BIC America F12 12-Inch 475-Watt Front Firing Powered Subwoofer

I just received my first sub of two that I ordered, got here in 2 days with super saver shipping! And all I have to say is WOW... if my neighbors haven't already called the cops yet, I can only imagine how fast the men in blue will be here when my second one comes. It easily hits lows too low for me to hear, but I sure do feel them. No muddiness that I've noticed, but I'm also not one of those rich, picky "audiophiles" tarnishing the reviews on this beast. I haven't ran Audyssey yet on my Denon AVR-1712 (still waiting for the other sub and my center/surrounds to arrive) and these are the first powered home subs that I've ever owned, so I can't say much more than I'm extremely happy. Totally worth the 188 bucks I got it for. Another thing too is, I haven't even placed it in the corner of the living room yet! The only sub cable I have is only 3 feet long and it doesn't reach. I'm impressed with it just doing its thing smack in the middle of the room set at half volume. Totally curious to see what it can really do once I get my long cables, it's placed correctly and properly configured, and, of course, when it has a good 20 hours or so of burn-in time and warms up to me. I'm a bass fanatic, and I have a permasmile right now. There's just nothing like feeling the power of a good subwoofer to me. Do yourself a favor and order this. Save some money, get your bones rattled, and spend the tons of cash you saved on a popcorn machine and Flavacol seasoning salt like I did. You and your wallet won't regret it. **QUICK UPDATE** I threw the lowest stuff I could think of at it just now. T.I. - Whatever You Like, Petey Pablo - Low, Chicane and Faithless - Cafe Del Mar, and THX Bass Tests. I couldn't crank it up past the point of where I thought the police would seriously show up. Sounded absolutely powerful and fantastic. Best money I think I've ever spent in my whole life. **WEEK LATER UPDATE** Just received my second sub last night, and it's obviously noticeable how true the burn in period has effected my first sub. My new one sounds much like my first sub on the same day; just not as powerful. But having the second sub substantially adds to the feeling of my music. One thing I learned quickly is that stacking my two subs up on themselves is NOT the ideal thing to do; I only did this because I'm waiting on cables and only had a 3 foot piece of wiring to jimmy-rig it up to my front left large speaker. As soon as I got my cables hooked up, and was able to position my newer sub in the opposite corner of the room, the "bass field" opened up; where once I had dead spots in the room, they are no more. I have a typical duplex by the way, no mansion or garage, just a run-of-the-mill apartment type housing layout. My popcorn popper works great! Mmmm, just like the theater... I thought I had my couch rattling before, but with my second sub, it's like having a punch thrown at every square inch of my body while I'm on the couch when it's cranked up. I highly recommend getting two subs of whatever you choose to buy. It has an amazing effect of evening out the "sounds great" spots and the "sounds like ass" spots. Anyways, to sum it all up, I'm more than happy, ecstatic even! I'm happy to be pushing around twice as much air now as I would have buying one expensive sub. **6 MONTH UPDATE** All is good with my two subs, they just sound great. Just the other day I knocked a picture off the neighbor's wall in our duplex; I've kept the volume down a little bit since then. The only thing I've noticed that may be "negative" to some is that at extreme volumes, they seem to limit themselves to a max output, which is a good thing. I'm guessing that there's some sort of regulator in the amp that prevents damage to the speakers. But don't let this push you away from these great subs. Like I said, it's only barely noticeable, and only at crazy loud levels (my Denon 1712 at max volume, playing bass heavy music). If I ever find myself in the highly unlikely situation of needing any more bass than I get with these, I'll be buying from BIC again.

I’m finally writing my review of the Bic America F12 subwoofer after listening for a few months and I can say it’s a great value. I was impressed with the packaging, large foam blocks encapsulated the sub. The user manual is above average with plenty of recommendations to get the best out of it. Connections are solid, and the dials clearly marked. Finish is high quality. I performed at least 50 hours break-in period at low-med amplitude prior to making my review, that being said I definitely noticed that the suspension is pretty tight right out of the box so you always want to do that procedure. Now on to the review. Overall, this sub has a clear purpose. There is a triangle of subwoofer characteristics including low bass, high efficiency, and small enclosure size: you can only have two. The BIC F12 is clearly and obviously designed for low bass and high efficiency, with the compromise being large enclosure size. (It’s about 15”x16”x18” with feet). Among subwoofers in its price range, it is the largest. (High end subs can get way larger though). However, in a home theater setting where size isn’t necessarily the biggest constraint, it shines. Musically it’s great. If you have the space to stuff it in a corner or wherever, you will be pleasantly surprised, and as a result, it outperforms subwoofers above it’s price range because it’s large box size affords fewer compromises to the sound. I had plenty of time to listen to it on music and movie tracks, as well as straight freq sweeps. I have it placed in a large (>1000 sq. Ft) open concept living room/kitchen. I put it on top of a sub isolation pad even though it comes with pretty substantial rubber feet. After moving it around to determine the best sound, I settled on locating the sub to fire parallel to a wall, about 1-2 inches away from the wall, but I’m seated about 7 ft from the wall so that the backside port has room to breath. This may be a problem for some locations but for my room it was perfect. For frequency response: On straight sweeps it EXCELS at 35 hz, literally shaking everything in your house, even at 3/10 on volume. 30 hz it begins a slight roll-off, but even more rumble is felt. 25 hz is hard to find on actual movie or music tracks but it’s still felt more than heard. Because of the high efficiency, you barely have to turn it up to energize your room. I never had a reason to turn it up past 4/10 because at that point it overcame the mids/highs but I have no doubt this sub could wake up neighbors down the block. However, I must say that the size of the enclosure has been well-designed to be very hefty and strong, hence the size. How does it sound: I’m impressed with the punchiness and musicality of this sub. An example music song that highlights this sub’s strengths is Reminder by The Weeknd. It’s is every bit of punchy as you would expect, but where it excels is in between the punch: where these long 30-40hz very low bass notes are reproduced with smooth energy. It’s saying, hey, I can punch you, but listen to this wave of bass! My favorite thing to listen to is deep bass guitar or live drum sets with two kick drums. This thing gets low with authority!! But the upper bass is fantastic too! On well-recorded music tracks I can hear that “thwap” from a Tom drum strike clear and accurate. I appreciate how it blends in sooo much better with the midrange than my previous sub, a true testament to how well balanced the upper bass is. Overall I would characterize the sound as smooth, and deep. I never heard any port noise or chuffing even at high volume. The speaker cone itself is transparent, as I could place this sub literally anywhere in the room, close my eyes, and I can’t locate where the sub is, but yet disappear into smooth, deep, omnidirectional bass. Explosions in movies shake my couch like there’s an explosion right in my living room! Rap and techno at high volumes rivals large nightclubs. Rock and jazz sounds fantastic, don’t even get me started on string bass. A smaller sealed sub would probably do better with heavily layered complex bass but it still sounds pretty good. The best thing I can say about this sub is that I’m hearing things I’ve never heard before and that makes me want to just listen more. I got it on sale at $250 and for that price I think it’s a bargain. Is it the loudest, lowest-playing, best sub on earth? No. But it definitely outperforms subs in it’s price class because it has a clear mission: a budget sub that is efficient, great-sounding, and hits deep low bass with authority.

This is a great sounding sub, substantial in size and has great bass clarity at low volumes (which was what I wanted). This one will shake the floor at the low end frequencies. More than enough power for most setups as well -- more than I can use. I turn them up at the most half way for a movie like Gravity or Pirates of the Caribbean. This is a good choice for home audio enthusiasts that want that extra sound from movies and music. With the low cost of this unit, buying two is less expensive than buying one of the top-of-the-line models from the likes of SVS, HSU, et al. I'm sure those are wonderful units, and I like the looks of the SVS subs, but it seems they are more tailored to music, whereas this one is a good "middle of the road" sub that performs well with both music and movies. Overall I think this is a great value for what you're getting. 📦 UNBOXING Nicely boxed, wrapped in plastic and foam style packing material. It comes with a user manual and the power cord, no other cables are included. 🔌 CONNECTIONS There are two different ways to connect this to your AVR or Stereo system. You can connect via the standard RCA Coax if you have a Coax Subwoofer out connection on your AVR/Stereo, or you can connect this "in-line" with your speakers -- that is connect the speaker wire from your receiver to the posts marked IN on the sub, then connect wires going to the speaker(s) on the posts labeled OUT on the back of the subwoofer. Obviously the Coax is preferred, but if you didn't have a Subwoofer output on your receiver you can still use this. 🔧 SETTINGS There are three toggle switches on the back, one is to turn the unit ON, AUTO, or OFF. When set to AUTO the unit turns off when no Low Frequency signal (LFE) is received, and automatically comes on when it detects a signal. This is what I have mine set to. The second toggle switch is to adjust the Phase, depending on placement it may sound better "in phase" or "out of phase". You can often times use THX software that comes on DVD's or Bluray discs to test your phase. The third toggle is for Digital or Pro Logic selection, if you hook it up via RCA Coax you'll select Digital, if hooked up via speaker wire you would select Pro Logic and then you can adjust the Crossover Frequency manually via the adjustment knob. There are two adjuster knobs on the back of the sub, one is for volume control, the other is for the Crossover Frequency. If you are plugged in via Coax your receiver will handle the Crossover, if you wire these "in-line" then you can adjust the Crossover. 📢 FREQUENCY RESPONSE This one handles from 25Hz to 200Hz (+/-3), that's pretty good. A few higher-end subs will go down to 20Hz or even below that. The human ear is 20/20, that is if you have perfect hearing you can hear from 20Hz to 20,000Hz (20kHz). I find this one more than adequate for watching movies and music. 🎼 SOUND It has a good clean bass at low levels, even at the bottom end I don't hear any vibration noises, and there is no port noise. It's clean-crisp bass and shakes the room even at low volume levels. OVERALL I recommend this one for audio enthusiests, it's not top of the line, but for the price you can buy two for the price of one top end sub, and probably have just as good if not better sound. Highly Recommended!

This is an old review I wrote like 10 years ago, but I never posted it on Amazon. Hopefully this helps someone out, because these seem to be the two most popular subwoofers on this site because of their price point and value. I apologize in advance if this is in the wrong forum. My new home theater is a SD/NewEgg special containing only Polks. I have two Polk Monitor 70s ($137 each open box), two Polk Monitor 60s for rears ($100 each new), and a Polk CS2 center ($92 open box). I checked the Newegg open box section every 2 hours for like 2 months to get this stuff. I just recenty got a used Denon AVR-590 used off ebay. I spent a week reading every thread on the internet I could find between the Bic F12, Polk PSW505, and the Energy S10.3 . I came to the conclusion that since I had a larger room, I would shy away from the 10" Energy sub even though it appears to have the best sound quality of the 3, while still having pretty good output. I didn't think a $200 10" subwoofer would fill a 26x20 room. I also was weary about the build quality considering the annoying front light dies for everyone within a few weeks. Anyways, on AVS forum and most of the internet, most people picked the BIC F12. However, there is a large following for the PSW505 on Polks forum (go figure), and on SD. The kicker is Amazon accepted a trade in on some old calculators and gave me $20, so I ended up choosing the BIC. I ordered it on a Tuesday morning, it shipped on Wednesday, and I received it on Thursday, lightning fast. Here are my thoughts, and I am not an audiophile. I had some cheap KLH speakers I spent bottom dollar on and loved them for 10 years. First thoughts were that this thing is really, really loud. It is also really, really big. You're suppose to leave a foot of space for the backfiring port. This was an issue for me. Sitting flush against the wall was the only way it could line up with the rest of my stereo. I had to move it to the side pretty far so I wouldn't have to hop over it every time I walk by. I wasn't impressed impressed with it musically. It didn't sound bad, but it didn't sound great either. Home theater was pretty good. It gets pretty deep, and like I said, very loud. Maybe I got used to it, but it didn't seem as loud the following days. I was coming from an older JBL 12" that I realize now was very weak compared to the BIC. The day after I bought my BIC, I was browsing NewEgg open box, and a PSW505 showed up for $124! I couldn't help myself because I knew it wouldn't last, so I bought it. I just hooked it up today, so I can finally do a direct comparison. I switched the audio cable back and forth between them while playing loud rap music. They both sounded the exact same for the first 30 minutes or so. I had the gain set on both at 12 oclock. After 30 minutes, I realized that the PSW505 had more kick/boom to it bass wise. You could hear it rumble noticeably more than the BIC. I did however notice a little bit of port chuffing on the Polk, but you can only hear it if your ear is right next to the port. I doubt anyone would ever do that. The BIC doesn't chuff much because of their special port. So I think wow, this is great, the Polk has more output and was cheaper! This was confirmed with Home Theater. The Polk had noticeably more boom when I watched Transformers. My Denon is calibrated for the BIC by itself, but you could hear much more bass in the fight scenes. An explosion that you could barely hear from the BIC made a BOOM from the Polk. So I sit back think about getting dual PSW505s (2 open boxes @ $124 each) and returning my BIC (1 for $200). While I was watching the movie for like an hour though with only the Polk on, I realized that despite the extra ooomph the Polk was giving, I wasn't really enjoying the movie. I went back to the BIC F12 and really listened. Again, although the F12 was not as loud as the Polk at the same gain, I realize the BIC sounded much clearer than the Polk. It had crisper sounds. Conclusion: I think people would be happy with either subwoofer. They sound pretty much the same with rap music. If you switch back and forth repeatedly, you'll hear a difference though. The Polk is rated higher in wattage, so that's probably why it's louder at the same gain and probably louder in general. For me, I've decided to keep the F12. Due to the cheap price, I'm also considering keeping the PSW505 as well. I'm a bass head and while a single sub is probably enough for most, I might want to help fill out the large room more. I'm attaching some side by side photos of the F12 and the PSW505. Notice that the PSW505 has broken pegs on it. Yes, the grill came broken, but Polk will send you replacements rather easily, which is a big deal for me. The F12 is aesthetically pleasing with its black cabinet and the gloss silver cone. The Polk looks kind of ugly with the silver face next to the series II monitor series that is all black cabinets and faces, but behind a grill you'd never be able to tell. Bottom Line: With them both costing the same price, I would recommend the F12 over the PSW505. I think the boominess and extra output of the Polk would get tiring after a while and you would want something a little clearer, even at the sacrifice of a little output. If you will be listening to 100% rap music, you may actually like the Polk more cuz I kinda did. I hope that this Joe Schmoe review helps many Slickdealers with their future home theater and subwoofer purchases The F12 is $197 on Amazon right now, $3 less than what I bought it for last week.It has been about $200 for the past 5 months or so. Likely not moving any time soon. The PSW505 is regularly on sale for $199 shipped on Newegg. P.S. I actually caught a second PSW505 tonight and purchased it. I canceled it like an hour ago, so it will probably be back tomorrow morning for those that want one. For $123 shipped it's a freakin steal you shouldn't pass on. I just don't need a third one and this stuff doesn't go for much locally on CL surprisingly. I added a poll for fun and a couple of extra pictures. The F12 is really wide. That is my monitor 70 and the sub is leaned up against the wall, the M70 isn't. The Polk isn't much smaller, and I realize that if I keep both I will need to relocate one of them somewhere else in the room.

I'm a skeptical buyer when it comes to most purchases, so I was hesitant to pull the trigger on this sub when the reviews seemed to good to be true. But once the sub dropped to $192 and was sold and shipped by amazon (for return/defective purposes, easier to deal with amazon), I had to bite. With that said, I cannot believe the negative commentary on this sub, from even the positive reviews. I, myself, am a bit of an audiophile. My front towers in my set up were about 2k for the pair, brand new (They were basically given to me). I mention this because I noticed in a few reviews, people stated if you have high end front speakers, that retail in the $500 and up range, that this sub cannot keep up with them. I am here to dispel that as complete and utter nonsense. The F-12 is a high end performer, provided you set it up correctly. It is capable of hitting the earth shattering lows that you feel more than you hear. In fact, a lot of negative comments I've seen on this sub complain the sub cannot replicate bass frequencies in the low 20hz range and below. Well guess what? The Human ear cannot HEAR frequencies that low. Some might then argue they don't care about hearing that ultra low, sub 20hz bass, they just want to *feel* it. Well, then go drop 1k+ on an SVS or HSU sub and shut up. Trust me, you're going to *feel* deep, deep bass with this sub, as well as a nice mid-bass punch. When it comes to movies, the F-12 is very impressive and can do it ALL. While playing the opening battle scene of Saving Private Ryan, I walked into an adjacent room to my HT room, which is on an elevated floor plan and separated by a wall. As explosions were going off, I could literally feel the floor shaking beneath my feet as the sub rumbled and replicated the deep explosions with precision....and this was in another room!!! In fact, I have the sub so dialed in, that I only have the gain turned up half way and during Iron Man, when he's flying, the bass notes shake the floors, the walls, the entire room quakes. No distortion. ZERO port noise....volume cranked to face melt setting. The key to getting this type of performance is room placement (google sub crawl or sub walk) and tuning with the receiver the sub is connected to (you need to go into the settings after audio calibration and really tweak things.) Bottom line, this sub can blend in with just about any kind of system, whether high end or budget. It's all about tuning, tuning, tuning! Those that complain, aren't tuning their system correctly! Music is an aspect of this sub I haven't quite figured out, yet. When playing really fast metal (think Guttural Secrete), the kick drums ring out nice and clear, but they lack punch, as does the bass guitar. I find myself having to turn up the gain to achieve better bass performance. However, I think this is less the subs fault than me only owning this sub for less than a week and not having figured out a way to tune it correctly for music. I would also like to touch on build quality. Again, I'm very impressed with the design and construction of this sub. When I opened the box, I was surprised by how large the enclosure was. It's a fairly large box and takes up a bit of realstate, but this is a good thing. When it comes to subs, the general rule of thumb is, the larger the enclosure, the larger the bass response! The enclosure has a nice black finish that should last a long time and the box itself is very sturdy and has a good *heft* to it. The driver itself is of very high quality and seems very, very sturdy. I imagine the woofer will outlast the rest of it. Note, the surrounds on this woofer are very tight. So tight, in fact, you might not achieve good bass right out of the box as it may take some hours of play time with a bass heavy soundtrack to break it in. Which leads me to think, if I'm getting such great bass right out of the gate, I can't wait to hear how it sounds once it's actually broken in and those surrounds loosen enough to get good cone movement (more cone movement = more air movement = more bass). If I had a complaint, it would be that the sub has a rear port. Higher end models, like SVS and the like often have front firing ports. There are many reasons for this that I won't delve into, but one is that it would allow you to place the sub closer to a wall, or closer to a corner. Because of the F-12's rear port, you can't place it close to a wall (the air coming from the port needs space to move freely) if you want to achieve maximum bass. For this design flaw, I deducted a star. All that said, this is an incredible sub for the price. Really think about it. What do you really get for $200 these days? At that price, they're basically giving it away. I cannot overstate the value. If you have big money, go buy a big money sub. If you're on a budget like the rest of us, this will work with whatever existing system you're running and it will elevate the sound stage to new heights. I guarantee it.

First and foremost this sub has the tightest speaker I have ever run across. When I first got it and hooked it up there was virtually nothing coming out of it for the first couple of hours. I was about to package it up and contact the Marketplace reseller that it was bad, but I left it on and gradually over the next few hours it began being heard, and heard nicely. I have a bit less than 50 hours on it now and wouldn't be surprised if it had some more "loosening up" to go, but it sounds very nice, and doesn't need to be cranked way up to hear and feel it. I like a sub that does its job without trying to dominate the podium. I am no "Bass Head" but do like to hear and feel it and the F12 does a good job of producing clean bass. I have the crossover set at 80 and have tweaked all the speakers using my receiver's equalizer. Wouldn't say this is the best sub because it isn't, though it might be the best one in this price range, and it fits my needs well and wasn't nearly as expensive as many other subs. It represents a very good compromise of quality, performance, and price. For me it came down to either the F12 or the Polk PSW505 in this price-performance range. The rating for this sub is a solid 5 stars. My rating for the Marketplace Reseller Contractors A/V initially was a Negative 5 if that rating existed. They sent out the sub quickly and I got it within 4 days which was fine. FedEx delivered it without the usual fork truck holes that UPS provides for free so everything started out great. When I opened up the box is when I realized that something wasn't quite perfect. The bag that the owner's manual and registration card came in was all crumpled like it had been handled numerous times and it wasn't sealed. In fact there were a couple pieces of Styrofoam stuck onto the folded over tape. The owner's manual was very crumpled and the postcard registration card is so crumpled that it can't be mailed. When I checked out the sub it didn't appear to have any evidence of abuse, scratches or anything, however both of the speaker connections on the input side were loose like it had been hooked up before and then not tightened up all the way like the other connections that were still factory tight. I hooked it up to see if it was OK, and at first thought it was DOA as all I could feel was a little vibration at the cone's edge. It turned out that it took a couple of hours for the speaker to loosen up enough to start working correctly. The one saving grace is that I got plenty of that "new electronics" odor which told me that this hadn't been turned on for very long as that "new smell" never lasts too long. What I suspect is that this unit was an Open Box return as the previous owner probably concluded that it was broken when it didn't produce much sound right out of the box and they promptly returned it. Since the sub appears to be working normally now, I am on the fence about just sending it back as I have some doubts about if it is "reconditioned" and how long it may continue to work. The unit was advertised as "NEW" yet it was not. Had it been advertised as "Open Box" or "Re-Certified" and I bought it knowing that then I wouldn't have any complaint. This is the second Amazon Marketplace reseller that I have had problems with and will not buy again from one of their Marketplace resellers. I have never had any problems with anything ordered from Amazon itself that was listed as New, In Stock, and Sold by Amazon, but I cannot make that same statement for their re-sellers. Update 3/16: Contacted the Marketplace reseller after giving them a low satisfaction rating based on not getting a brand new unit and they were very responsive and wanted to make it right and had an RMA issued. In the end I decided to keep the unit I have as it is working fine and also because the Marketplace reseller is ordering on behalf of their customers through a third party wholesale warehouse. It was uncertain how long it might take to get another unit as they were out-of-stock and it might end up being another "re-pack" and I'd be in the middle of everything all over again. Lesson learned is that ordering on-line can be great as long as there never are any issues, and even though the re-seller was willing to jump through hoops there were still things not within either of our control that could have turned this into a nightmare. Kudos to Contractor's A/V for trying to make things right as they had no way to know that their wholesaler would send out a re-pack and represent it as new. I will think twice before ordering anything large or expensive on-line rather than going through a local retailer where the remedy for any problems is far more clear and straightforward. Buy this sub with confidence that it is very good for the money, however you might want to only buy directly from Amazon as they are the 800 pound gorilla and they have the clout with their suppliers to fix things immediately if not sooner.

I just recently picked up one of these BIC F12's from Amazon after my previous subwoofer's amp died on me.. My previous sub was a 10 inch Athena model, which I picked up about 4 years ago.. Not a bad subwoofer (in fact, pretty excellent for the price at the time..), but nothing the audiophile-types would write home about, either.. But if you ask me, it was just fine, which is why I initially planned to buy a new amp rather than buy a whole new subwoofer. However, the amps I looked at were just a bittt too big to fit in the subwoofer box, or cost too much money for what I would get out of them (why spend $150 just to drive a nothing-fancy 10 inch sub? Really.. 10-inches is very limiting for how deep/low the subwoofer will go. More on that below..) Sooo, I decided I might as well upgrade to something better.. Either a better 10 inch sub, or go up in size to a 12 inch.. I did like the compact(ish)-ness of my 10 inch Athena. But looking at fancier 10 inch subs, they weren't particularly the same-small-ish size. I actually considered buying an SVS or equivalent sub, but then convinced myself otherwise. Cost/value won me over, and I knew I really shouldn't be spending all that extra money. Reading a bunch about this subwoofer convinced me it would work just fine for me. And the price pretty much couldn't be beat. And now that I have it set up, it is definitely great. Before I get into more specifics, in terms of size (one of my concerns) this sub is pretty nice. It is only 3 inches wider than my older 10-inch sub, and pretty much exactly the same dimensions otherwise. It's pretty straight-forward shape wise.. rectangular, with a pretty no-frills-run-of-the-mill front grill/woofer protector. As for sound, this sub is pretty strong. In my TV room (about 15 feet x 20 feet), straight out of the box with the subwoofer's amp set to "4", the subwoofer had the same db level at 26 hz as it did at 80 hz, but below 26 hz, it dropped off pretty quick.. And this is in a room that's completely open at both ends to the whole first floor.. So the sub can definitely push some air. (By comparison, my 10 inch sub, in a much smaller room, could only go down to about 32 hz straight out of the box..) I did find the BIC to be a bit "loud" (unbalanced, compared to the lower hz range..) in the 40-70hz range, but later I discovered that the spot in the room I was making measurements from had a huge gain at 60hz, so perhaps it's flatter than I measured. After I took initial measurements (using a program called Room EQ Wizard), I equalized the sub using my DSP1124P.. And it sounds (and feels) amazing. With the sub's amp still on the "4" setting, It now goes down to 18hz +/- 2db.. And by that I mean from 18hz to 40 hz it's 76 db +/- 2db.. That's with my normal listening volume of 65 db.. (From 40hz to 80 hz, I have it drop from 76 db to 65 db to match my mains..). Below 18hz, though, it drops pretty fast but it's still pretty good.. 15 hz is 68db. Playing those low tones makes the room throb. My 10 inch subwoofer could neeeever do that. Even equalized, that one couldn't really handle 20 hz.. and it was in a much smaller room. Seeing as I already owned an "equalizer" (the DSP1124P is about 100 dollars..), this subwoofer was a STEAL for what I was able to get out of it. If you plan to equalize your subwoofer, this one will make for an amazing set up, that is for sure! Even if you don't plan to equalize your sub, you're still getting a great deal on a great sub, you just won't get the really low bass as you might from more expensive subs.

First let me start by saying this is my first home theater subwoofer purchase so I cannot compare this to any lower or higher end subwoofer. I have however installed several car stereo subwoofers and I can honestly say that this subwoofer is a good buy for about $200.00. For reference here is my setup. AVR: Pioneer VSX-1022-K 560W 7-Channel A/V Receiver; SURR SOUND: Energy Take 5 Classic; CBL/SAT: DirecTV; BLU RAY: Samsung BD-P1500 (Yeah I know its old); LIVING RM SZ: 13X16. This subwoofer really filled up my living room and brought out the best in my Energy speakers. With the sub now connected the 5.0 speakers no longer had to carry the highs, mids and the lows, now they play highs and mids like they were designed to. As for my settings, I have the volume level on the sub set at about halfway and the crossover at about 100, my receiver is set at -2db (that's how hard this thing hits!) HD channels on the DirecTV sound good for regular tv shows as do the movie channels. Blu-Ray movies and CDs is where this sub excels though. It plays well with all types of music, smooth jazz, classical, and especially Hip-Hop & R&B. For my Blu-Ray experience, I played the movie Prometheus; my wife said she thought she was back at the movie theater as we were watching it. One thing I forgot to mention is that I have the sub connected wirelessly with the Rocketfish Wireless Subwoofer Kit. I noticed no hum, and it does not interfere with my home Wifi network. All in all this a great sub and I would highly recommend. As most people did in the reviews here, I went to TopTenreviews.com, audiophile.com, audioholics.com etc., to see if whether I should purchase or not. I wish I had purchased this the same time as my Energy speakers because I deprived myself of the deep rich bass that home theater system should have. For those who say it's too boomy I would say they have a point, but this can be corrected by adjusting the sub crossover and volume along with matching it with the receiver's crossover settings and decibel level as I did and gave in my reference configuration. If you have Amazon Prime it arrives in exactly two days!!! Again, a great buy. Hope this helps someone out there that may be on the fence as I was for several months before purchasing. Good Luck and when you do purchase enjoy!