$30 Refubished Sub, Good or Bad?

[450]

http://www.ecost.com/ecost/ecce/shop...sp?dpno=394422


Kenwood had extra powered subwoofers from the HTB-505 Home Theater System that we were able to procure and pass on the savings on to you!
SW-36HT Powered Subwoofer Features

• Driver and Enclosure: The SW-35HT has an 8" front-firing woofer powered by a 100-watt amplifier. For extended bass response, the woofer is loaded in a bass-reflex enclosure with a front-firing port.

• Auto On/Off Circuit: When a signal is received, the subwoofer amplifier turns on automatically. If no signal is sensed for approximately 12 minutes, the subwoofer enters standby mode. The rear-mounted LED glows red when the subwoofer is in standby mode and green when the subwoofer is active.

• Controls: A rear-mounted volume control allows you to match the output of the subwoofer to the rest of your system. Above the volume control is a button that allows you to turn the low-pass crossover on or off. When the crossover is turned on, the rear-mounted crossover control allows you to adjust the crossover point from 60Hz to 200Hz.
Subwoofer:
• 8" cone
• 100-watt built-in amplifier
• bass-reflex design
• 11-13/16"W x 13-3/16"H x 19-1/4"D

 

[ooheadsoo]

I don't know what you can expect for $30 or from an 8" sub. But if $30 is ALL you have to spend on a sub, it's better than what you can diy because you can't even buy a decent subwoofer driver for $30. You realize that you get what you pay for, and that there are no good subs under ~$300.

 

[450]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ooheadsoo I don't know what you can expect for $30 or from an 8" sub. But if $30 is ALL you have to spend on a sub, it's better than what you can diy because you can't even buy a decent subwoofer driver for $30. You realize that you get what you pay for, and that there are no good subs under ~$300.

Oh I know performance isn't going to be spectacular, but for $30?

And YES, I know there arent any GOOD subs under 300.

 

[Wodgy]

These ultra cheap subs are tuned to basically a single note. You can get a loose thumping sound in the upper midbass, but not much else. I'd save my money. Once you pay for shipping you're looking at $50, and it's just a waste. These things are worse than no subwoofer at all unless you really want a one-note thumping sound for parties or rap or whatever.

ooheadsoo and I are not saying this because we're some kind of audiophile snobs. I learned the hard way a long while ago. Bought a $99 sub because I thought it was a good deal, played around with it, stuffing the ports, adjusting the settings and position, and just could never get it to sound good. Eventually I just threw it in the trash. The people in the apartment below me actually fished it out of the trash (not as yucky as it sounds, I had trashed it inside the original box) and hooked it up in their apartment for about a week, then got rid of it too.

Later on I started reading about subwoofer design and realized that there are laws of physics at work. With an 8-inch ported driver, manufacturers basically use a very loose, slow tuning because a thumping upper midbass is what sells. This kind of sound doesn't match well at all with quality speakers, even cheap ones.

 

[450]

Thanks for the great clarification!!! Now I understand a bit better.

I was thinking of this sub for my Aiwa Minisystem (that has a sub out). It sounds okay (I not an extreme Audiophile), much better than the usual multimedia sound system hooked up to the PC. Which is what essentially I do with this setup. I mean, if you (and the neighbors) trashed a 100 dollar sub...
A 30 dollar sub would be really bad!

Out of curiosity, are there any multimedia systems you guys can reccomend?
[no I'm not searching for one, but wondered if you liked any multimedia systems out there]

 

[ixeo]

i'd *assume* they are better than some white van subs.. its $30 bucks no harm trying it out if you're curious.

if its that awful you can give it to a buddy for their birthday or something, least it'll look expensive

 

[ooheadsoo]

HOLY SMOKES, I puched in my zip code for shipping and ground came out to $47.95+$3.95 handling!

That's as spectacular a deal breaker as I've ever seen.

Dayton has a $125 10" sub that is probably ok for the price, but that's as low as I would dare go. You could probably diy something better for just a little more money if you had the tools to build a cabinet.

What are your requirements for a multimedia system?

 

[gaboo]

Athena AS-P400 goes on sale for $230 on amazon. It was this week anyway.
To me it sounded like more than one note at bestbuy, but YMMV.

 

[Wodgy]

For a minisystem maybe this kind of subwoofer would be okay. It all depends on how high you're going to cross your sub (i.e. what the highest frequency it will play is going to be). People with quality small ported bookshelf speakers generally don't need to cross any higher than 90-100hz, and generally go lower. You can see why a sub with a hump at 80-90hz isn't really a useful addition in that situation. On the other hand, if you're using the speakers that came with your minisystem and you feel that they really don't have much bass to start with, it's possible that you could want to cross the sub at 150hz or even 200hz. An 8-inch sub, even a cheap ported one, is going to do okay at those frequencies, and so it could be worthwhile. Because of distortion your sub's location would be easier to detect in that kind of situation, but if that's what's needed to fill in an upper bass/lower midrange hole, then the $30 could be worthwhile.

If you might be interested in DIY but don't have many tools, look into building a sealed sonotube subwoofer. With this type of design, you don't need to build an enclosure, you just buy a tube and end caps from the hardware store, cut a hole in the bottom cap for the driver, mount it, install binding posts, glue the two caps to the tube, and add feet. As long as your driver goes low enough to get a boost in the extreme low end from your room, there is nothing better than a sealed subwoofer in terms of tightness and speed (group delay). It's also the easiest design to build. The Dayton kit would also probably be good, though after you built it I bet you'd consider stuffing the port with socks to make the sound tighter.

 

[ooheadsoo]

The Dayton kit sub is actually a sealed sub with an f3 of about 32hz. (Oops, don't know if you meant "kit" in the british sense) Not bad if you get it off of ebay. But with something like that, I have a feeling it's going to outstrip your speakers, quality wise

Wodgy, have you seen endcaps for sale? If there were, around me, I'd have built a sonotube sub instead of my box

By the way, don't make the Q of your subwoofer too low or you'll get little to no impact, like mine. I think mine, sealed, is around 0.4.

 

[Wodgy]

Home Depot sells round wooden circles pre-cut, see here:
http://kahuna.sdsu.edu/~tucker/diyaudio/sonotube/
That guy used one of those for the top cap along with an MDF circle and then used a piece of inset circle-cut MDF for the bottom cap, but I suspect he could have just used the wooden circles for both, given appropriate gluing. With a router it would be easy, or if you chose the tube size and circle size right, you might not even need a router, just a decent amount of glue.

Yeah, I agree about Q. I think a Q around 7 or slightly less is optimal for a sealed cabinet. You get more impact and only sacrifice about a millisecond of group delay.

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ooheadsoo The Dayton kit sub is actually a sealed sub with an f3 of about 32hz. (Oops, don't know if you meant "kit" in the british sense) Not bad if you get it off of ebay. But with something like that, I have a feeling it's going to outstrip your speakers, quality wise

Wow, I didn't realize that. Not a bad deal then. Pretty darn nice.

Another alternative for those who don't want to build their own box is to buy one of the nice PartsExpress pre-made cabinets. Due to the size you could only use an 8-inch woofer, but with an inexpensive long-throw driver like the Adire AV-8 ($75) and one of the .75 cu ft boxes ($85) you'd end up with a sealed sub with a Q close to 0.7 and extension (f3) down to around 38hz in room, and even better for small rooms. Good enough for music and very good performance for the cost and time investment.

Edit: Umm, I was confusing the Dayton $124 subwoofer, which is not a kit, with the Dayton kits. The assembled unit is ported. The kits (sealed) start at $349. For that price, IMHO, it would be better to pick up an assembled Adire Rava ($399). Q=0.67, very fine cabinetry, and good resale value.

 

[ooheadsoo]

Yeah, but the Dayton kit sub can be had on ebay for ~$310 (about $275 is their reserve) shipped if you're patient. All in all not a bad deal.

The rava's shiva driver is reportedly very similar to the dayton mkIII, so it really comes down to if you want that nice cabinet or just a regular one.

 

[450]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ooheadsoo What are your requirements for a multimedia system?

I went to my friends house and he had some Logitech z640's he bought for gaming, he only has a 2 channel sound card but he got the thing anyway. I didn't like the z640 too much, even if its a computer set and 60 bucks (what he paid).

My mini system (2 channel) is about 40 watts x 2 (not big, I know). It has a 5 1/2" woofer, 2" mid-range, and a tweeter (idk the size). I use this for music, games, and movies. I just want the sub to add depth. I DONT want something atrocious that shakes the floor.

NOTE: I'm not too big of a movie watcher w/speakers. These are basically the only real speakers in the house as my family isnt the audiophile type (I'm the only one, yes I'm allowed to be). The system was bought in '96 used as a CDP but when the optical laser (i think) died, I began using it on the computer (hey, my parents wanted to throw it out). I also use it as an headphone amp, as it has a powerful output with no hiss.

Yes, I know the situation is quite bad.

 

[1967cutlass]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ooheadsoo Yeah, but the Dayton kit sub can be had on ebay for ~$310 (about $275 is their reserve) shipped if you're patient. All in all not a bad deal. The rava's shiva driver is reportedly very similar to the dayton mkIII, so it really comes down to if you want that nice cabinet or just a regular one.

adire shivas are better than the dayton.