Price Paid:  $400.00 from hsu direct

Summary:
Having access to any Subwoofer I wanted for my musical listening, the HSU for me with my original amp a NAD 2400, the HSU was adequate but slow and boomy and lacking control. Great for my home theater but not so for my music. Jazz,Classical and some pop. I bought the HSU 250 watt True Subwoofer amplifier. Wow, what a difference. For $400.00 the HSU now sounds closer to the ideal for me. Much more control, better articulation and a bit more pace and speed. Obviously it can't rival a top notch Velodyne, or REL acoutsics etc. but I didn't want to pay for these financial giants. My system consist of the Sony XA7ES Compact disc player, the Dynaco PAS-4 and a pair of Push Pull Sonic Frontiers SFM-75 tube monoblocks. I bought the above pieces for a fraction of the retail price. I couldn't be happier. So while playing some acoustic string bass like Rick Bromberg, and some of my David Benoit stuff, and some even some of my old Sci-Fi soundtracks by Telarc, and Star Trek the Motion Picture. Track 3 has a fundamental around 40hz that rattled the place but with control too. So over all instead of buying another Subwoofer, I was able to make the HSU my music Sub once again. Though not perfect, I must say that I am much happier with the HSU once again. So if you have one of these subs hopefully you have the HSU amp or a great Amplifier to drive this round bruiser of a sub.

Strengths:
Extention is impressive,efficient,an honest 25hz in my room. Much better with a great amp and properly crossed over.

Weaknesses:
slow in pace and rythm compared to the best and much more expensive. Recommended HSU amps or a great one with high current and high damping factor. Remember, this is a 4 ohm voice coil.

Similar Products Used:
B & W, Velodyne, HSU

Summary:
It's unfortunate that some insecure imbecile has to put in his 2 cents (closer to 1 cent) worth on a product they haven't apparently heard or seen. This is a review site for products we've tried, not for personal agendas.
Notwithstanding the useless reviews, or trying to "balance out" whatever real or perceived injustice these dweebs have had inflicted upon them, I'd like to provide my (actual) review of a product I've lived with for about 3 months now.
The 12v is an extremely effective sub, that needs good placement and a decent amp to work to its best capability. The placement issue should not be underestimated since it is a large unit that takes a lot of real estate.
I'm using it with the HSU 150 watt amp, which seems adequate, but I can tell that the HSU 250 watt amp I also have is much more effective.
After spending some time getting all the placement and crossover issues straightened out, I'm enjoying the piece very much. While it doesn't have the immediacy of the REL, it seems to blend better. It is certainly orders of magnitude more natural and musical than the 1 square foot boom boxes that I've tried.
For the price these units are available for, it would be very hard to find something more effective. Also note that HSU still supports you on placement and general questions even though these have been out of production for some time.
If you can get a good price, and have the room for it, I'd heartily recommend you try this piece.

Strengths:
Extremely smooth and accurate bass

Weaknesses:
physically large, needs a good amp to drive it

Similar Products Used:
REL, a/d/s, m&k, sunfire, velodyne

Price Paid:  $600.00

Summary:
Recently I acquired a used HRSV12 subwoofer with the 150W power amp. Now I've got a very important question to ask you. There's three plug in module inside (rp1,2,3 does it refer to low pass, left, right, high pass etc) and another row of (1-8) unconnected pins. I went to a shop and asked them for the 43hz, 34hz, 28hz module. The original ones came with 14 legs but theirs has 16 legs. They told me that it is compatible except that two of the legs would be protruding out and left unused. Is this correct? when I use the 43hz, 34hz, there was still some output of around 80-40hz, is this okay? Next, regarding those (1-8) unconnected pins, when I looked into the new 500W amp, the pins had jumpers, for the old 150W amp, do the jumpers need to be connected as well, as mine did not have any jumpers. If it need to be connected, how do I connect them and which pin to which pin and what is the function (eg, low pass, high pass etc etc)?
I'm using this sub to opment my B&W matrix 801 and I need to supplement only below 40-30hz, thank you very much.

Price Paid:  $800.00 from Hsu Research

Summary:
I have the original HRSW12V, which is discontinued. I bought it with the optional wood top and 80Hz Xover, which added to the price.

I bought this sub many years ago and have grown to knows its strengths and weaknesses. The first weakness is the construction. The separate amp blew out on me (but Hsu repaired it in short order) and just recently I blew out the driver. I have been driving the sub with a bridged ATI 1502 and either the 450W was more than the little driver could take, or the amp lost it and killed the driver. I think that the only practical way to use this sub is to have a preamp that does the crossover. Any other way and you won't get a good match with your mains, or you have to pass the signal through the Hsu Xover, which I don't find ideal.

On the positive side, this sub pumps out smooth clean bass. Not that noisy boomy distorted stuff your friends think is bass (but is just noise). This sub goes so low and loud, without distortion, that you can feel your chair shaking and not be able to actually hear the bass! It goes deeper than I think most humans can hear.

I'm getting my original driver (that I blew) replaced with a 12VA driver from Hsu this week and I should be back in business. I had the opportunity to upgrade when I blew the driver, but I really don't know what else I'd get. I like the deep clean bass and I even like the look with the wood top (which is admittedly cheap and damages easily).

The sub without an amp is a great steal. Adding the cost of the amp and crossover, which I don't use, makes it less of a deal. I would suggest you get a Hsu without the amp/Xover, if your preamp has built in Xover (like most home theater processors).

Strengths:
Deep clean bass

Weaknesses:
Weak amp, wood veneer damages easily

Price Paid:  $500.00 from HSU direct

Summary:
Technical tidbit for all who may have or wish to buy this now discontinued subwoofer. I found out the hard way that my power amp was not up to the task of running the HSU without losing control even well before its' limit. Result; a destroyed woofer. Playing T2 judgement day, the city desintigration scene produced tones of low frequency and high amplitude. My NAD 2400 bridged to mono lost control and the woofer overtraveled. While true most amps work great bridged in an 8 ohm load, 4 ohm is out of the question. I had been lucky for over 2 years without incident, so time was against me on this one. Since the woofer is not monitored via a "SERVO" like a lot of the newer designs that incorporate a built in amp with the subwoofer, overtravel is a nasty possibility. I blame no one for this but myself. I should have known better. But, with around $100.00 and a new woofer from HSU, I am running again and can shake to room once again. Though now I will get an amplifier that is stable in a 4 ohm load down to 2 ohm with plenty of punch to spare. Enter the Mackie M1400 power amplifier. From a most unlikely place, these folks have an amp that will drive long and hard into low loads bridged, and it even has subwoofer management in the way of a dual fixed crossover points at around 63hz, and around 120hz I believe. It uses a Bessel system, and a Linkwitz...something or rather for the crossover. See Mackie.com for the whole scoop on this one. So, my answer to amplifier stability running a low load and plenty of power and control maybe answered with this amp. I could buy the HSU power amp with crossover, but the MACKIE gives me more for the money, in my humble opinion. So in the final lesson here, if you are running with a great monoblock amplifier that loves the low impedence here, rock on and enjoy. If not, be aware that you may be teetering on disaster here. I hope that I am the only one here stupid enough to let this happen. Over 25 years of doing audio and I never blown anything up, until now. Don't let this happen to you. Sincerely, a concerned and hopefully wiser audio nut. V.C.

Strengths:
Read my accolades on previous posts

Weaknesses:
impedance very low. Ohmed out to 4.1 ohms original woofer. New woofer a low 3.3 ohms. read below for more information.

Similar Products Used:
Velodynes etc...