Official Epik Subwoofer Thread - Page 8

Two keys for me regarding the Sealed Epik Valor subs. First how does one of them stack up against my current f113 in regards to output. I don't think there is any way my future wife is going to go for having two at this point. And most importantly how will it sound compared to the f113 for music, as this is of utmost importance.

Definitely worth looking into though!

MF

I forgot. I could purchase a Valor and a Tower from Epik and still be around the price for a Fathom.

Yeah, that will be the key (testing side by side).

And yes, the (future) wifes problem is two subs in the room. If you can believe it, she thinks the f113 is big. Then again, at near 40 (and going into her second marriage), she has never been with someone who is into the HT hobby. She has accepted the f113, but I know two subs will be a bit to swallow. That said, when we move into a bigger house in a couple of years, and if we can do a dedicated room she would be fine with it. She loves watching movies fortunately, especially action flicks. Right now I have the HT in our bedroom, which is really big, but when you stuff a king size bed in there, computer, etc. it gets kind of cramped quick.
Price would obviously be a no brainer as long as the SQ is at or near the f113.

MF

I am jumping in here again to clarify some things. First, the Valor is our lowest priced sealed subwoofer. It is $549. A PAIR of them cost under $1100...

You can buy six Valor subwoofers for the same price as the Fathom and still have money left over for DVD's. A single Valor will not outperform a Fathom, nor was it designed to do so. However, throwing two of them in your listening room will easily get you into the performance realm of a Fathom. Now THAT is exciting to many people.

My point is that there are already several $3000-$5000+ sealed high end subwoofers available, and not everybody can afford them. If you can't get your hands on a Fathom or a DD-18 level product, what other options exist? There really aren't any that we know of below $2000, and it makes the Valor truly unique.

The other thing to understand is that there are OTHER sealed subwoofers on the way from Epik. This is just ONE of them. The performance will only go up from here. We just didn't realize how many people wanted to get their hands on an affordable sealed subwoofer, so we got the Valor to market early. The response has been fantastic.



A Valor and a Tower will actually cost less than half of what a Fathom does...

$549 for the Valor is nuts!

Gotch ya Chad! Yeah, price is not as much as an issue as size of the box and SQ and SPL, for all that in mind the f113 does very well. Since I really can only have one sub at the moment and the f113 is already paid for, I guess I will just have to wait until you put out a higher performance sealed sub, again price not being the issue for me at least. If you can keep it close to the size of the Valor though, and get up to the SQ and SPL performance of the f113 then I'm right there!!

Looks like you are going to do quite well in this market! Great to see!!!

MF

these things appear almost too good to be true

Anyone actually own an Epik sub? I didn't see anyone post that they did? How does the Knight rate??

Yeah i can't believe this either. I'm going to be buying one of these bad boys soon.. I just gotta pick one. Its tough though without having anyone review (Besides the conquest) on them yet. I'm tempted to go with the conquest at the price (my wife said i should get the best, believe it or not.. But i'm not sure if she realizes its as tall as our kitchen counter, or if i would even use that much bass)
I'm considering also the knight and even the sealed sub, and everything in between. I have never owned a home sub (had tons of subs in my cars back in my youth but once i got an adire brahma i just let it be)
Anyways, this is going to be tough to pick. I'm scared that if i wait i'll be in some huge line since everyone will be jumping on these if they live up to the hype.. If i order early i could get one by the time i move into my new house (not literally new just new to me, and much bigger than the apt. i'm in).
At these prices eD might be able to catch up on the orders they have left to fulfill.

The epics haven't been released yet. But since the company is of Chad Kuypers I would only expect the best.

To the non-DIY guys and anyone else who doesn't know about him, read up about Ascendant Audio.

Yeah I was just wondering when they are for sale?? Thanks

There are people who have already purchased our products and are enjoying them as we speak. Some even picked them up locally. Not everybody posts online as soon as they get them, or even post at all sometimes. I often joke that my happiest customers are the ones I never hear from again because they are too busy enjoying their movie collections!!

All of our subwoofers have been available for purchase except for the Conquest and the new Valor. Orders for those products start shipping on Monday. We pulled down the sale page today to adjust for the new prices which will be formally posted this weekend. It will be back up this weekend with the revised pricing. Sorry for the wait!

Chad,

Interesting products and even more interesting pricing! I have a question:

Are the line-outs from the amps in these subs high-pass filtered or are they straight-through?

Jeeze War of the Worlds on DVD will actually be played at reference!



Lets break it down to subwoofers that are coming out that are in director comparison to the Conquest:

Onix BMF
SVS PB13
JL Audio Fathom
Elemental Designs A7900
Epik Conquest (or whatever the sealed version will be called )


Now I'm holding off on my purchase until we get some real numbers from all the competitors. I like all of these speakers each for different reasons.


Onix BMF- obviously they are going to be banking in on the 'looks' of the speaker. They have been known for there piano black tops with their Rosewood veneer. Very easy to get WAF out of them.

SVS PB13- Currently in competition for lead SPL numbers in the Internet Direct market. SVS has proven itself over and over again, but as of late, I find the pricing structure to be a little out of the loop.

JL Audio- the hype on these subwoofers is absolutely over the top.

Elemental Designs - so far I haven't read ONE single review. I think they might max out SPL out of all of these things, but have you seen the size / look of those refridgerators.

Epik Conquest - still waiting for our first review.

---


Chad I don't know if you'd ever consider this, but if you could put a piano black top on the subwoofer with a rosewood side (at a premium if you must.) I can garuntee people will never look the other way.


Also I was wondering if there any plans for digital EQs, etc. I know alot of people swear by them. That Velodyne SMS-1 is just waiting to be dethroned .

We are reaching a new era of subwoofers. Lower prices, higher SPLs, etc. etc.

Ok, I really like this guy now! two questions - what are the dimensions of the Valor, and how bad is it soundwise to use two of them where your mains are; say as stands with bookshelves on top (decoupled with blue tac or some pad)? If were to do that I'd add a third larger sub at a later time in a better position.

One Conquest will (more than likely) equal 2 of the new Ultras in clean output from 15 Hz and up.

With the Conquest selling for $1599 in Black and the Ultra selling for $2998 less a 5% discount ... let's call it $2850 ... for a pair...

If the Conquest can deliver sound quality on a par with the new Ultra, it really is going to set standards which even DIY will have a hard time matching, in terms of performance for the dollar.

I'm most interested in the supposed low distortion of these units, a most critical aspect that often gets neglected in the quest for spl

keep up the fine work Craig

also, for the poster who mentioned WAF, it would appear these units are designed for absolute performance at low prices, I don't think you can reasonably expect a manufacturer to address WAF and custom finishes in situations like this, another reason why there is plenty of room in this market for many manufacturers and their respective offerings

I personally find specific advantages that SVS, HSU, ED, ACI, and JL all offer over one another, just a great time to be a fan of subs

For the remainder of the day, we are running the blind tests (again) on the Fathom and PB-13 Ultra.

Then we will do the WOTW scene ... in both 20 and 15 Hz tune.

Look for results later !!

One fine sales pitch...

Looking forward to gettin the Conquest...damn this sub should be in a class very few belong..output wise!

Price/performance sounds interesting. Any word on a Canadian distributor?

I'm wondering about the finishes.... Piano Rosewood would seal the deal

You've tested or played with a BMF to make such comments?

He really doesn't need to. While the BMF will definitely be a killer subwoofer, as the 6th order bandpass alignment provides a bit higher output than a normal high-excursion 15" driver, a high-excursion 18" driver has massive amounts of displacement. When you add in a port, the answer is easy, when it comes to who will have more SPL.

Yes, It might be a good idea to have both in one's possession before declaring a victor.

Mark Seaton thinks the BMF will be competitive ... and while I "think" the Conquest will be the better performer, I will wait until experiencing both before making a declaration.

Craig how did the Elemental Designs subwoofer fare in your testing? The thing is a beast!

Oh and about the BMF, I think its a nice looking speaker, but as for performance, some of these big boys are cheaper and offer moderately better performance. Shrug.

Its not physically possible for the BMF to directly compete with this speaker. No way in hell. Some great engineering might make it stand head up, but ultimately, you will have the power 1.5 times to 2 times more from the conquest at 25% cheaper.

I'm not knocking Rocket. I own some 550s, I do however think that some of the owners expect them to be the end all be all speakers. When in reality, they look great, perform well in their range (but not the best), and have a history of good technical support.

I expect the same out of BMF. Great looking speaker, performs well, but no where near the performance as this thing.