Trip to Comp USA (1 Viewer)

I went to Comp USA in Austin today to check out the HSU sud that they sell. This will probably sound very familiar to anyine that has shoppe for this sub at this chain.

When I found the area that had the subs, I was first impressed with the look of the HSU sub. They had it hooked up to one of those switching boxes liek they have at Circuit City. I tried to turn on the sub with a set of JBL bookshelves. Surprise! No sound. The sales guy cmae over and took over, I must have looked like I had no idea what I was doing. After a minute the feeling was mutual. He tried three different recievers, checked all of the hookups, nothing. I was about tready to leave when he did something and got it to work. I would have been more grateful but it seemed that all he did was punch buttons on the reciever until he got sound. If I sound a little irritated, I was. The whole time he was messing with the controls, he was telling me how dissapointed everyone is with that sub and how the 10 inch infinity blows it out of the water. I am new to HT, but I do know that the HSU should out-perform the Infinity. Once he got it going, he turned on the Infinity. It actually sounded OK. But for $350, I think that you can do better. Then he swithced to the 12 inch JBL. Yuck, very muddy sounding to me. I fianally got him to turn on the HSU, and wow!. He turned it up and then said " See what I mean, it just rattles too much and sounds bad." Switching between the Infinty and th HSU, he kept saying, "for the money, you have to buy the Infinty, it is way better." I pulled out the sub to check the connections, I was really just trying to get hands on with this sub as I have never seen one, much less heard one. I found the gain turned all the way up and the crossover all the way down. I turned the crossover up to about 70 and the gain back down to about 1/3. This made a huge difference, though he pointed out that it still rattled. After a little more investigation, I found that it was not the sub that was rattling, it was the whole shelf!! I put the sub on the floor and put some pressure on it to keep it from moving. Even at the mild volume that the sub sounded much better than either of the other two that were hooked up. Two other guys came over to see which sub wasplaying and said that they never heard it sound that good before. I am not even beginning to say that I am a audio brain, far from it. But if I could mess with it few seconds and get it sounding better, why can't they? The sales guy said that they have people come in all the time wanting to check out the HSU, but almmost always leave dissapointed, and I can see why.

All this to say that I will go back in a couple of weeks to pick up my new HSU. I can't wait.

For the money, the HSU STF-2 won't disappoint you.

I am a very happy owner myself.

Anything that gets them a spif from the company they will push!

Are Comp USA folks hourly?

B

I have seen too many posts like this... So I actually called Hsu Research to let them know what was going in ... hopefully they will look into it.

The only CompUSA here doesn't carry the sub yet. They're pretty limited on their home theater equipment as well. Guess it hasn't trickled down this way yet.

...

i still dont get why HSU sells at compusa...? does anyone else find this extremely odd? it only makes it look bad for HSU to have their product mishandled and misrepresented (totally) at a non-audio store.

:frowning:

Selling only computers isn't the most profitable business model, so CompUSA hopes to get into the broader market (like BB or CC). Remember, CompUSA now owns Goodguys.

I swear I saw a post just like this. I think in that post the sub was facing down with no feet so the cone was hitting the shelf. Who knows, they did it once.

I think what happenned is that Hsu was working with GoodGuys to sell the STF-2, and then GoodGuys was bought by CompUSA.

I pass a COMPUSA on a daily basis. It's only a few miles from where I live so maybe a quick look wouldn't hurt. It would be interesting to listen/see one. I'll be sure to wear one of my SVS T-shirt for the fun of it. What do they have a 15% re-stocking fee?

I just wish CompUSA would stick to computers and software.

There's a reason why we call it: CompUselessA

They would probably be clueless as to its relevency, more so than setting up the subs properly.

Yeah that was me, when I went to go hear it the sub had no spikes on it and was just bottoming out on the shelf, I made someone there prop it up with something and he put a few blocks of Styrofoam under it, it was ghetto but it worked. He said that someone stole the spikes, I don’t know if that is true or not but o well. BTW if you thought the sub sounded good in CompUSA, It will sound MUCH better in your house, I thought it sounded ok in CompUSA, but it is so much different/better in my house!

I'm sure of that Curtis in regards to the shirt and setup. It would give me the opportunity to see one though. It would also be interesting to actually see how one performs in-house. Always interested in good bass you know.

steve

I didn't know you meant pick one up and try it at home....sorry.

Maybe they will waive the restocking fee if you showed them how to set it up properly.

I am definitley going to get the HSU. I pretty much had my mind made up, I just wanted to see it's actual size and the amp controls. Being able to get it to sound decent in the store in just a few minutes, with extremely limited knowlegde is only icing on the cake. I agree that thsi has to hurt the sales of the sub. For the sales guy to even put that Infinty in the same calss is ridiculous. By the way, they were the same price as well, so it wasn't like you could save a hundred bucks an the Infinty. His comment that there has been lots of people come in just to look at this sub, then leave dissapointed in its performance is very scary. I put a lot more stock into the info that I have gotten here over the advice of the sales people anyways. This forum has steered me away from the package deals at CC and BB, As another side note, I have decided on the Titan/CC 170 combo for the rest of my HT. I can get the Yamaha RXV 540 for $330. Good deal? Anyways, thanks to everyone here for your exhaustive info and generous help. I'll post again when I get it all set up.

Maybe they will waive the restocking fee if you showed them how to set it up properly.
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You betcha. I'll just tell them I need 15-2000 CF sectioned off in a corner of their showroom, roof and all.

Thinking about it I really emphasize with your beef. I would feel like crawling under the couch if SVS used COMPUSA. I say this with heart and absolutely no pun intended.

Yeah...CompUSA has a killer deal on 250gb hard drive right now.....thinking of them as a audio store is tough.

One thing though, I think Hsu has gotten more subwoofers into consumers' hands because of it.

One thing though, I think Hsu has gotten more subwoofers into consumers' hands because of it.
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Most likely and over time it will be a big benefit if this is the case. If they didn't have it, I seriously doubt I would ever have the benefit of giving it a look with what I run. Maybe I just bolstered your point.