Ah, thanks for the suggestions! I'd heard about the NXG, but hadn't looked too closely at it. And hadn't realized that the price had dropped like that. Good find!
I had looked at the Daytons, but had read in Jman's review of the HVL-1's that the Dayton Sub 1200 didn't mesh too well with the speakers. Not as well as he was expecting, in any case, so the NXG could be the better option anyway.
My receiver is an Onkyo TR-NX636, so has two sub lines with it. I'm not sure what you mean when asking about "bass management", though, KEW. Besides the crossover settings, what else should I be looking at/for?
And out of curiosity, why the suggestion to crossover at either 100 or 120 Hz? Other things I had been reading seemed to suggest that 80 Hz was a good place for crossover. I'm looking forward to trying out the different options, so have no problem with trying 100 or 120...I'm just wondering.
And that's an interesting chart on the PB-1000! I've seen some frequency response graphs, but hadn't paid any attention to impulse responses. Neat! So also out of curiosity, what would the SB-1000 impulse response look like? Is that a better system for an apartment? Or maybe only a small apartment?
Thanks again!
I looked up Jman's review of the HVL-1's. I think he is simply trying to complement the HVL-1. No sub is going to provide as much detail as a speaker. I can play my Rythmik E15HP's (which are deservedly reputed to be as articulate as a sub gets) with the speakers disconnected, and trust me, there is
nothing I would call detail! You can do this with any sub. The detail is all in the higher frequencies. The sub could be obscuring details that come from the speakers if it is too hot or has too much resonance; and a tighter sub (like my Rythmiks) will "get out of the way" quicker than the Dayton, but this is true with $25 speakers as well as the HVL's as well as $20,000 speakers. I have set up dual Daytons with Pioneer BS-22's (HVL's are better, but the PIO's sounded very nice after Audyssey) and for the money, I feel it is excellent sound quality.
RE Bass management. You just answered my question, the Onkyo has Audyssey MultEQ which will attempt to adjust your bass to improve the in room response at the locations you place the mic. After you run audyssey, go back and make sure your speakers are set as small, then set the Crossover to 100 or 120Hz.
Why 100 or 120? As you know the HVL-1 is a budget speaker. Dave Fabricant did a very good job of designing it to get the best performance out of it, but the mid-woofer can get overwhelmed and lose detail from having to play too many frequencies at once. I found it sounded pretty detailed on "less crowded" music, but got a little jumbled when thing get busy (not bad, but compared to better speakers you can hear it). If you can off load the lower frequencies to your sub, you are relieving the mid-woof from having to attempt accurate and detailed fine vibrations at the mid frequencies while he bass frequencies are slamming the driver close to it's travel limits. Play with it and listen, it might not be apparent without another pair of speakers to compare to, but I think you will be able to tell the difference.
The SB1000 would definitely be a better sub than the PB1000 for you apartment if it can put out enough sound (that seems like you'd be pushing it).
The charts come from Jman's reviews!
Here is the SB1000:
The PB1000:
Unfortunately, Jman measured the SUB-1200 before he was combining the driver and port responses, but here they are as two separate slides (driver is the first one):
And here is the NXG:
As you can see, the Dayton and the NXG really are splitting hairs - very close!
The PB1000 is the only one that has solid yellow (~80dB) carrying out to the 50ms line!
The SB1000 is nicely tight until it get down to around 30Hz. This could be an artifact of the EQ SVS is using or it might be a design decision. If you threw out cost concerns, the Dual Dayton/NXG vs an SB1000 is an interesting question. The SB1000 is tighter until you get down to the low 30's, but the bloom there is a problem for neighbors.
The Dayton/NXG have slightly more resonance at 30Hz, but instead of being a "spike", it is gradual increase as the frequency goes down. I'm uncertain how this would play out. However, the benefit of dual subs is substantial. It reduces the "hot spots" and the "dead spots" (or nulls) where the bass is either too strong or doesn't exist in your room (maybe you've been to a concert where the bass was overwhelming in one location but okay in another and non-existent in another). With two subs you come closer to having the same level of bass throughout your room. Too bad you can't control it so the neighbors get the nulls.
Just as a reference, a top notch performer is the PSA XS15se (~$800 each):
And here is the $1000 Paradigm SUB-12 Jman used with the HVL-1's:
