Athena AS-P300 upgrade options

[yelloguy]

I have Athena .5 speakers with an AS-P300 sub driven by Onkyo TX SR600. I use the setup for mostly watching TV (Dolby Digital cable box), some DVDs and music from iPod dock (two channel output). My room is about 12x15 feet. TV and couch on the opposite 12' walls. The sub sits in a corner next to the TV (under a corner table). It was facing the couch (its a front firing sub), but yesterday I switched it to the side wall to fix localized bass issue.

I was listening to music when I turned the sub. And I really enjoyed the music after that. I did a few other tweaks but this was the biggest change. I tested by making it face the couch again and the localized bass problem came back. When its facing the wall, I can feel the bass in the entire room while playing music.

The problem now is, watching TV is pretty bad. The bass is kind of loud and boomy during most of the dialog and kind of drowns out the dialog (kids watching "Cars" of TV right now). And since I have turned the sub level adjustment down 6 db for watching TV, the dialog sounds shrill while bass rumbles in the background.

I wonder if there are some other changes I can do or have I hit the limitation on this sub?

If I were to upgrade my sub, what would be a good upgrade in the $200 price range? I have heard good things about Dayton 120 12" sub but I am not sure it is that much of an upgrade over my existing sub.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Sheep]

The Dayton is an Upgrade.

SheepStar

 

[yelloguy]

Thanks sheep. I found someone selling a 3 year old used Velodyne DPS 12 on craigslist. If I can talk them down to $200 for it, would that be a better buy or should I go with either this Dayton (its new!) or a Hsu STF-1 (a little pricier for me). Thanks in advance for any inputs.

There is also a bunch of other options for around $200 including BIC but nothing has been talked about so much the Dayton or the Hsu. My usage would be 60% music, 30% TV and 10% movies.

 

[yelloguy]

By the way, the craigslist option fell through. But I tweaked my AS-P300 some more and I am pleased with the results. I was increasing bass while listening to music until just before I could hear the boomy-ness. That was a mistake. That meant the music was good but TV/movies sounded horrible with boom everywhere.

Yesterday I tried it the other way: increasing the sub volume from zero to the point where music seemed just nicely filled-in with bass. This made the bass seem tight with music and TV/movies sounded good as well. Of course the localized bass problem is fixed by making the sub face a wall.

Overall, my upgrade-itis feels better. This will get me more time to look for a good used sub for a reasonable price on CL and for-sale forums here.