Looking for a smaller subwoofer for a bedroom setup. The room is roughly 12 x 12 with 8 foot ceilings completely closed off to any other room.
Used for 50% movies/TV and 50% music. Since it's a bedroom, I don't require a ton of output; I just want something to complement the lower end of the Pioneer FS52's I have there (so it wouldn't have to a ton of work in the upper bass region either as I plan on crossing over around 60 Hz).
Budget is around $600, but prefer to spend less for a bang-for-the-buck sweet spot.
Since I 'am' looking for a smaller subwoofer, would a sealed sub be the way to go? Would I be missing any extra oomph that might be useful by not going with a ported sub for the money?
I'm not sure what others have posted, I did not read all the posts...
I have a 12x12x8 bedroom - the same as you. Also, my first speakers was actually the FS52s and I still use them. +1 on your speaker choice -
My advise is to get dual subs. My 2nd subwoofer that I purchase for my bedroom was an Outlaw LFM-1 Plus (upgraded from a Dayton Audio SUB1000 - my first HT sub), which is a beast of a sub in our 1200 cu. ft. rooms (rounded). The problem I ran into was nulls. I had several nulls around the 40hz range (I don't have REW, so could never pinpoint) and the nulls fluctuated around those frequencies wherever I moved the sub. I also had incredibly boomy and muddy bass in some frequencies also. Heavy mid-bass tracks such as
Flux Pavilion's I Can't Stop represented my case well. The sub itself made an unforgiving boomy and boxy sound from the sub itself.
My solution was ultimately to purchase another sub, which was an SVS PB1000. The vast majority of my issues were solved. No more boomy bass and the bass that was reproduced, was very smooth. However, the two subs, being from different manufacturers, still presented dips, but not any severe nulls. This is probably due to the different tuning points of the subs. My dips were in the lower frequencies, which is almost solved by adjusted the phase on the back of the PB1000 - it has a dial, compared to a 180 degree flip featured on the LFM-1 Plus. Though not near 100%, it is very much enjoyable at all frequencies. I am able to squeeze out noticeable output at 17hz on my PB1000 alone with the gain at 75% at -3dB. The two subs mix pretty well after given them some TLC.
I really urge you to go duals. On your budget, it might be hard to get below 23hz extension, but you can probably get close to 20hz given the "in-room" gain.
This was just my personal experience with a single sub in my square bedroom.