Re: Subwoofer - What Fraction of Speaker Budget?
There have been some good suggestions here.
For the OP, I'd say it comes down to a number of factors, those being:
1- Your Budget
2- Use (Movies/Music/Both - how much?)
3- Your priorities (output, range, tone, extension, depth, tightness)
4- Your space (size matters)
5- Aesthetics (where is it going to go and what will it look like there? WAF?
6- Your Budget
Subs can be had used for below $100 or for over $20,000.00. You can buy one, or make one.
If you prefer music, you might prefer a subwoofer that is going to clean transitions, very little distortion, but might not so go so low, so that you can enjoy clarity in music without any muddiness in the low notes. If so, you may be looking at a smaller, faster, closed box sub.
If movies are more the priority, and you prefer explosions that you can feel, and budget is a factor, a nice ported/tuned sub may be the answer, as getting similar performance out of a sealed box tends to be more expensive, as it often requires more power. Be advised, ported boxes tend to also be somewhat larger.
Subs with some of these qualities can be found in both high and low end. However, know that to have a sub that can do many things well, ie... go low (10-15 hz), have high output, transition well, and have low distortion, will progressively tend to cost more.
Take a peek here for some starting information and comparisons:
Subwoofer review summary page ... From the AVS forum - Tweak City Audio
For a basis, my previous system consisted of Paradigm Mini Monitors (x4) and a Paradigm CC250 (about $1.2kish total i think - got them about 9 years ago), paired with a $250.00 DCM KXSub2 subwoofer. It wasn't very clean or tight, but had decent output for a bandpass box, and went lowish (22ish HZ in my room). So my Sub budget was less than 17% of my speaker budget.
I've since upgraded to a Dali Ikon setup (Ikon 6's, Vokal 2 Center, Ikon on Wall rears), that ran me about $4,000.00. I used them with the DCM KXSub2 for a few months, and realized the Sub was really a weak spot in my system now (90%movies, 10% music). I ended up getting an Epik Conquest (#2 on craig's list), and absolutely love it. It ended up about $1,800 shipped, almost half the price my speakers alone cost me, and about 33% of the total speaker budget.
Of course, the Conquest is massive, and not overly attractive (who knew having a 3' tall, 3' deep, 2' wide black box in your room would stand out lol). However, the difference in sound..... amazing. Even the wife loves it, because of the sound. We just have to live with the giant box for the next 20 years heh. ;p
Hope that helps
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