datarush

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
4.50 of 5, 6.00 votes

Price Paid:  $450.00 from Sound Distributors (

Summary:
This was the last purchase for my current home theater speaker setup which will remain as is for a while. On the strength of a multi-sub review in Home Theater I decided to look into this sub. Big and heavy, prepare yourself for a wrestling match manuevering it around! It has a lot more at the lower end than my previous subs (they had 10" drivers, though) and I can really feel this one pump it out at times. I could crank the volume higher than I keep it but after all I'm not trying to impress my neighbors. It works well with my Polk speakers, but you're not gonna have image variations from the speakers to sub anyway. This will give any system good LFE. I'm very pleased with this behemoth.

Strengths:
Plenty of LFE for movies and a great assist for music lows. Crossover can be bypassed and auto on/off switch. Sinve I've calibrated my speakers system, it sounds even better!

Weaknesses:
Big and heavy, its gonna take over wherever its placed. Metal plate on the top makes it an uneven surface.

Similar Products Used:
JBL DPS10, Infinity ILS100

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
had the unit for eight months. it has been in the repair shop for seven. when unit is awaking from standby their are loud chirping noises comming from the driver. tech support? what tech support!

Strengths:
the unit did sound fine when I had it except for the above problem. It does not have the same output as the hps-1000, but for the money its admirable. the il120 appears to be a little tighter and has more reach than the 120pii.

Weaknesses:
reliability, poor tech support, please note my rating is obviously influenced by the problem that I had.

Similar Products Used:
hps-1000, il120

Price Paid:  $500.00 from dynadirect.com

Summary:
This sub is a quality piece of equipment. I listen to both techno and rock. With rock, it delivers tight, clear bass frequencies even at high volumes. For techno, it gives me the powerful, loud bass that you need for this music. At first I tried it out with small JBL TLX105. Since these don't have much bass (5in woofers), I needed to turn the Xover up pretty high to get nice bass without a "hole" in the 60-90 Hz range. It performed admirably under these conditions. My jaws dropped however, when I used it in conjunction with some JBL L5 towers that have their own 8in woofers. I turned the Xover nearly all the way down, letting the subwoofer concentrate on the super lower frequencies while the L5's cover the moderate lows. It is incredible. Way too bassy (even for a basshead like myself)! So I now have the sub turned down to about 50% volume. It's amazing. It adds punch and power to any music. It sounds great at low volumes, and amazingly, when you turn it up...absolutely no loss of quality. The walls shake, things rattle, making it sound as though it's distorting, but tighten up the room for rattles and you will realize the sub is delivering the same incredible clear bass at high volume. My friend came in while I was playing some Basement Jaxx (house with almost constant bass) and turned up the volume a ton. The bass was SO INCREDIBLY LOUD, that I swore he broke something...but no, this sub knows what it's doing. You could probably get a better sub for over 3000$, like the Velodyne HGS18, but for 500$, this sub is a bargain.

Strengths:
Strong, exceedingly clear bass. Very nice wooden cabinet.

Weaknesses:
Shakes walls, very heavy, can get better freq. from more expensive subs.

Similar Products Used:
I've heard a Polk PSW450 that was pretty nice, not as good as this though.

Price Paid:  $457.00 from vanns.com

Summary:
I saw one of these at best buy and liked the way it looked. Can't really tell much about sound there cuz of the terrible acoustics but decided to give it a try. They wanted $699 for it but I found it online for 450$ with free shipping. I've had it for about 2 weeks now and am fairly happy. I've owned a few subs and I have to say for general purpose useage, its a little better then a Klispch KSW-12, roughly equal to a Velodyne CT-120, not quite as good as a Paradigm PW2200. For output, it'll crank out the bass 35 hz and up. It has solid output to about 30 hz but it drops off real quick after that. If I was rating it's -3dB point, I'd probably say 28 hz. Unlike the klipsch, it's not boomy or real peaky (the KSW-12 has a huge peak around 50-60 hz) and is fairly quick. I noticed more definition in the bottom octives with this sub versus the klipsch. It doesn't, however, go as low as either the velo or the paradigm. It seems like it has a plateau from 35-45 hz and will play VERY loud at those frequencies. But like I said, output below 27ish hz is non-existant. The velodyne and paradigm both go much lower. I only say the S-120P is equal to the velodyne because the bass it does produce is more defined, and quicker. This was all tested with a bass program on my comp, with a pair of S-310's as mains. I use this system mainly for music and games. The other subs I have owned or have had a lot of experience with (the PW was a friends, the velo is my Dads). The build quality is excellent, I'm thoroughly satisfied with JBL's studio series construction. The features are pretty standard. Hopefully they have remedied the problems their previous subs have experienced (my friends had a PB12, that was a mistake) and I had a PW115 that died. I probably should have held off buying this till the reliability could be determined but so far it has taken everything I've thrown at it with no problem. One nice feature is the auto-on/off. It waits 20 minutes beofre turing off instead of a few minutes like my last few subs (they'd shut off in the middle of a movie during quite scenes).

Strengths:
35-45 hz, Bass definition, build quality

Weaknesses:
<30 hz output, JBL's questionable history with subwoofers

Similar Products Used:
Klipsch KSW12, 15, LF10 JBL PSW-D115, PB12 Paradigm PW2200 Energy ES-12XL Velodyne CT-120