Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Help me select a Sub!!!

Here's my setup...My HT room is 13 x 17 feet. The right rear corner is open to the rest of the house. I view across the short axis of the room. My listening position is about 10 feet from a 51" Hitachi Ultravision widescreen HD monitor. I have an Onkyo TX-SR 800 receiver with 100w x 7 channels. Speakers are a pair of M-60ti's, a VP-100, and 2 QS4's. I plan to add another pair of QS4's for rears soon. I currently have an Infinity sub, and am looking to upgrade. I have my eye on the Axiom EP-350, the Hsu VTF-2, or one of the SVS PCi series. I want to go deep rather than loud, and I listen to music as well as watch movies on my system. Any ideas on which of these subs would be most appropriate for my setup?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

From what I've read, go with the Hsu from your above choices. One person on Audioreview said that for the really low notes the 350 wasn't enough, and I don't know enough about the SVS to give you input. I was just shopping for a sub in the same price range for a large space-20' x 18'. I ended up with a PV800 by Boston Acoustics, it was a demo and I got it cheap. You may want to check out the Boston subs as well, they go very deep, with no problems. I've been watchin LOTR and the room just shakes with the gain set to 5 of 10. I also like the sub's ability to reproduce music without being muddy (listening to Eagles and Allison Krause, both CD's have distinct mid-bass, mid and high features and the sub doesn't interfere with the details. It blends in with them and sounds accurate with the rest of the recording). Another nice feature on the Boston's is the Gain knob on the front of the sub. Also placement isn't so tricky because it is down fireing with two ports. This seems to be the way to go if placement is limited, as it was in my case.

Good luck -Adam.

You might want to checkout the new SVS PB2-ISD (if the $899 price is within your budget). If that's out of your range, I have been VERY happy with my 20-39 CS+. I have it tuned to 16hz and my room is a bit larger than yours. Great sub that is very musical to my ears.

Of the three you suggested, hands down, take the VTF-2. Though if you're willing to wait until the end of the month, Hsu's new STF-3 will be available. THAT'S what I'd get. It should rock all over those other models and it's the biggest "bang-for-your-buck" bargain.

Are the STF's supposed to be better in any way than the VTF's? From what I can tell, they are going to be non-tunable versions of the VTF's, but do we know what their tuning points will be? I definitely will sacrifice overall loudness for deeper bass...I was planning to run the VTF-2 at 25 hz if I get it.

If you can go with the cylinder series, I would look at the HSU TN1220. I currently have two of them being driven by a B&K 200wpc amp. Sounds awsome. I have a large room but a smaller room would only need one of them.
gthomas

Not better...

The STF's are not tuneable. The VTFs are. A STF-2 is suppose to be the same sonically as the VTF-2 tuned in max extension mode.

-curtis

I have both the SVS and the HSU and have been running my own comparison. I have had limited time to really run these through the paces since I have been traveling alot over the last few weeks. So far, I am having trouble deciding between the two. I have also been playing with various positions in the room. Either way, it is hard to go wrong with either brand. I will end up keeping one in the HT and the other in the family room. I will probably have a few friends come over and get more opinions.

Does anybody know what the difference in price between the Hsu VTF's and the corresponding STF will be? If it's significant, I may stretch my budget a bit and get the STF-3.

Hey, Spiffy, which particular Hsu and SVS models did you get? At any rate, please be sure to post your impressions here whenever you have time.