Budget subwoofers discussions, opinions and questions thread - Page 34

I've been doing reviews for almost 2 years now, both here and for other sites, but it's a part time gig. There are surprisingly few people who actually make a living at this - a large portion of the people you see writing reviews are just like me; people with a passion for HT, but still want to eat.

Ed Mullen from SVS is one of the few who went from being part time to making a career from this, so it's not unprecedented, but those folks are few and far between I'm afraid.

You are indeed correct; the 660 is pretty much a 650. When Jamo was purchased they had a ton of stock left over, hence the fire sale on the 650's last year. However, they didn't sell all their IP so the new owner -- Klipsch or Audiovox, depending upon how you want to look at it -- had to redesign some of the parts. They virtually duplicated what Jamo had made, so variations are minimal or non-existent.

For $650 the Jamo is not really a deal. $350-$400 perhaps, but much more then that and it's not very attractive.

I noticed in a previous post you mention HT and gaming as your top priorities. Do you see yourself being able to use dual subs, or would you prefer to stick with one instead?

In a space that size virtually any of those subs would provide sufficient output, it's the sound quality aspect where you might find the greatest difference.


I didn't chose the Dayton over the BIC or JBL, it was my choice when compared to the Polk.

Any subwoofer you buy that costs $200 or less is going to have audible compromises, be they in sound quality, output or depth. It's unavoidable. You're buying an amp, driver and cabinet for that price, which is a lot of stuff for not a lot of money. Factor in the labor to build it and the cost of shipping to the distributor. The manufacturer needs to make a profit too -- which is probably in the 50% range -- and what you end up with less then top flight components. Where a particular manufacturer chooses to cut corners differs, but they all must.


A lot of that can be attributed to the expectations of the people buying them.

The frequencies between 40Hz-70Hz are generally considered the "wow" factor area, where people will say 'wow!' during movie and special effects. Often manufacturers of budget subwoofers will embellish that range to make it seem as though their sub has great deep bass capabilities, but the reality is that's mid-bass. It's not a bad strategy, given their limitations, but it does tend to make people assume their sub has more abilities then it truly has. A lot of what you're reading can probably be attributed to that.

Truly musical subwoofers cost quite a bit more then $200, so I'm not sure that's really a selling feature of either the BIC or JBL. HT is not quite as discerning, so you can get by with less clarity because of everything else going on with the soundtrack. From what I can tell the JBL may have a history of amp issues, while the BIC is a know quantity, so perhaps the F12 is better suited to your needs.