PRICE!

Not too musically inclined. Can be muddy at times.

Well, it's about the 3 year mark for this sub, and it is still going strong. I posted a review in september 2001 on this and read all the negative reviews about this unit. I thought I was doomed, but I guess I'm counting my blessings. I see many people are still complaining. I think the surge protector might be the key to my success. Its been hooked up to one ever since it was plugged in and I get no humming noises. Maybe you should give that a try.

How could a product have any strength when it was built to blow.

Is not the sub, but the core values of the company.

Infinity BU-120 Subwoofer I had read almost all the reviews about this product in this site and I guess I need to do my part to warn my friends in MALAYSIA to be aware of this disappointing product. We just had an av fest 2002 recently in December and I saw a number of consumers in Malaysia buying this product. If anyone of you Malaysian reading my comments, I guess it is too late if you had made the purchase. Sorry to tell you this but too bad... welcome to the club. Just hope that Infinity would have a little bit more Integrity and do a recall. But dream on.... and to Infinity, you are losing another customer and I am sure to start the chain reaction.

Good for the 1st year.

Will not last.

Wow! that makes me feel better. I'm not the only one whow have the same prob. BU120 should be rename as 50 cal. rapid fire. That scares our neighbor and thought there was an explosion. Brought the sub to Fry's, but the parts are back ordered and they do have problems with Harman. Called and email Infinity-Harman to vent my complain and they too cannot do anything (useless customer service). Loudspeaker is doing fine but don't buy the sub no more. Thinking of getting a Bose instead.

I too had the machine gun noise happen and my sub stop working. I will never buy infinity again. And it's not worth getting fixed.

Great sound, I got an amazing price, well made (notwithstanding the above-referenced problem).

the slight buzz. I'd prefer that it have a way to have it power all the way off.

I bought this thing a while ago from Mercata and have been very pleased with it apart from the light buzz that it makes (except for the blow up part, but I'll get to that later). Infinity recommends plugging in the sub to the same outlet that the receiver is plugged in, which I tried and it seems to have helped. Okay, re: the blow-up. This may have been my fault as I plugged it in and unplugged it a couple of times and at some point it just stopped working (led was off/no sound). I pulled it a part and found that Capacitor C-6 had literally blown apart and the slo-blo fuse was black. I called Harman and they suggested that it was probably the amp/power supply, which is backordered. I wanted to see what would happen if I replaced just the capacitor and the fuse, despite the fact that I've got no experience soldering. Well, I did replace the capacitor with the upgraded one that Harman now uses and what do you know, it's alive! It works even better than it did because there appears to be a little less noise. So, despite the problem with the capacitor, which took the sub out of commission for a week or two, I really like this sub.

decent bass when it was working decent manual

it stopped working for no reason Infinity (lack of) customer support

This sub sounded good in my home theater setup when it was working. I owned the sub for 3 years when it started buzzing loudly for no reason. Only unplugging the unit would get it to stop. It worked okay until one day it just quit. There are no obvious problems with the amp, and the driver works fine. I called Infinity and asked them to repair it since there have been so many problems with this unit. I mentioned how about half the posts on audioreview.com had the same problem. The rep asked "how many total posts?" I said about 200. He said "well 100 bad units out of over 10,000 manufactured is not too bad." That's Infinity's idea of customer service, I guess. Considering that this model is obviously defective and Infinity has no interest in correcting their mistake, I will not be buying anymore Infinity products. I hear Polk offers a 3 year warranty. Goes to show who is willing to stand behind their product...

Perfect height for a six-pack cooler on the side of the couch! My newly preferred equipment for tormenting the wifes cat!

I could've done both of the above for a little less money if left to my own devices....

HA ha ha ha! ME TOO! I was awakened by what I thought was a fully functioning wood chipper in my living room. Took it apart that night, one of the cap's looks like a beer left in the freezer overnight. It was my first infinity purchase. It is now my last. It is obviously a design flaw and Infinity should really help here. I too was AMAZED at the lack of packing and poor design of electronics.

Halfway decent bass, I guess. I had no interest in fixing it until now because my setup does fine without it. If I can get tigher bass from this enclosure with more stuffing, I''ll keep it around for a while. Half a foot of attic insulation is not enough filling for this box, it will get some poly-fill when I put it back together. It really doesn''t need two ports either.

I never pushed the self-destruct button, and look what it did! Also they could have paid more attention to designing a plate amp that wouldn''t require silicon caulk to seal. I couldn''t believe my eyes when I took it apart, I was really expecting at least a metal panel to act as a heatsink. The box itself is built well, though it was designed by monkeys (two ports and next to no stuffing). The amp is by far the big let-down in this product. If I can''t make it work reliably again, I will replace it with an aftermarket part.

This sub has been sitting around collecting dust for about a year and a half ever since it decided to pulsate like it was getting 120V/60Hz straight to the voice coil. I knew the amp was toast, but I didn''t decide to take it apart till recently, and I discovered that one of the two 4700uF/50V power supply filtering capacitors (C2) had blown its top. I will be replacing them both. I''m considering replacing all caps on the board with 100V ones to avoid repairing again, since others have said C6 has blown on theirs. I have read other reviews that cite a problem with a low-level hum even when the sub is not in use. I think there are 3 issues here, and #1 can be easily fixed by the user: 1. Use a quality RCA cable for the sub. If you use a 99 cent unshielded cable from wal-mart, it''s going to pick up EMI and cause output hum. EMI is everywhere in a house, so use a good shielded cable. 2. Faulty or inadequate power supply filtering capacitors (thanks, Infinity!). As a bonus, these like to self-destruct. 3. Proximity of AC-DC transformer to rest of components, and relative lack of EMI noise shielding. Any car audio installer will tell you, noise rejection is dependant on the quality of RCA and speaker cables, and the routing of all audio cables away from power sources (EMI) and RF noise. Good quality shielded RCAs will get you a long way, but if you run it next to your 4-ga power wire you''re shooting yourself in the foot. Same thing goes for putting the big transformer less than an inch from the PCB... what were they thinking? The flimsy metal shield they used apparently is not enough. I''m going to repair the caps first, and if it still hums I''ll look at moving the transformer further from the other components.

Similar Products Used:

Four RS-2 bookshelf speakers and a CC-2 center channel, all purchased at the same time as the BU-120. These other speakers are still in service and sounding great without the sub. I''m pretty loyal

Sounded great for a year...

That "for a year" part...

Wow - I hadn''t looked at these reviews in a while, and low and behold, there''s my problem repeated a hundred times. I too had the machine gun issue, got it repaired for $50, and now I''m not real sure if it''s even really working. Sounds nothing like it used to. How can Infinity not respond to this??!! Truly awful, I will never buy from them again.

I had this sub for a little over a year when it finally blew its capacitor. It had all of the symptons that were mentioned on this site. I replace the capacitor and it worked fine for a couple of months, but then it stopped working again. This is unfortunate because I have always thought of Infinity as being a quality company (all of my speakers are infinity). I guess they don''t know what they''re doing when it comes to the electronics. I was also surprised to hear that Infinity has done nothing in the form of a recall given so many people have had problems. I would not recommend this sub, it sounded fine when it worked, but now I have a $400 wooden box that''s taking up space. I don''t know what others have replaced this sub with, but I''ve heard a lot of good things about the HSU VTF-2 and its around what I paid for my wooden box from Infinity.