Thanks again to Ron for graciously opening his home up for me to drop by and get a look at & listen to the X-sub. Having read the reviews on AVS previously, I'd have to say they are spot on. Here’s my subjective impression of it.
We started with some DTS music that had a few bass heavy passages and the X-sub seemed right at home with it, filling in just the right amount of grunt at the bottom. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a few tracks that I have that really put a sub to the test for music, so I didn’t get a feel for how it would do with something fairly complex like “I Love Being Here With You” on Diana Krall’s Live in Paris DVD (Ron, I didn’t even ask if you had this one…d’oh) It's musical, but it isn't HSU musical.
Then we shifted to movies. This thing has a respectable amount of output; good rumble for the price. The cannon shots in the opening scene of Master and Commander came across clear and full, with a fair amount of tactile presence. It wasn’t until we threw in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that I could clearly hear the thing struggle, and that was clearly because the content was below the sub’s capability. With Finding Nemo’s “Darla” scene, you could hear it wasn’t reaching the bottom, but it didn’t sound like it was having heart failure either. Only with the deeper stuff is it clear that the sub isn’t reaching the low 20s.
Ron happens to have a spare X-sub that we could take apart and look at. The driver is pretty basic, with a stamped steel frame and an average sized magnet with a vented pole piece. Not exactly a high dollar unit, but it should do the trick. The wire to the driver was rather small, about 16AWG. The cabinet is thick, but there is no internal bracing at all. The “knock” test shows it to be fairly solid though, due in part to its smallish size (pretty small for a 12” sub) and the fact that the amp has a separate chamber built into the box for it to sit in. There was no filling in the box aside from some felt that lined the inner walls. The amp looks like a quality unit, though that’s all I can tell you about it really. Decent looking gold binding posts, all the standard controls, etc… It does have a boost function that would seem not so common, and I’m guessing this is related to how this sub achieves its output. The cabinet seems to be tuned high and the driver probably isn’t capable of actual less than 20Hz content.
Overall assessment: for the price, I’d have to say, it’s about as good as one could expect. I haven’t heard many ~$200 subs that have that level of output, but it isn’t going to be competitive in the higher price categories. It won’t be giving the STF-2 or PB-10 a run for their money, IMO. If you have a relatively large room, this guy probably isn’t going to fill it either, but it should be more than capable in a small to medium size room.
