Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

Re: Impressions of Parts Express Dayton 10" Sub Kit

I just got one of these, a couple weeks ago today as a matter of fact. I would say sam9 has summed things up quite well and agree with everything he has said exactly. Ironically I am using the Paradox 1's as well, and rest assured this sub works quite well with them.

I bought it for music use only, but will use it on the occasion for movies (rare). Honestly, this sub is "for real" and does perform well beyond it's price as sam9 said. Being a kit from "Parts Express" I think it makes one wonder. The plate amp, the braced enclosure, the driver, it's all very good quality.

I listen to about the same type of music you do and the sub supplements the low frequencies quite well, in a very well mannered way, with colorful, tight, musical bass. I have it connected to my amp via a speaker level connection, have it crossed over at the lowest 40Hz setting and am using a better power cord too. As sam9 explained, the success of a well integrated sub into a system is based on careful placement and the room itself (treatments). For the past couple weeks I have been trying to dial in the right blend, as I have pretty much found the right spot for it in my room.

I think I about have the sub dialed in now. Last night I got out my Radio Shack meter and Stereophile test CD2 and took some measurements again (which by the way helps a lot in assisting placement and dialing in) and found it has usuable output at 25Hz, down about 3 decibals at 27 Hz, near flat at 31.5 Hz. I happen to have a 50Hz bass peak in my room and so even though I had the xover set to 40Hz it still output a good amount of volume at 50, 63 and 80Hz but then tailed off quickly thereafter. That is one real nice thing about the REL's, that you can cutoff the bass output lower than 40Hz and their xover's use a steep 24dB slope, compared to the 12dB slope of the Titanic sub, which can help curtail the bass output above the xover setting much quicker. So like most subwoofer's in most rooms that are untreated (mine is not properly treated), the Titanic will overlap the bass output of the Paradox 1's somewhat but does not impede into the upper bass and certainly not the midrange at all. However, if you have heard a sub, within the confines of it's capabilities that is well integrated into a system, you'd know that you really don't hear the sub at all and begin to wonder if it is even set up right. Linear bass, or even somewhat linear bass, down to 25Hz or so, is hard for some people to grasp because you can hardly hear it at all- people want to hear the thump. Even with the overlap I have now it's not really a glaring impedement, the Titanic sounds quiet, clean and so tight where it needs to down low that it's not a real problem. It's presentation of bass down low is fantastic with music.

It's not only the bass that will improve, you will notice that when you have the Titanic dialed in that the rest of the spectrum will improve as well. I was blown away at how much more open, more dimensional and cleaner the sound became when I replaced my older powered sub with the Titanic. Stand up bass suddenly occupies a defined areas of space, piano sounds fuller and lays out in space more easily.

For the money it has got to be hard to beat. My guess is the REL's and the ACI's would outperform them in absolute terms but I'd have a hard time imagining the "quality" of the bass from this sub could be embarrassed. One note on installing the spikes that sam9 brought up. Parts Express started having the manufacturer of the enclosures pre-install the T-nuts into the enclosures so the customer does not have to do this. It literally took me 5 minutes to install the spikes now, where in sam9's case I bet it would be tricky.

I definitely recommed this sub, very hard to beat for the money.


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Sonic Craft  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups


You can not post to an archived thread.