Budget subwoofers discussions, opinions and questions thread - Page 21

That depends upon what you're trying to achieve, and what you'll be using it for. The Klipsch will play a little deeper, while the PA has a bit more output.

Assuming your ceiling height is 8 feet your room is about 3400 cubic feet, so if you plan on using just a single subwoofer then output is going to be critical. The Klipsch may struggle trying to fill that much space so the PA could be the better of them, given your circumstances.

Buy one get one free? So they're $115 each? That's a good deal. I had a VX-11 for a while, and it was a pretty decent sub. Definitely worth more then $115.

Absolutely, and people do it all the time. Just get an RCA 'Y' adapter and another cable. You're only splitting the signal that way, which is perfectly fine to do.

For $100 is practically a throw-away if you don't like it, so there's probably no harm in picking it up. However, that sub is at least 10 years old, meaning both the driver and amp are nearing the end of their useful life. Advancements in sound quality have been pretty drastic over the past decade or so too, meaning that STF-1 might not be as far behind as you think. Output wise, yea, but sound quality, maybe not.

Yikes, the specifications on Energy's website say it can only go down to 40Hz. I'm wondering how they can even call that a subwoofer.

Honestly, that's probably a 'pick em'. Looking at the spec's I don't imagine either will be able to perform all that well for HT, but if I had to choose it would probably be the SW-8. Andrew Jones seems to put a lot of value into the speakers he designed for Pioneer, so perhaps he's done the same for the subwoofer that bears his name.

rmc29615;

Is the new sub going to be in addition to, or in lieu of, your Klipsch SW-450? If it's the former you should try and get another bass reflex unit in order to make integrating the two easier. If you're replacing the SW-450 then all your options are still on the table.

How big is your room? That's a pretty critical piece of information when determining what subwoofer(s) might work best.


Not necessarily - there are many factors that come into play...

To an extent subwoofers live by the credo "bigger is better", and that includes the amp. However, the design, driver efficiency and amp class play key roles as well. As a general rule, acoustic suspension (sealed) require more powerful amps because the air inside the cabinet tends to impeded the drivers movement. One of the best ways to overcome that is raw power. Bass reflex (ported) don't have that same resistance to overcome, so they can often get by with amps that have less power.

A drivers efficiency rating also comes into play. An inefficient driver -- for arguments sake, one with an 85dB rating -- requires far more power to drive then one with a higher efficiency, say around 90dB. Amp class is yet another consideration; class D amps put out closer to their rated power then class A/B amps do, so if a class D amp is rated for 200 watts and a class A/B amp is rated for 250 watts the driver itself may end up getting the exact same amount of power due to the efficiency differences.

That's just an overview of course, but it does lend some insight into other areas that will effect how much power an amp needs to provide in order for it to work properly.

Interesting; according to the Specifications section for the HD15s on Precision Acoustics website it uses a 12" driver. They also list the size as "Dimensions (HxWxD)-mm: N/A". I guess if they can't get the easy part right there's little hope the engineering is any better...


"catfish market"?