Low price, great sound quality, build quality - you name it!

Would have been nice to have gold plated binding posts instead of tab connectors on the terminals - but who am I to nitpick?

I began building my home theater by building a pair of speakers from a kit that I found at speakerpage.com
I wanted to see how well I would do building my own speakers, so I chose an inexpensive kit and was very impressed with the sound quality that those speakers produced. Having had a good experience with my first DIY project, I thought I'd try my hand at building a subwoofer and after much searching, I found the Shiva. After checking out the specs and reading what other people had said about the driver, I decided to purchase one. I put the speaker in a 2 - 2.5 cubic foot cabinet and then dressed it up to make it look pretty. The amp I'm using is a KG-5150 purchased at madisound.com .
The power and articulation that I've experienced while owning this sub is amazing. I've tried a lot of different music to see how well the sub responds and it handles everything in stride. For a nice tight kick drum, try the unplugged performance of Alice in Chains' "No Excuses" or U2's So Cruel from the Achtung Baby album. (Eric Clapton's "My Father's Eyes" is a good one too). For outright obnoxiousness though, pop in Top Gun on DVD and listen to your house fall apart as the F-14's fly by. Seriously - make sure you don't have any loose hanging pictures on any adjacent walls to the sub - they will probably fall off of the wall. Whenever one of my friends listens to music or a movie with my system they are pretty much speechless at how well a 'home built' speaker sounds. It especially frustrates a few, since they spent over $1000 on their 'top notch' M&K subs. Also - you won't have to have the level turned up very far on your subwoofer amp - this sub is LOUD even with my receiver's LFE output turned way down (-15 on my Yamaha rxv-595a)
If you're looking for a DIY subwoofer project, buy a Shiva. It's built strong, sounds fantastic, and the people at Adire have a plethora of information that will help you biuld the right sub for your needs.

Similar Products Used:

none - this is my first home sub

Clean solid bass, goes extremly loud without distorting, plays verry deep in my 20"H / 20"D / 20"W cabinet.
Extremly large amount of output around 18-30hz.
Sounds just like the theaters, this unit is also verry fast and hits hard.

None

I have 400 watts feeding this sub in a 20" by 20" by 20" cabinet with a 12 inch long port & 5" round.
I could never be happier with my project.
It all started when i went to the local theater and watched "The Pefect Storm" and the bass was awesome in the theaters.
As soon as i got home i searched the net for subs the sound like theaters subs.
I need a sub to do 20Hz @110dB so i came upon the shiva.
I'm glad i did now i get the bass like the theaters have which is loud clean deep and solid.

Similar Products Used:

Velodyne HGS-15, SVS 20-31PC, And a few DIY projects

Ability to move air, rumble and rattle anything in its path. Clean bass a a very very low fequencies.

Hah! you must be joking, not in this millaneum.

Even during the first hour of the running-in phase it started to show its colours. The Shiva was one awesom sub driver I've ever seen. It was a pleasure to have my hands on one. With the enclosure designed strictly to Adires 85 lit. Alignment and pumped with onle 150 watts of power, I could radiate low frequency waves better than those ready made sub worth more than US1,000.00. When I replace the power amp. later, to 700 Watt, I would like to compare it with Sunfires True Sub. If you need to see the pictures, project development and my experience on this, e-mail me at alithome@tm.net.my and I will be happy to extend you an attachment. I would strongly recommend anyone whom already have a build-up subwoofer with an emclosure volume from 40litres to 140litres of internal volume. This driver can handle power from 40Watts up to 700 Watts. Anyone with a REL 12" Sub ? Try fitting this guy.

Similar Products Used:

Orion 12 DVC, Madisound 1052 DVC & DAYTON 12" DVC

Everything, i am serious! Price/Performance/Features/etc...

the only "weakness" is the poor wiring tabs on the back. They could have put gold terminals or something, but that would have raised the cost.

I wrote a review on this one before, but i had a very poorly constructed box and a very cheap amplifier. Now i have upgraded to a good amp and box and figured i would write another review on this sub. With my last review i was using a 3 cubic foot made out of 3/4" particle board along with a cheapy 180 watt Parapix home theater amplifier. Since then i have built my own box and purchased a real amp. My current box is made of 1" MDF and braced heavily. It has an internal volume of 4.796 cubic feet before i put the foam in, so i estimate its actual "seen" volume at 5.000 cubic feet. I am using a 12" Shiva MKII along with an Adire Audio 15" PR-15 passive radiator. My amp is built into my box and puts out 380 watts RMS at 4 ohms. When i first heard it in the new setup my jaw dropped to the floor, along with all my shelves. The bass coming from my new home theater sub is simply astounding. Using frequency tests i can go well below 20Hz and it will still shake my walls and floor. I had a potato chip bag sitting on my bed and when i was playing a constant 30Hz it slid off my bed and vibrated across my entire room right to the subwoofer!
My friend has a car with a system and his car will hit 140dB but I swear my room seems to have MUCH more bass than his car. With movies this sub is really tight and accurate now... And with music it is simply marvelous. It can go from about 16Hz all the way up to 80Hz, so it is very versatile... I love this sub even more now.. Best price/performance ratio ever.

Similar Products Used:

Many various subwoofers (too many to list)

great bass at a great price

None

It's hard to follow up after the brilliant comments Thomas
made about this subwoofer, but I will try. I would think it would make more sense to actually use the product before rating the product, but hey, what do I know.
I replaced the driver in my AR subwoofer with the Shiva, and I must say, it sounds better than I ever could have imagined. This is going to be a temporary swap, because I will be building a subwoofer from the ground up following plans from Adire's website. This driver digs deep, plays loud with no discernable distortion, and works well with both music and Home Theater. I would highly recommend this driver to anyone who wants to build a subwoofer that will run with units costing 2-3 times as much. Adire also offers complete units that start around $400. Great performance, great value.

Large amount of good, clean bass
Inexpensive compared to quality store bought subs
Large excursion
Many enclosure alignments possible
Flexible wiring with dual VCs

It's a DIY project

You can get the Shiva driver for about $125 direct from Avatar. I built 2 subwoofers for my hometheater using the Shiva drivers (total material cost less than $300, time, well, that's another story). I've never made speakers before, so based on the Shiva Whitepaper and advice direct from the company president, Dan Wiggins, and many others on the net, I built 2 sealed enclosures with 54 liters which results in Q=.707, a good balance for HT and music use. This driver is also suitable for many other enclosure alignments. I'm using a QSC amp with 330W/ch to drive them.

Having had about a week with my subs, testing mostly with DVDs, I'm totally overwhelmed! You not only hear the bass, but you actually feel it in your guts. The beach landing in DTS SPR made me queasy, not from the blood on the screen, but the bass (I was running around making measurements). Just to note that I haven't gotten anywhere near its limits yet!

Using low freq sweeps from Avia I recorded sufficient response down to 20hz (the lowest Avia freq) using RS SPL meter. There is roll-off from about 35hz, uncorrected to the meter calibration. There are also some peaks in the in room freq response which I'll try to mitigate through testing different placement.

I recommend the Shiva highly if you don't mind building your own enclosures.

The company web-site is www.avataraudio.com.

Deep, deep bass - cheap!

None that I can see - other than being a DIY project... And more power always helps...

I got this from the factory a couple days ago and finally had the opportunity to test it out. WOW!

I first read about the Shiva thru this site. I read the reveiews, did some searches and found that everyone had thinks this sub is the best. I got one, and a $100 box from Crutchfield (1.75 cu. ft.) and stuffed it with a ton of poly. Looks lousy, but this thing rocks! The bass is so amazing. I popped in the THX intro on a DVD and the whole house vibrates... THEN, I put on a hip-hop station and the house almost fell down! All this from a $225 sub hooked up to an old Yamaha 100W/ch amp! And you don't need to have the main volume up real loud for feel the bass. You can feel it at low levels, which is great. My old sub, you'd have to turn it up quite a bit to feel it...

If you're looking for deep, cheap bass and willing to "build your own", do not pass this sub up! I'd hate to see this sub in my car! I'd shake the mouldings off!

Feel free to e-mail me with any questions...

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None

Extremly clean bass, high output levels at ultra low frequencys, loud as hell, tight bass and price.
P.S i got 2 of these drivers for $250

are you kidding

I have two of these drivers in a well built cabinet which is 15" wide / 23" high / 15" depth.
I use the HS500 plate amp from adire audio which has 720 watts rms into 4 ohms and each driver is fed 360 watts rms into 4 ohms i find that this amp works perfect for my sub and i have all the power i will ever need.
My sub is also ported using one 5" flared port which is 12" long tuned to 20hz.
I finished my cabinet off with a couple nice coats of piano black gloss finish it looks amazing.
When i compared my sub to my brothers Velodyne HGS-15 mine had far more cleaner bass it went way louder and it had way more low end impcat.
My brother is going to sell his velodyne hgs-15 for $1500 and he is going to get me to build him two of the subs that i built.
If you would like to buy the velodyne e-mail me at abird123@yahoo.com .
My sub is well worth the money and it blows all other subs costing up to $3000 right out of the water.
I highly recomend this woofer it is the best woofer for any price.

Similar Products Used:

Velodyne HGS-15, SVS 16-46PC, Paradigm Servo 15, & for drivers the ACI SV12, Dayton Titanic 12

Very clean and deeeep bass.

You need a pretty big amplifier.

I've got the Shiva mounted in a 80 liters ported box, tuned to 27 Hz with a 4" port. I made the box from 22mm MDF, and the baffel with 44mm MDF. I use a 250 watts amplifier to run it, and i promise you, it ROCKS!! I wached "Independence Day", and at the first couple of minutes the film, when the spaceship fly in over the moon, my hole room was vibrating!!
The bass was so intense, so that the books on my bookshelve fell to the floor. Everything in the room was vibrating, making a very irritating noice, but that's the way it shuld be!! This sub is the most powerfull sub i've ever heard!!
And it's great to normal music-listening too. Ok, the speed of the sub could be better, but after all, this is a pure SUBwoofer, and notning else.
I'm VERY pleezed with it, and it's not even broked in yet.
I really recommend it!!
(you'll have to exuse me, my english is not so good...)

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Dali SW12, B&W ASW800