If you are looking at a budget of $1500 or less and don't want to get an Axiom sub, personally before I would buy a model from SVS, I would strongly consider the models from "Elemental Designs". For that kind of money, they may not look quite as "pretty" as the SVS subs, but you certainly get a significantly greater choice of models to chose from and a better "bang for your buck". The only downside to ED is most of their stuff is made to order and you might have to wait for it for awhile.