sound

fried after 6 months

"Steve" says: "...I now have 6 of these subs and NOT ONE HAS FAILED. You sorry peope that take them out of the box and turn the x-over to 150 and crank the sub should be shot for stupidity. Get some common sense..."
well he's now teaching us how to turn on the sub... gimme a break
+80% of us don't know anything about subs, of course he does
buying SIX KLH subs! , that's stupid!! he probably knows how to make them " right, left, center, rear right, rear left..." ... ha ha!!

Cost, Power

Boomy

This is an update to the review I posted on 5/13/00. Every day I would try the sub, and it would stay on for a little longer each time. It has been working fine since yesterday. Maybe the amp just needed to get broken in????It sounds good, but it is a little boomy. I will try some additional placements, and maybe get some speaker insulation. I just hope it keeps working long enough for me to get evicted from my apartment. Great value, 4 stars overall because it could be better insulated.

Price

Port

This is a good sub-woofer for a hundred bucks. I have good bookshelf speakers for all 5 speaker positions and I figured this sub could add some bass to the rear and front speakers. I bought two of these KLH sub-woofers and I like them. I have the HUGE Jensen sub in the middle and one KLH on each side. The left KLH is hooked up to front-left and rear-left pre-outs on my receiver. The right KLH is hooked up the same. It evens out the sound nicely. I don't care about the port noise, because I don't have them turned up that loud because my 15" takes care of all the big bass effects. I would definitely recommend the purchase of this product for $99, but not any more than $99. KLH speakers don't have that good of sound, that's why they should stick to making sub-woofers, because sound quality doesn't matter much compared to how much sound quality matters for full spectrum speakers.

Similar Products Used:

Jensen M-Sub (with custom Cerwin Vega 15")

Great Price, Size, and Sound.

Boomy without modifications

I bought this sub after going to Costco and reading the reviews here. When I saw it on display, I was sure that it would fit into my 12' x 15' room (8' ceiling) a lot better than the AudioSource 15" sub (not to mention how much it would save on filing the divorce papers). After the purchase, I placed it in the left front corner of the room and started experimenting. I went out and bought a subwoofer cable with a Y-connector on the one end to utilize my dedicated sub output (I have a Sony STR-DE835 receiver).

I immediately noticed the boominess so commonly referred to here. After listening to it for a few days, I went to 5 different places to buy speaker/poly fill. After those frustrating & unsuccesful attempts, I bought a cheap pillow with polyester fill from K-Mart :) and cut it open. Once I put the polyfill in, the boominess was gone. The bass response became a lot tighter. Saving Private Ryan never, ever sounded so good. The room placement is key, but I really didn't have to tweak it too much. And there is NO comparison between the bass from this unit and from the passive sub. I used to hear explosions. Now I can feel them downrange. Big difference. This may sound ridiculous, but I really didn't know what I was missing without a powered sub.

This is an excellent value for the price. At $100, you'll be hard pressed to find another 10" active subwoofer at all. I was afraid that this 10" sub wouldn't be enough power to fill the room. I was happily disappointed.

First and foremost, I am not an audiophile. While I do like good sound, I don't lose that much sleep over it. I also should note that I have a zero budget for this gear. So, to those people who scoff at the price of this unit, I say: piss off. No one who buys this unit *has* the budget for Velodynes. If we did, we wouldn't buy this one. Sure they sound better, but if you could afford them, would you be reading this post? Sadly, some of us have to live in the real world with families, mortgages, etc.


Having said that, this is my system:

CSW Center Channel Plus
CSW Ensemble III Surrounds (4 of them - no cubes)
CSW Passive Subwoofer from Ensemble III
KLH Subwoofer

Sony STR-DE835 Receiver
Sony DVP-S330D DVD Player using the a Digital Coax out


Slainte and good luck!

Similar Products Used:

Cambridge Soundworks Passive Subwoofer

cheap as hell

nothing really

good subwoofer at a cheap price! worth buying

PRICE PRICE PRICE

none based on price

WOOHOOO! This thing ROCKS for $59!!!

This ithe 120 "B" version like the reviewer below has. Man I have never heard that kind of quality bass come out of a powered sub under $250.00 I got two of these SHIPPED for $170.00!! AND it is new not refurbished with a full year warranty from KLH. Man I am so glad you guys made it known about the earler amp problem. But we all benefited from it.

They fixed the overload problem, put in a newer sub with a larger coil, and use no insulation now. There is no port noise whatsoever.

Like the reviewer below I too am running these subs at 60hz and volume about on 6. I cannot believe you can get powerfull low bass like that for $59.00 I am in disbelief.

Placement is CRUCIAL if you want to maximize the 10" woofers output. Instead of overworking that somewhat weak 120-watt amp, just move the woofer around and use your foundation walls to enhance and reenforce the base. You can EASILY double the output of this sub by properly placing it near walls and corners.

Again, thank you all for exposing the earlier problems with bad amps and weak low excursion woofers with sloppy bass. I am so glad I held off until they corrected these problems WOOOHOOO! Time too get a few more.

Similar Products Used:

JBL and Yamaha low end circuit city type

Good Price.

I also noticed some popping at high levels. I turned the sub down and it sounds great.

I bought this SUB from COSTCO and they sold it for $99. You just can't beat that.

If you want a good sub for under 100 go to COSTCO and see if the have it.

Big wattage, little price.

As many have said, it doesn't last long. If they put a higher quality speaker in, it might be worth it. Unfortunately, that would also raise the price. This thing gets hot fast, which is one reason it doesn't last long.

After one of these subs blew out, i went back to get a replacement. This one lasted about a month longer, but only because my mom doesn't let me use it much :(. When it blew out about two weeks ago, i left it hooked up because my speaker wires run through it. A few days later, while I was gone, it started smoking and just about burned the house down. Now i'm looking for floor standing speakers with large woofers instead...

Similar Products Used:

Dunno.

inexpensive, full-featured

boomy without modification

my first sub, but i couldn't resist at $99. it was neat to "feel" the bass in movies, but there would be a remnant boominess that forced me to turn down the volume. i tried adjusting the crossover and that helped a bit.

after reading the other posts, i bought a cheap $5 polyester pillow and took the speaker out. like everyone's indicated, there was just a thin loose piece of insulation at the bottom of the box. i left it in, but added chunks of the pillow/polyester fill into the sub.

the result was i had to turn up the volume from the 10 o'clock to about 12 o'clock position, but the bass is now much less boomy. i'm pretty happy with this cheap upgrade.

i'm not sure if just lining the box would've work better than stuffing...but i'm satisfied with the current set up.

Price / performance

better products around corner

PLEASE READ WHOLE OR DON'T READ AT ALL!!!
I'm going to give a quick overview of the pros and cons. The speaker came with a good price tag of about $86 after tax. The package was brand new and smelled like the factory, thus giving me the apparent freshness of this sub. I read the instruction manual and found it to be quite simplistic and too short. The specs for the sub revolve around the amp and NOT the subwoofer itself, so I had to do a lot of guesswork. Anyway, I hooked it up and fired up the sub. It sounded quite loud. That was my impulse. after listening to boomy bass for about 1-2 hours, I went to my computer (equipped with a 5.25" yamaha YST sub) and the bass sounded very sharp and concise compared to the KLH.
I opened up my sub box and found no insulation. After possible considerations, I cut up the "under the mattress piece of cloth" so I can layer the walls. I kept it thin because of the small size of the box. The bass sounded richer. I decided NOT to put a sock into the port hole because it would stress the speaker even more. I spiked my sub to give clearer bass. Unfortunately, the sub still doesn't match up to the Yamaha.
Now, after 3 months, I think I wore in the sub. I now notice no difference between the two subs. They are both very clear and concise. The only difference is that the KLH makes the room shake a lot.
As a last note, I like to keep the sub in the corner of my bookshelf and the wall. The volume is at around 6-6.5. the xover is at around 110-120 hz. phase is at normal. parental complaining at an all time high!!! I'm quite happy. overall performance is "very good for price." remember, you get what you pay for. the Dayton titanic subwoofer is obviously a better choice, but more expensive.