This is exactly the situation I refered to. I know went through your head when you first fired up the EP500... "That's it"??? As good as it sounded, it seemed to be lacking a little something, and that something was... VOLUME!!! You said it in the beginning of your post, you've heard louder subs costing $300 - $500 dollars. As I said in my post, many people are conditioned by these high output/highly distorted subwoofers that cost very little. They are the subs most of us start out with since they're all we can afford when we're first starting out.
So when we feast our eyes on something like the EP500 with its remarkable size, the substantial weight, the magnificent finish and of course the sizable price tag (expecially for a mail-order company), its only natural to assume that it's going to knock us clean out of our socks. I think the subtle approach Axioms line of subwoofers takes really shocks people at first. I've only been around for 3 quarters of a year and I've seen many a post that starts, "I think something is wrong with my subwoofer"...
What's wrong is that our expectations were preset at unrealistic levels by subwoofers that misrepresented the actual bass output of a musical recording or a movie's LFE sequence. And its hard to believe at first. Out of all the people I've seen on here that wondered, "where's the bass"??? I don't recall a single one of them making a connection they had missed somewhere and then come back on here to say, "ok there it is, its breaking the window panes now"!!!
Instead its my opinion that those who stay with Axiom subs get used to the way real bass sounds and decide they like it. And those who aren't happy with it, trade in their Axioms for another brand. And I'm not implying that Axiom subs are weak by any means. My whole point is that entry level subs use entirely too much gain, but we get used to that level of performance and then go into our Axiom purchases expecting that much volume, plus refined clarity and accurate response. But that isn't what Axiom subs are.
