Which would sound better four EP400's or two EP500's.
give 4 10" drives have more surface area than two 12"s
also most of the specs are close,

I know that Paradigm came out which a $4000 sub1 .... 6 - 8" drivers and $8000 sub2 i think 8 - 10" drivers. I know that two 10" are better than a 12" and two 12" are better than one 15" etc.

Given the specs of the EP400 I wonder if four would be better than two EP500's. Bass would be tighter and quick. Mackie in a PA speaker does this concept also and it sounds awesome, however that is with music and not theatre

4 well-positioned EP400 in a large-enough room may have more even bass than 2 EP500 (it depends on each room and the positions of each sub). I fail to see any relationships with single subs with multiple drivers.

Quite frankly, given the amount of money you would spend on FOUR EP400s, you could buy THREE EP500s and still have money left over.
With the specs of the EP400 and that its innards are basically the same as the EP500, obviously the difference is going to be the size of the driver and the box.

I must admit, when it comes to subwoofers, even though the 400 is a wonderful piece of engineering, I have ALWAYS been a believer that, in the end, you cannot defy the laws of physics. The EP500 will go deeper and you will be able to drive it harder. Movies, especially with the newer lossless codecs are a real test of subwoofer performance at high volumes which is rarely the case with music. You can take that one step further by looking at the EP600 which has basically the same electronics as the 500, but once again an even larger cabinet hence specs which, "theoretically" will enable even deeper bass extension. As has been discussed many times, subwoofer placement will determine what you are hearing.

Unless you have a space issue, in my opinion, I would go with the bigger subs.

Room size? I'd still go for the bigger subs. Try one, if you need to even out your room more, move to two and so on.

bigger drivers all the way.

yeh, i was thinking that when I mike my bass drum with a 18" sub's I get yup loud, low and a nice thump, also most like tthuummpppp, but when I hook it up to the MACKIE S410S SUBWOOFER which has four 10" drivers is is THUMP - still low and loud and very quick. I know if I was building a sub for music only yeh 4 EP400's I think I would have, But that's music I guess movies is a whole new ball game and really don't need that quick response, most of the lows are rumbles and booms

Plus their bigger subs also have a very powerful and quick response

I think that the 12" Axiom subs are still pretty darn quick. I imagine (although I don't really know) that the aluminum drivers, being stiffer than the usual treated paper you find in PA/pro equipment mitigates a lot of the size/looseness issue you seem to be describing.

It is all in the design of the sub and how all the parts interact. You can have a big driver that reacts just as quick as a small one but the tone it has will be different as the bigger driver will tend to produce the lower frequencies better so that is what you hear. If you were able to play excatly the same singular frquency through the bigger sub and smaller sub then you would hear the same sound but as the sub is reproducing many different frequencies all at the same time, the bigger subs generally emphasize the lower ranges while the smaller ones work better in the midrange of bass and of course all this is room depend etc. I think this is why so many people say that smaller subs are more musical. It is just that they tend to play all but the lowest of musical notes very well as that is where they are deisgned to play due to the laws of physics but my PB13 Ultra is very musical yet can still reach down to 15hz for HT

Hello troyd,

For the record, the driver used on Axiom's EP400 is 8 inches in diameter, not 10 inches.

For larger rooms, you'd be better off getting two EP500s, which would deliver greater overall output in the big space as well as higher maximum sound pressure levels.

The EP400 was designed to produce very deep bass in smaller rooms from a smaller box with the same DSP control as the EP500. The 400 has a much smaller enclosure than the 500 so it's ideal for customers who don't want the bulk of a 500, yet still want the deep bass extension without having to fill a big room.

The trade-off in subwoofer design (as Casey01 has correctly noted) is that if you make the box smaller, it takes more power to get deep bass extension and you also give up maximum output. The 400's driver is smaller so it has to "work" harder (with greater excursion) than the 12-inch driver of an EP500, hence it can't produce the same maximum SPLs as an EP500.

Regards,

They have an entirely different sound as well. I'd go with the 500's.

thanks all

EP500 all the way

You will not be disappointed!!! The EP500 is just awesome in my setup.