BIC America F12 sub anyone ? - Page 33

mine was shipped out on the 19th. I am excited to finally get some bass!

Lol Sorry as I said I ordered mine on the 19th of Jan but your 2/11 will probably next shipment. Hopefully.......

Randy, how much of this forum have you read? There are more than 30 pages of opinions of the F12 and you ask how is the performace???

I was just told by GDI that they got a shipment in but it wasn't enough to fill all orders. I'm not cut out for this patience stuff.

Nah, it's crap... people just keep buying them for giggles.

Seriously though, performance should be looked at in terms of what it costs to obtain it. At $200, F12's bang-for-the-buck performance is good. However, if you like DIY, you may be able to put together a better performing sub for similar money.

Pete, you have far more patience than I!

I was thinking when i ordered this thing, early March would not be a bad wait. Don't know why I was thinking that, because 1-2 day deliveries seem too long.

In the mean time, does anyone have some test results from this sub? Don't know what it is called (audio noob), but I see where people have a chart of Hz and SPL (maybe db not spl, could be the same thing).


I hope I can feel this thing. I am going from an Onkyo 8" HTiB sub.

Ordered one last night to go with my new Denon 790. Said it should be in stock on the 28th.

this thing sounds DAMN good. wow!

my neighbors hate me now

Zamac, how could you say, 'I hope I can feel this thing?' In so many posts from MANY different owners we have said I can feel it in my chest, it rocks the couch, I can feel it in the walls upstairs, it moves the pictures on the walls... So many things have been posted saying how great this sub sounds AND feels. Do you not believe all of us? You will realize that the HTIB sub is not even a subwoofer!

Guess in all my searching about this subwoofer, I did not look for that. Guess I am just getting impatient waiting for it.

edit: Just searched "chest" and got good results.

can someone who owns this sub let me know how it does with music. im trying to decide on purchasing a good budget sub and want one that will perform well with regards to music. I would probably use it for 60% HT 40% music. Please give an honest opinion of its performance. Thanks!

After doing some research the last couple months, I have found that some people say that the BIC V1220 does a better job with Music then the F12 (if you want to stay with the same company). I have heard neither, but that is the impression that I get from people on this forum.

Bearcat, like I have said to a couple of other posters recently, if you read the forum you will see MANY opinions, I'm sure honest ones even, of how this sub does with music.

i am no subwoofer expert, but i know good sound when i hear it. imo, look at other subs if you plan on using it for music. i tried it, and did not like it. to me, every bass note sounds the same from this sub. my $135 hsu10/es10 sounds much, much better. for movies it wasnt bad, but i honestly do not see what the fuss is about with this subwoofer. not bashing it, it does have a good bit of output, and will be fine for HT, so dont take offense people!

Do you have another option for a similar price, then? I had seen in another thread that the Energy ESW-V8 was at WWS back down to $225. I think that is too small for my room, but then again I ordered the Take Classics which are probably going to be too small (but I felt like I couldn't pass them up based on price and reviews). Besides the room size, maybe the Takes being so small is why I need the F12 over the V8. I have F12 preordered and am probably going to stick with it unless I think I can find something better. (time to cancel is running out if it hasn't already, I haven't checked in a few weeks now on the eta) I'd thinks my room specs are 14' X 27' with half of that room being the dedicated HT 5.1 "area".

Bearcat, you could take his/her word for it or you could read the MANY pages of opinons and reviews from owners of this sub, myself included, that rave about it's abilities for movies AND music! As this poster has said, 'I'm no expert,' I take that to mean he/she doesn't know how to set up a sub properly or may not even own it! I think it kicks butt for music, from rock-pop-electro-newage hell even Sean Buble and Dido sound awsum with this sub. So read some pages and make an informed decision.

i figured you would say this. i know how to set up a sub properly. i tried the bic in as many locations and positions my room would allow. and of course i owned it. why else would i comment? i too read every post in this thread and decided to jump on one due to the rave reviews. i was expecting an upgrade over my current 10 inch subwoofer, but that wasnt the case. by listening only, i would say 30hz on down the dayton sub had close to, if not more output than the bic. i dont have an spl meter. with music that emphasized the upper bass regions, the bic had a bit more output, and you could feel it in your chest more than my hsu10. but the sound it created was monotonos, every bass note sounded similar. maybe Audyssey or the likes could take care of this, i dont know because i dont have it. its kind of hard to explain how something sounds in words, but if i had to pick one, it would be "awkward". i am by no means an elite sound quality snob, but after trying this sub out for a couple weeks, i couldnt stand it any more. i guess if you have never heard anything that sounded better, you would never know. i am betting that half of the posts in this long thread are from people that havent. back to my el cheapo hsu. just my honest 2 cents.

thanks for the help veedo.

i ended up going with the F12 anyway. it may not be the best all around sub, but in this price range, it seems like it should do just fine. I was considering the PA-120, but it would be a good 20-30 dollars more and I dont see any views to where it would make a difference in any way.

the nice thing is that this is my first ever sub, im a young guy in college who is building a system to enjoy for next year. therefore, im betting ill still be blown away by this sub, then when I am a good 5 years into a full time job, upgrade to a sub at a higher price point and be blown away by the improvement again.

again, thanks for the help guys, im betting ill be back with questions with how to tweak some settings if Audyssey doesnt perfect it.

For what it's worth, I find the similarly priced PA-120 also not the greatest with music. My 12" SVS seems to be more musical. Hsu are supposedly very musical as well, alas they all cost much more than $200.

Audyssey made a world of difference in my sub and overall sound. I can't recommend it highly enough.

There are so many variables involved with a subs performance imo. Room placement, acoustics, and equipment makes all the difference on how a sub will perform. Going from a lower end AVR w/Audyssey to a higher end AVR w/Audyssey changed the sound of my setup and sub. And for the better.

True to my word, I'm posting an update now that my BIL has his sub. (even though everybody seems to have skipped right over my post)

We hooked it up tonight. He had an 8" yamaha sub that came with a 5.1 speaker set for $100. Although his sub sucked, I was nervous today to hear if he liked the F12 or not. He bought it sight unseen, based off of my recommendation, which I also made sight unseen.

I have an SVS PB12-nsd, and he wanted a sub that he could "feel in his chest", like my sub. I knew that was going to be a tall order for him, his max budget was $300, and I knew that if he could spend less, he would be thrilled. Ergo my recommendatin for the $200 BIC.

We spent a few minutes calibrating his system with my radio shack spl meter, and AVIA disk. We didn't do a ton of fine tuning, I had a limited amount of time to spend with him tonight.

We set the receiver crossover at 80 Hz, all speakers to small, and dialed the gain on the sub to around the 10'oclock position.

We ran the sub a little hot, with his onkyo 506 (i think) sub gain at 0.
First impressions were decent, he enjoyed the upgrade from the 8" yamaha, I was relieved. The sub gets down to around 30 hz, then drops off to pretty much nothing. It also has a bit of a null around 71-72 hz, but picks up nice and strong right at 70hz. I'm sure this is caused by his room which is rather large. it's a big family room in his basement, with attached office and a doorless stairway that leads up to his main floor. (kitchen/dining room, living room, etc..) So, basically, the entire house would have to be pressurized.

I don't have the equipment or know how to use REW, or graph this out or anything. I plopped in one of my kids favorite demo 'scenes' to get a quick feel for the sub. It's the THX intro with the mechanical plants. With my SVS, the mushroom's are insane, I think that's what stood out for my BIL. With the F12, unfortunately the mushrooms were none existant. He did like the Horn shaped plant near the end of the THX intro. It blares loud and low for an exstended amount of time. That brought a smile to his face! (and I wiped the sweat from my brow too)

To make a long story short, too late, the F12 doesn't touch the PB12nsd, but we knew it wouldn't. It did do quite well for the $200 that it cost. We didn't try any music, but I'm sure we will soon. Music takes a back seat for him, so I didn't worry about that too much.

There is one disappointing thing about the sub, the grill rattles when the sub digs deep. We noticed it immediately, and played around until we could figure out where it was coming from. Once the grill was pulled off, the buzz disappeared. He is going to get some type of felt or something to stick on the wood surface, the buzz comes from the wood grill laying on the wood sub box.
Edit: The rattling isn't coming from where we thought it was. The grill fabric isn't glued on to the back of the grill in a small area. The noise is the cloth vibrating back and forth, flapping in the wind, if you will. He is going to call BIC, see what they recommend doing. If nothing, then he'll try glueing it himself.

Hope that info helps.

I should mention, we didn't do the sub crawl, or experiment with location at all. We may down the road, but for the time being, he's ok with it where it is, just below his screen, to the right of his center speaker and equipment. I'll get a picture soon, and post it here later on. (if anybody cares)

Thanks for the review Todd Lee. Tingham can you tell me what model avr's you were talking about?

I just noticed on the energy owner's thread, member DAC21 said this today "If you are on Overstock.com e-mail list, they they are having a 10% off weekend sale, but you need to link through the email to activate the 10% OFF. You can get the Bic Acoustech H100 for under $200 delivered". For those looking to do something quickly, this might be helpful. I assume it is almost the same, if not identical to the F12. But I don't know.

Sure...I went from this AVR with "Audyssey MultEQ" to this AVR with "Audyssey MultEQ XT ". Audyssey MultEQ XT has more filters. The 1st AVR had a original msrp of $600.00, and the 2nd AVR had a original msrp of $1200.00. Wow, has Dakmart lowered the price on these units. The 989 is a great deal!

Thanks Tingham. Do you think the onkyos with "XT" would have the exact same good effects as the denons with "XT"? I am still researching avrs.

They should, yes in strict regards to audyssey, additional receiver features aside.

I've edited my previous post, a few posts up. The sub rattle is different than we thought.

I would concur with just about everything you wrote regarding the F12. I don't think there would ever be any confusion that the F12 would remotely attempt to stack up next to any SVS product, but for less than two C notes, it's hard to beat if you need a sub!

I'm glad that overall, your BIL was happy with his purchase.

I am still doing some research. But today a chart was pointed out to me about the different audysseys. http://www.audyssey.com/technology/m...solutions.html From what I understand, the small HT I am setting up will not see the benefits of the "XT", being that it only increases the filters for the satellites (just the small Take Classics in my case) with no filter increase for the subwoofer.