Matt - I feel your pain at "only" having a pair of EP500's. Which leads to a bit of a discussion regarding subwoofers.
As many of you know, when we had Chase Home Theater, we were building and selling passive 18 inch subwoofers. These subwoofers used an 18 inch driver from Eminence. This driver is now being used by Power Sound Audio in their subs.
Two different customers went onto the PSA site, and both asked if the PSA drivers were the same as our old drivers, and were told it's a completely different woofer. If it is, then PSA cheapened our design. The 18 we used is the best 18 Eminence can build and does build.
For whatever reason, the folks at PSA seem to think it's an "insult" to suggest their driver is the same as ours. To this I say: We published all the T/S parameters on our driver, and still have them. If PSA wishes to do the same, this can be settled.
Here is the funny part - both customers were looking at the PSA 3600i to add to an SS-18.2. PSA had a chance to make both into customers. I personally SENT each of the customers to their web site.
This is one of the weird aspects of audio - the general fighting and self anointed "experts".
This "expert" issue is the next thing I am going to attempt to tackle.
I love the objectivity of the Data-Bass testing.
I grimace at how the Data-Bass testing has made a bunch of guys into forum experts merely because they can add and subtract.
Here is the analysis of a Data-Bass test between two subs:
Sub "A" did 102.5 dB in the CEA-2010 Burst Test at 20 Hz vs. Sub "B" only managing 101 dB. Sub "A" is 1.5 dB better.
That's it. To these guys, it's game over. No mention of sound quality. No looking at long term output over a frequency bandwidth. No blind listening tests. Nothing but an arbitrary number using a tone burst that is 0.325 second long.
CEA-2010 not only does not tell anything about sound quality, it really does not do a very good job telling one about how powerful the subwoofer system is.
