foot or so from the wall/corner, never measured but 6 inches closer makes a big difference, to the negative. My wall is not a true 90degree corner but more of a 120-135 degree so I think that helps.
Some say a driver should be broken in but I'm not sure I believe it. I played mine for 6 hours straight first day at fairly high volume. Wasn't really breaking it in just enjoying it. My friend at the audio store plays his new demo woofers/speakers for 12 hours straight, he knows better than me.