I have never heard the Bic H-100 so I can't really compare, but I would say that the PA-120 would be quite satisfactory to the average home theater user looking for an inexpensive 12" sub that's not humongous. I had been using an old Yamaha YST160 which was a dual 8" subwoofer that usually got a "well, most Yamaha subs suck but the 160's actually weren't that bad" reaction from electronic's/AV gurus I knew. The PA-120 easily outpowers the Yamaha and has tighter sound, though I still wouldn't consider it ideal for music. It does ok with some thing musically, not so great with others.
My issue with Mike Embers was that the sub showed up somewhat generally scuffed on the top, which with the piano black I had been somewhat concerned about, and it was also the black version, whereas I had ordered the cherry to go with my other speakers. What I found somewhat disconcerting was that the black sub was in a cherry box, which was also semi beat up. I had emailed him a fairly detailed account of the situation, and eventually got a reply which said "call me". When I called him back a few minutes after he sent the email, I said "this is so and so I just received your email about the black PA 120 sub I got instead of the cherry and was wondering how we could resolve it, and had some concerns too as to whether I could have received an "open box special" or something that had been returned and then stuck in the wrong box". His response was "WHO is this?" as though he had never heard of subwoofers or people who purchased them. I explained the whole situation again and said that while the scuffing could have happened in shipping and I supposed it could have been a mixup at the factory for a black sub to get stuck in a cherry sub box, I just wanted some reassurance that this was not an open box/returned sub or something, to which his reply was not "I'm sure it was just a mixup at the factory" or some such response but "how should I know, I don't open the boxes or anything, if you want to exchange it just say so and we'll do an exchange for the cherry one, what do you want to do?" in a "you are a major PIA and wasting my time" sort of tone of voice. I ended up saying I'll think about it and get back to you since I had had to leave work early to be home to receive this one and didn't really want to ty to cut out early again just a few days later to do an exchange. I was not thrilled with having received a scuffed up subwoofer that was not even the color I had ordered, and the less than eassuring response to my request for assurance that it was not a returned unit or something also didn't thrill me, so I emailed him back saying that I would either like to send it back for a refund and I would not want another in it's place, or I would accept a partial refund to save him from the hassle of shipping it back and I would just consider it as an open box special that I use until I buy something else, which seemed reasonable to me. That was yesterday and eventually I received a notice tonight saying he would do a partial refund. At no time did he ever say "gee sorry I sent the wrong sub and it was in less than pristine condition". So, I consider the situation closed and a lesson learned about buying subs from places that sell on ebay, and I think the sub is decent for a bargain sub, but I'd have to say I'd personally try to find a different seller.
