eD A7s-450 vs Chase Home Theatre CS 18.1 – The Shootout! - Page 2

i thought Craig said everything was disabled, and if you're reading this Craig feel free to chime in, but regardless we'll keep an eye on that kind of thing for round two.

appreciate the comments jmilt, I don't agree with you on the agendas thing, but your intentions were obviously good. don't worry about being the odd man out - we all play that role at some point or another! if i may attempt to persuade you to a different perspective, let me assure you and others one more time, we tried very hard to stay unbiased. we did this shootout because (1) its good brother bonding time! (2) we love this stuff and (3) we wanted to help add something valuable to the community.

we are also aware that this may be a hobby for us, but its putting food on the table for other people. so believe me, we would not want to do a disservice to the folks who make these subs - or the people who scrape their cash together to buy them - by going into a comparison with less than honest intentions. so the results favored the CS18.1 (this time), what else is there to do but report that?

I try be a "the glass as half full" kind of guy, so I think one advantage to doing these kind of threads is that it gives ID companies a chance to see what people like and dislike about their own products - and their competitors' too. that creates a win-win for us consumers, as it will only move things towards better products and better CS for us. in turn, happier consumers = more sales = good for the companies. at least, that's one way of looking at it.

at any rate, if we post another shootout (which is likely), we'll try to make sure our methodology doesn't give any sub an advantage over the other.

absolutely.


we appreciate the folks who help us out on these forums, so in that spirit we'll try to be helpful as well. we have a considerable bit of experience, but we know we aren't experts either so those who want to offer tips and guidance, feel free.

well first let me say that Craig deserves a big "Thanks" too. he provided the CS18.1 and the room to test it in. not a lot of vendors would be willing to take that kind of risk - and believe me it was a risk: last year's demo of the prototype CS18.1 was a bit of a let-down.

anyways, thank you guys who took the time to post and say "thanks"! and you raise some excellent points my friend, i'd like to address them one by one:


Good catch on the price difference, I was hoping someone would point that out. The reason I think its still fair to say these subs are in the same price range is that once you factor in the eQ.2 for the A7s-450, the price difference becomes a lot closer. I do NOT recommend buying a sealed sub without having some means to eQ it.

btw the amp on the A7s-450 does, in fact, make a clean 1300w. eD posted a video showing it hooked up to some equipment and it was putting out 1300w.


Yup, that's exactly why I didn't think it was fair that we listened to the A7s-450 immediately after we got done watching FotP demo scene on two CS18.2's. That said, after going back and forth between the two, there was no denying that the CS18.1 sounded better not because it was louder, but it sounded better because it dug deeper and played noticeably tighter, more accurate bass.


clearly the only logical explanation for the 3db difference is that Craig bumped up the gain when no one was looking. he had motive and opportunity - I'm just sayin is all!

no actually, I think the most logical explanation is that they weren't really moving at the same excursion levels. the eD is easy to eyeball because the writing on the dustcap makes it clear how much its moving, but the CS18.1's driver is all black and hard to tell.

as for eQing on round two...i'm not sure what the best way to do that is. my personal opinion is that the CS18.1 and A7s-450 both have eQing ability at the $1k price point, and the HSU and the Epik do not. So i think we should test each sub as they come at that price point. But some might say the only fair way is to test them all eQ'd, and others will say test them UN-eQ'd.

we'd be grateful if some other folks would chime in with an opinion on that...

thanks for the quick and honest reply Craig.

i don't think the LT1300 has a built-in boost, Alex or Chris can confirm if they're reading. i personally don't use the eQ.2's 25hz boost on my A7s-450, i couldn't get my FR satisfactorily flat with it on, I guess because the eQ.2 is two band only. but i'm going to give it another try after reading your post because honestly even the CS10.2 digs lower than my A7s-450, and if that 25hz boost might change that, that might be worth sacrificing a bit of FR performance for.

anywho, now that we know the CS18.1 had a boost down low, most of the comparison stands as is, we just modify our perspective about each sub's ability to dig deep. that is now an open door.

Um, just to reiterate: we are aware that sub location and eQ play a part in performance - we just didn't have time to play with FR or switch subs around. We might've been the only two there who didn't come to purchase, so hogging the room was out of the question. No biggie, Round Two will be even better.

We're still deciding if it'll be worth the hassle to actually post, but assuming we do, expect lots of pics, videos and good stuff to read.

******

On another note, my neighbors weren't home recently, so I decided to crank some tunes and play around with my new VSX-1120. "Saliva - I Walk Alone" came up in the song queue and holy crap i never knew how much bass that song has (I mostly listen to music at work so I only ever heard it on my headphones). Very deep, growly bass guitar that gives you that satisfying "bass in your chest" feeling. It reminded me of how awesome subs at this level are.

Wow.

Hole. Eeee. Kuhrapp.

We unboxed Adam's HSU VTF-15 and the CHT CS18.1 today. We didn't really dial either sub in; just put 'em in a corner, level-matched and fired away.

And both subs just absolutely pounded. I mean, the floor shook so much it felt like we were sitting on a trampoline, not a couch. And that's NOT dialed in. We'll save talking numbers for the actual shootout when we really put some time into it, but let's just say..."can't" isn't in either of these subs' vocabulary.

Oh, and...I talked about it with my s450, and I believe The Beast's exact words were "do I look worried? Just lock your doors and hide your children when i come out swingin."

Round 2 aka FIVE-way Shootout is going to be awesome.