1st Impression
Ok this is just a first impression and nothing in depth or scientific. Also bear in mind that I'm spoiled by what I have in my family room so nothing else is going to live up to that. On to the first impression. The T250 is very light weight, but again that's relative. I found the appearance to be surprisingly good for a budget sub, and it has a pleasant matte finish and all of the seams meet properly. Taking closer look I now understand how they can sell them so cheap and why a New Jersey company ships from a California warehouse - the T250s are made in China. And yes the speaker cone really is aluminum.
My first test was in my office. This room is a little smaller than I thought at 10x12x10 or 1200cu ft. It has a halfway decent (if anemic) Pioneer VSX-1014 receiver and each channel can be adjusted separately. I used my ratshack meter to get the speakers balanced and then fine tuned by ear for the bizarre acoustics of this "stuff" filled room. Test material was a mix of music and a video with a bit of bass. The first thing that became obvious while listening to the battle scenes from We Were Solders was that the T250 goes much much lower than my VX10 and has great gobs more power. The VX10 does a good job with bass guitar but just cannot make you feel an explosion. The T250 didn't sound quite as tight but the VX10 is an exceptionally musical little sub. Listening to cuts 1,3 and 4 of Legends Of Jazz Showcase I was impressed. On track 3 it really belted out the lows of Marcus Miller's The Panther, and the T250 definitely packs more authority than the baby Velo. Looking back I think with it's directional sound that it could definitely have benefited from spending more time playing with placement.
Next I moved it into it's new home in my master bedroom. The VSX-912 receiver in the bedroom is very limited with very few adjustments. Listening to the same tracks it became obvious that the front-firing/front-ported T250 is very directional. This room is fairly big at 12x20x10.5 and my original plan had been to side mount it 10' back from the front wall firing straight out into the room. I played around a bit and quickly found that the T250 worked best angled to point at my listening position. It really pulled off the battle scenes from WWS quite well even at theater level volumes, but without rattling the room like my SVS does. Don't get me wrong, loose stuff still may need to be battened down to prevent rattles.
Because I have no test gear, and because the receiver in my bedroom is so poor, and finally because I've played for only 2 hours I'm going to avoid going beyond calling it acceptable and a very good deal for the price. I just haven't lived with it long enough to feel comfortable recommending it yet. If this helps... I don't plan on returning it.
But I now realize that my Christmas present to myself will have to be a new receiver for my bedroom. Again as a 1st impression I found the T250 musical enough to keep do justice to Miller's bass guitar, and powerful and deep enough to deliver explosions. However it does not go deep enough to deliver the pounding rotor beat of a Huey the way my SVS does - but it's 1/5th the price and probably a much more neighbor friendly fit for a townhome than my 300lb SVS.
I'll try to spend more time with it and as I adjust to it's sound I'll post more impressions.
