Additional Boom

When I was forced to downgrade from my big boy Cerwin-Vega! loud speakers to the much smaller bookshelf speakers, one of the first things I noticed was the lack of deep, booming bass. Makes sense considering I took away two 12" subs from my setup. Anyway, I decided that I would try to fill this void by adding a dedicated powered sub-woofer to my setup. I tried to do as much research as I could but I couldn't find a lot of professional reviews on most of these subs. The reviews I did see were mostly about the ultra high end subs. There were a lot of individual reviews, but it is really hard to know what to make out of those reviews as often the only people who review stuff are people who experience problems.

At any rate I quickly narrowed my list to two subs: one made by Cerwin-Vega!, the other by Polk Audio. The Vega sub had two 8" subs and was powered by a 150-200 watt amp. I don't remember the exact number, but that estimate is in the ballpark. Price: $250-$300 depending on which web site you looked at and what day of the week it was. Obviously I am a big CV fan so this sub was number one on my list.

The second sub was a bit smaller and made by Polk Audio. This sub came to my attention as it is the number one selling sub on Amazon.com and it had several hundred reviews with a high average. It was also rated highly at CNET. This sub features one 10" sub powered by an amp that puts out only 50 continuous watts with a peak of 100 watts. Obviously very underpowered compared to most other subs, but Polk Audio is a good brand and it got great reviews. And here is the kicker: It sells for $150-$200 at stores like Best Buy but at Amazon it sells for around $100. Despite the small power, everyone said it worked great for both movies and music, and that as long as your living room wasn't huge, it provided plenty of sound. Then last week, the price briefly dropped to $85 at Amazon (I love Amazon - buy lots of stuff there. But the prices can fluctuate a lot. If you are buying something expensive there that doesn't have a fixed cost, i.e. a PS3, I would suggest always checking the price daily for a bit to see if it lowers) so I decided to take the risk and buy it. I had a $25 gift certificate so I got the sub with shipping for $82. I was obviously concerned that this might be a get what you paid for moment, especially since I decided to go against CV basically for financial reasons.

After having the sub setup for a few days and watching a variety of stuff on my TV, I must say that I am very happy with the purchase. For just a bit over $80, it makes a dramatic difference in the audio, regardless of what you are watching or listening to. But where it really shines is with music and movies. I watched several concerts on Palladia and there was a noticeable difference in the amount of bass that was heard. Saturday night I watched the movie "Wanted" (terrible movie that I am not even going to bother writing about. I would give it about a D. This despite starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.) and it sounded fantastic. The movie had a ton of explosions and gunfire and special effects and the sub really made a dramatic difference in the overall experience of watching the movie.

As far as the lower power that this Polk has, I had to tweak a few of my settings on my receiver. Basically turned off surround sound while watching TV, and turned up the volume a bit on the receiver while turning down the volume on my cable box just to make the sub a bit more audible. Regardless, I have a small-to-medium sized living room in my apartment and the sub output is only at 50% and I had no problem hearing the additional boom provided by this speaker.

I would highly recommend this speaker. Spending only $80-$100 will make a dramatic difference on how your system performs for movies, music, and TV. This addition will really provide a lot of bang for your buck. And if you have a larger room or are wanting more power, Polk also provides a bigger brother to the sub I picked up. It features a 12" sub with a 300 watt amp. But I really think the smaller and much cheaper 10" model will be enough to satisfy most people.