Quality 8" or 10" subwoofer??

I think DIY or a used HSU VTF2 are your best bets.

If you can buy used and are willing to wait for it to come around, try a Hsu Research STF-2. Excellent bang for buck and I regret selling mine.

Otherwise, this is the way to go: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshow...number=300-760 It breaks your budget a bit but no tax or shipping. This will be theoretically tighter than the HSU, but the HSU will go lower, trust me.

This is the type of question i personally find impossible to answer.
do you realise just how many 8 or 10 inch subwoofers there are out there ?

some are great,some crap.Some may be great with your system but crap with others.Some are called a subwoofer when all they are is a woofer,the bottom section missing from the mini monitor.

For something completely different check out the Cain& Cain subs.Nothing but good reports and they look far cooler than a low bass speaker has a right to (Furniture manufacturer before loudspeaker manufacturer )

the subs you mentioned are not what you really want to mate with your mains.They are no way a good sonic match and you are better off looking at T-Lines and sealed units

After weeks of research and a thousand emails back and forth between ooheadsoo and myself looking for a great subwoofer for less than $400, I threw up my hands and went with a used HSU sub (VTF-3 II) that cost double your current budget. However, I am expecting tight, controlled bass down to 20Hz.

I have personally decided there are probably no commercial subwoofers out there in the $400 range that are both tight and deep. If my budget was in the $300 range, I'd stretch a few dollars and go with 10" Titanic kit ooheadsoo recommended from Parts Express. It has nothing but great reviews. Or I'd do what I initially did--a 12" Infinity Kappa Perfect driver in a DIY enclosure driven by an inexpensive automobile amp powered by 12VDC linear power supply and a decent crossover, or you could go with one of the Parts Express plate amps (probably the $120 240-watt PE amp with the 24dB crossover). My "Perfect" 12.1 sounds very tight and musical. Really nice, actually. It complements my Paradigm Atoms/T-amp office system well. You can get tight and musical for under $300 if you shop used and/or DIY, but I doubt you will get much below 30Hz.

Or you can avoid the DIY trouble and go with your initial plans for an STF-1.

-coma

Sealed is far overrated imo but the dayton I listed above is the only decent kit you'll get near this price.

Geez, I still can't believe you went for that vtf-3, coma

I'm a little frightened anticipating how good it is going to sound. I don't want my hi-fi expectations to be raised too much or it might start another avalanche of component spending. I've got enough things I need to buy already .

-coma

Depends on need.Sealed creates a smoother transistion than does any ported sub which totally decouples below port frequency and usually falls off almost as fast at the top end as does a banpass box.The TL is better still in this area and the low end keeps on going until the output is zero.
a sub is not a universal plug in but must match the mains exactly in the crossover transition area tonally and in phasing or there WILL be an audible disconnect where you will not hear the "system' but the main speakers and then the subs as individual speakers-NOT what you want.

you are trying to add missing bass notes to what you already have and like not change the tone of the entire system

All that appeared was "Quality 8" or 10"..." on the main forums menu...I thought I was on the wrong website...

Oh come on...someone had to say it...

Hmm...I've always used a xover on the top end of my subs I don't think any sealed woofer will fall off under 300hz significantly without electronics.

ALL subwoofers use a low pass filter crossover and SHOULD have a low end cutoff.If you have any understanding at all you would realise any speaker designed for very low response has a limited upper freq respponse and so is a rolloff 1

It is also a rare sub,if it really is a sub,to have anything usable in the 300hz you mention.you build for bass excursion or yesponse but both in a single speaker are extremely rare no matter what the spec sheets say.

i think too many confuse woofer with subwoofer which are entirely different beasties and have entirely different requirements.

A true sub never sees more than 75 and MAYBE 100 hz at the upper end or it is a woofer and will not plumb the depths of frequency.

you want real integration trouble ? use a single sub with two satellites and cross it over at or above 250hz.Total disconnect no matter where you put the bass box even though the ad copy says otherwise

The woofer will continue to play up on high and will not attenuate sufficiently to squeeze in under a couple hundred hz without assistance from electronics. In any case, that's what the lowpass is for, so I don't understand your point.

And i have absolutely no clue what you are trying to get at ?

every speaker in a multidriver system has a band of frequencies it is suited to operate over.You do not try to get bass out of a tweeter and you can not expect high frequencies over a certain cone size.

intermediate sized speakers such as the 8 or 10 are a comprimise in that they can get higher than a 12 or 15 but not as low as the 12 or 15 inch all else being equal.For that you need to use some tricks or use a speaker designed specifically for low end use.

That is the reason for the multidriver speaker system with crossovers for each driver -to limit the band of frequencies reproduced by that drive.

a 15 inch woofer CAN play high notes but the effect would be so bad it would color the entire system and become the predominate sound heard.Driving any speaker outside of its comfort zone will make that speaker driver attempt to produce sound,and it will,where it was never designed to play so these sounds will be nothing more than distortion added to the system.

THAT is why you don't just plug speaker A into speaker B and expect beautiful music and is also why manufacturers make the big bucks for selling you a completed design.

now take that fully engineered and voice matched system and just throw any sub on it and gues what ? you just threw everything out of balance unless you take the time to do some research,do some listening,ask for some opinions from those who have the same system and then integrate your sub into the system so it becomes that-a system,and not a sub and a speaker never really happy in the marriage.

If this was such an easy plug-and-play thing I would not be without a sub for the first time in my adult life but hey,all about choices and any are free to make their own.i just thought to bring more than a "buy this I like it" to the party and add some actual meat.

That's very nice but we were talking about the low pass. You seemed to make a very big point on the fact that a subwoofer's being ported or sealed or bandpass made an inordinate impact on the sub's upper end extension. My point was that the lowpass would take care of the upper registers in most cases. By implication, I don't want the subwoofer to extend into the speaker's range. If you confine the sub to the range you were speaking of, IE, under <75hz or so, and the subwoofer has flat frequency response until the roll off, let's say, under 30hz, then for the majority of all music, the phase response and group delay of the system do not come into play in a significant way. You do need good power and a good driver/box.

Having a good steep roll off is a major factor IMO. I'm not sure I think 4th order is steep enough anymore.