BIC Acoustech H200 Subwoofer (AKA PL-200) - Page 29

Good to hear all is well! If I may as Ranger.... what is the rest of your set up?

Hey everyone,

Just ordered a PL-200 yesterday from Mike at AcousticSoundDesign. Looking forward to getting it. Slowly upgrading my old stereo setup. Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I feel I am now making as informed a decision as someone could possibly make, without actually hearing the subwoofer themselves.

Have to wait a wee bit as I am in Canada, but will certainly report back with my thoughts etc. after I install it.

Sounds great Sol., please do report back as its always good to hear all reviews! I have 2 now and could not be happier.

Onkyo 608 (may later switch in my old 706, haven't decided). Sony BX58 3D Blu-ray, XBOX 360 and a Wii.

Polk Monitor 70 mains and CS20 center. Polk OWM3s for surround back and Phase Technology PC 80s for surround sides.

She plays loud and clean.

Here is my "before" pic (sorta). 52" Sony Bravia with Old Pioneer S-T100 front speakers, which actually sound surprisingly decent. Plan to swap those out for the PL-89's, and maybe move the Pioneer's to the back where two Polk R30's currently are. I have a recently purchased (on sale) Klipsch RC52 for a center channel that is actually sitting in my basement window sill! I'm currently using a 6" or so Logitech sub I bought for a laptop a few years ago...so needless to say...expecting a massive improvement...lol

I've got them pretty well dialed in now. I gave Tron: Legacy a spin last night. Great googly moogly! It's probably the best sounding movie I've run in my HT. The LFE is ongoing and deep. New demo material for sure.

Got my PL-200 in yesterday. I unfortunately suffered the same fate as others, as I hooked it up and no sound. Having read Mike's comment on the board, I pulled the amp and sure enough the connections to the woofer had fallen off. It was a pretty quick and easy fix, and it's working fine now. So, thanks to Mike for saving me a lot of trouble in having to return the sub!


I did want to mention a word of warning to anyone else who is going to "try this at home". To do this fix, you need to remove the amp from the enclosure. The amp has capacitors on it, including one fairly big one, and capacitors store electricity. Also, they tend to hold a residual charge for a while even after you've unplugged the unit from the wall. So, if any of what I just said is news to you, please be sure to Google capacitors before you try anything, so that you can first get a better understanding of what they are, how they work, what they look like, and why it can be hazardous to your health to touch them.


BTW, after about an hour of listening, I would say the PL-200 is fairly comparable to my Definitive Technology ProSub 200TL. It's stronger and more robust in some areas, and a bit weaker in other areas, particularly at higher frequencies (close to the 80hz crossover point I have set). I'm going to give it a couple of weeks in my primary listening room to break it in, and then do an A/B comparison to determine which sub stays in the primary room and which one moves to the secondary room. I'm hoping that once the break-in period is over, its upper bass deficiencies (relative to my DefTech) will have cleared up.

Thanks for the post Pen. Yes.. please give us your feedback on the PL compared to the Def. Tech.. HAve fun!

[quote=PenDragon;20298058]Got my PL-200 in yesterday. I unfortunately suffered the same fate as others, as I hooked it up and no sound. Having read Mike's comment on the board, I pulled the amp and sure enough the connections to the woofer had fallen off. It was a pretty quick and easy fix, and it's working fine now. QUOTE]

Same thing here. The woofer simply wasn't connected. It is a very simple fix. If you recieve one that is not working check this first. Took less than 5min to fix.

Add another one to the list. The red wire to the driver was not connected on mine either. Thanks to all of you for sharing the info.

got mine yesterday and it was DOA... haven't had a chance to open it up yet.

I'm confused. I would have thought that these would have been "fixed" prior to shipping out once the problem had been recognized. It appears (please correct me if I'm wrong, and if I am, I apologize!), that they are just shipping these out as per usual? Or???

Mine should arrive today or Monday...I gotta tell ya I'll be a little disappointed/annoyed if it arrives DOA after the problem was known well in advance of when I ordered. But that's just how I think....lol

That's a tricky one. It would entail opening each and every box and testing them. Maybe a big deal, maybe not. For me, I'd rather get one that's never been opened and go from there. That said, I'm not in the situation... I guess I got lucky since both mine seem to be working. Sounds like an easy fix however if that changes. I hope yours arrives in working order too.

As an FYI, and if this is covered elsewhere I'll apologize in advance for repetition...

As I previously mentioned, I live in Canada. Winnipeg to be precise. Because my speaker is getting shipped UPS (it wouldn't change anything if sent FedEx), UPS takes it upon themselves to not only make their money off the fact they're shipping the item, but also (arguably) rip us all off by also charging "brokerage" fees...over and above the tax and duty! For example, an an item being shipped from the U.S. into Canada worth 200.00-350.00 has a brokerage fee of 44.25...again, over and above tax and duty.

BUT...we can SELF clear customs and NOT pay this fee!!! Here is a link to the info. - http://trueler.com/2010/09/13/ups-br...ting-avoid-it/

Bit of a pain in the ass, but well worth it.

Note - Item has to be valued at less than 1,600.00

I opened it up last night and connected the red wire to the sub. Works fine now.

Just a thought... if you (or someone you trust) has a really skinny arm, you can probably connect the wire by reaching through the port tube to the back of the speaker. Then you wouldn't have to remove the amp at all.

Since this is a frequent deal, maybe someone who has theirs open could snap a couple pics of the inside and post up a tutorial of sorts.

A year's worth of posts and not a single frequency response measurement ?
Surely someone has written down spl #'s using a Radio Shack SPL meter.
Post them here (uncorrected please) and I will put them in a spreadsheet and plot the curve.

Mine too was DOA. Simple fix though! So far very pleased...wife not so much

Heya, so I have been using a single pl-200 for around a year. I have this urge to get another one. Is the pl-200 still the best bang for your buck subwoofer for movies/ht? 2 pl-200 subs better than 1 18" sub?

If my receiver has one sub pre-out, how do I get 2 subs working? What do I buy via monoprice.com

according to this
http://www.energy-speakers.com/na-en...-room-details/
it says, I should measure the diameter of the sub port and then place the sub against the wall 2x further apart....right now I have my pl-200 right up against the wall as close as possible....Is that bad because it vibrates the walls too much and can easily locate where the bass is coming from?

What is a subdude for?....Is it only for downfiring subs? I have a concrete floor so is that unnecessary for me? Is concrete flooring a + or a - when it comes to subwoofers?

Is another sub that much better? With 2 subs, does it feel like the bass is coming from everywhere and not just 1 spot?

My room is approx
26ft long, 11ft wide, 7 1/2ft tall.

It is very strange to me to hear about so many PL-200's arriving dead with a loose wire. I had no issues at all with the two I ordered at separate times. I have had them both up and running for the past few months and have loved their performance together. I finally got a SPL meter from Radio Shack to match the level of the subs with my mains. I needed to lower the gain in my sony to -6db. I had it at -2. They blend in very well with my Klipsch Synergy speakers.

I have get a spl meter and do testing like that to get the sound the way it is supposed to be with not too much bass or too little?

Got mine today...red wire not attached. (It's almost funny at this point.) Will give it some listening before I pass judgement, but initial reaction is good. Also, I should mention that UPS beat the crap out of my box as well. Built-in "handles" both collapsed, numerous dings and bangs. I was actually concerned about the contents. But, like everyone else so far, the speaker itself was fine.

I grabbed Megamind since it went on super sale and watched the Button of Doom short... Holy cow! It's a great little bass heavy treat.

I got mine today, but there is no power cord. Is there supposed to be one? I couldn't find anything in the manual that said what should be in the box. The box was beat to hell and wet, but everything inside was fine. The UPS driver stayed and helped me open everything up because he saw the damage, but I didn't think to look for the cord before he left.

Yes, there should be a power cord. You will see the plug-in hole for it on the amp.

Thanks....this is disappointing. I need to see how to get a replacement now.

Yeah, that's a large tall glass of suck no doubt about it!

Not saying that you should have to buy one, but it might be the fastest way to go, so here is an option:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...t=1#largeimage

As near as I can tell, the cord is just your basic cord.

I thought about trying substitutes, but I wasn't sure it was a straight cord since it wasn't a three pin connector on the amp. Acoustic Sound Design replied before I needed to do any looking and are second day airing a cord. Pretty impressive. Resolution in less than an hour. That makes most of the suck go away Two thumbs up for their customer service!

I was wondering how to use my SPL meter to test my PL-200s frequency range. I don't know if I did it right on my first try. I used the test tones in my avr to set the subs. I have the meter at 80db C weighting and set to slow. The sub played the tone at 0db on the meter. Then I put my test disc in with test tones on it from 10hz to 90hz. If this is the right way to do it, the results were crazy. At 10hz the meter needle went down only one db. At 11hz it went up 2db, at 12hz it was at 0db. 13hz was at 0db. 14hz went down -1db. Then at 15hz it went up 4dbs !!! at 16hz 6dbs....17hz 3dbs....at 18hz it was back at 0dbs. 19hz +1 db...20hz -1db. Am I doing this correctly ???

Outstanding.