Small Room = Smaller Sub? Is the FV15HP or XV30 overkill?

I am in a similar living situation as you, but in a corner unit town home. I am assuming your living room shares a common wall with at least one of the neighboring units' living space. As such, unless you have great sound insulation between the common walls, you may be limited in how loud you can play your sub without inviting the wrath of your neighbors. Do you have an open floor plan with a walk-in kitchen and possibly stairs leading up and downstairs? You will get recommendations for dual ported 15" subs to pressurize the room.. and possibly rattle the picture frames off the mantles in your neighbors' homes.

You really can never have too much bass. Its always nice to have that extra head room. You can always just turn down the sub if its too much for your room. With that being said both are GREAT subs and you can't go wrong with either. I would contact Tom from PSA and talk to him, he'll give you an honest answer about the XV30. From what I hear Brian from Rythmik is great to deal with too.

No, and no.

I'd go duals, and if two XV-15s are too much money, you could consider dual 12"-ers, which would still offer a ton of ouput in your space, sub-20Hz extension and smoother FR (vs. a single sub). Options would include:
- SVS PB12-NSD ($1,449, shipped)
- HSU VTF-3 MK4 ($699/ea. + shipping)

We pretty much have the same space and I have the Rythmik Sealed F15 and it already enough for the room, oops i mean the house:D.. then again if you can accomodate the space for the larger subs go for it.

An XV30 might be a bit much, seeing as how you have some concerns regarding your neighbors, but the XV15 would probably work quite nice. So too would the FV15HP. Whichever subwoofer you decide on you might want to consider a Gramma (or something similar). That will cut down on the unwanted vibrations for both you and your neighbors.

My room is exactly the same size as yours and I have a FV15HP. It literally fills my entire small house with bass and vibrations. This sub is a beast and your neighbors will want to kill you in no time.

I would look at the XS-30

Lowering the crossover won't accomplish what you're looking to achieve, so you don't have to worry about that one. Lowering the gain (volume) would only minimize the output, not the extension; 20Hz is 20Hz, regardless of how loud it is. That might help make it less intrusive, but it would mess up the balance I'm afraid. The speakers and sub must be run within a certain tolerance, otherwise the audio will lack proportion. You can get a smaller sub of course, but it might not be able to provide the type of bass you're looking for; I am of the basic opinion "no sub is too big". Judging by that comment my guess is you'll end up regretting it if you go for something under-sized.

The FV15HP is an awesome sub. I have a great gramma under my sub and watched Dredd at 40% sub volume. I shook the stuff off of my one shelf in a bathroom 15 feet away. Your neighbors will love you;)

again too much sub is not a real term in HT land. My room is slighlty smaller than yours...I have an XV15...i came from a svs pb12-nsd...

the XV15 is amazing! it is the equivalent of th svs PB12+. I would highly recommend it...also it is EXTREMELY good with music so I bet (willing to put money on it) your wife will fall in love with it for her music as well.

for 800$ shipped I dare you to find a better bargain!

Perhaps something smaller and sealed would be more to your liking? Maybe the Rythmik F15HP or HSU ULS-15 might suite your needs/concerns better.

That sounds like a great option for someone with your concerns. (How to enjoy great bass without disturbing the neighbors.) Positioning the sub right behind your seat should allow you to use a lower volume on the sub (neighbor-friendly) while still getting the low frequencies you're after. Use an isolation platform to de-couple the vibrations from the floor.

what about one XS15 (or two)

Seems like a good fit to me based on everything you described.

The ULS 15 is a great sub, but it doesn't look like you have size concerns, and it doesn't sound like you intend to have it out in the open. Part of its charm is its aesthetics, and that might be wasted for your intended usage. If you have plans on moving to a larger room, I would go for one of the big subs like a XV30 or FV15HP. If that just isn't in your plans, and you are going for near-field placement, those subs would be so underutilized that this may be a case where its not worth it. For near-field placement what I use is a couple VTF3s flanking my sofa with the drivers firing in toward the seating position. Given its side-firing design, that makes for great near-field placement, because it is punching right where you sit. For wireless connectivity, just add an adapter like this one. The ULS-15 is a great sub, and I have used the ULS 15 and the VTF3 in near-field placement, and for movies I would choose the VTF3 over the ULS for that role.

Lol, FV15HP against a shared wall could definitely get you into trouble, depending on how loud you play it. The problem there is, it might be that if you use even one tenth of its power your neighbors will get pissed. But that depends on your walls and how easily sound goes through them. In such a placement, even a much weaker sub has the potential of greatly irritating your neighbors.

The ULS-15 is a sealed design. The only way sealed designs can dig deep with any kind of output is if they get a helping hand from room gain. In a small room you may well get that helping hand. However, I wouldn't be concerned about 10 hz, after all, you can not even hear it, and a single ULS won't be able to play it back so loudly that you could feel it either, no matter how much room gain you get. A VTF3, on the other hand, can playback sound down to 16 hz with enough output to make itself known.

As for dual VTF3s, its a configuration I have and love, but even a single VTF3 might be more than enough for your situation. If I were you, I might ask Hsu if you can get one VTF3 with the possibility of getting the dual discount if you decide that you want another a short while afterward.

The ULS-15 is acoustic suspension, so no port. That 10Hz figure is very dependent on "room gain" so it will vary (and is a bit optimistic anyway). However, it's not unreasonable to expect performance down around 15Hz. Since only a very small percentage of movies have content below that you'll be covered very well.

As far as placement goes... there are definitely locations that will be better then others, but as much as proper placement is the goal the unfortunate reality is not many of us are in the position to do a lot about it. Aesthetics, WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor), furniture, room layout, etc. generally dictate where you can conceivably place a subwoofer. Ideal placement will lead to ideal results, but it's not always that simple. The only way to know for certain is to try it I'm afraid, so that may very well be the point you're at now.

FWIW, I am in a end unit town home. I have my screen hanged on the wall shared with my neighbors. My room is almost the same size as the original poster 21*14*9 and fairly sealed. I have a Rythmik F15 ( sealed ). I placed my sub placed 5 to 6 ft from the common wall to minimize the trouble with neighbors. I dont listen at reference levels. The highest we ever go is around -20 -30db db from reference. We received complaints from our neighbours 3 -4 times so I moved the sub near field and kept it behind the couch and AS FAR AWAY as possible from that common wall . But still they called cops the last time around( more than 6 months now). Well the cop could not hear anything walking around the place and asked us to keep the volume down after 9 PM.

I dont think I am a bass head as we never had any photos/windows/wall shaking happen in our room when we are playing at the loudest level but still got issues with neighbors. If an F15 can do all this, imagine what an FV15HP could do. speaking of which I am really daring to get an FV15HP to replace the F15 and use the F15 for my living room upstairs:-)

For HT, there is no such thing as too much sub or overkill. You can always turn down the sub level if you want, but you can never turn it up past its limits. My room is slightly smaller than yours (18' x 16' x 8') and I have two sealed 18" LMS Ultra 5400s powered by an LG clone and a 15" sealed Revel B15a 2' directly behind me. I plan on adding at least another 18" LMS in the near future when I have some free time to build the box.

I would recommend that you get the best sub you can afford that your wife will also put up with. If your living arrangement ever changes and you end up with a larger room and the ability to crank up the volume, you'll be better prepared.