Velodyne SMS-1

[davidtwotrees]

I would love to have a DCX2496, but to fully utilize it is beyond my physical abilities. Being a quad And not having any audiophile friends leaves me with something a bit more automatic. But I can't justify $599.00 for an SMS-1, the best price I can find online.

If the DCX2496 was around 20 years ago before my accident, I would have that puppy tweaked out.

Plenty of used ones coming up on ebay for sale for less than $400. I buy most of my gear used.
For me, though, I don't want to spend a weekend with a computer and a feedback destroyer. Keep it simple is my motto. I want to plug and play, personally. Which is why I asked about the Shark unit- it is much cheaper ($79) and looks much simpler. '
Alex also brings up a point with the dual subs comment. My svspci sub just showed up for around $600 shipped last week. Putting the hundreds of dollars for an SMS or a BFD towards a second sub would peak my interest. But $79 bucks I can do, or even the $99 for the DSP 1124.

 

[rmk]

Plenty of used ones coming up on ebay for sale for less than $400. I buy most of my gear used.
For me, though, I don't want to spend a weekend with a computer and a feedback destroyer. Keep it simple is my motto. I want to plug and play, personally. Which is why I asked about the Shark unit- it is much cheaper ($79) and looks much simpler. '
Alex also brings up a point with the dual subs comment. My svspci sub just showed up for around $600 shipped last week. Putting the hundreds of dollars for an SMS or a BFD towards a second sub would peak my interest. But $79 bucks I can do, or even the $99 for the DSP 1124.

I am so off of eBay. The last straw (there have been several disturbing incidents) was last week for an SMS-1. I won the auction and received an email from the seller (supposedly) requesting that I contact them as they had “changed their PayPal account” and as the new one would not be available for ten days. They said they would have an "alternate account" I could use to pay. Of course I was suspicious and I sent the email to EBay asking what to do. I received a stupid form response saying that the sellers are allowed to request any method of payment as long as it is specified in the auction. Essentially, they told me to go ahead not even checking the validity of the source email.

I then emailed the actual seller (I think) and asked him how to proceed with the purchase based upon his email to me. Two days later, he responded and said he had not sent me an email (big surprise) and asked for a copy of the one I received purportedly from him. I did this but I also backed out of this messed up transaction (I assume the seller is OK with this although he did not respond).

EBay is ripe with criminal activity and while purchasing commodities may be OK, buying something like high end AV equipment from private sellers is very risky. I have never had a real problem with Audiogon although I heard others have.

BTW, I purchased an SMS-1 advertised on AVS (great price) and will have it next week. I will have two SMS-1's for EQing my quad (currently dual mono pairs) Fathoms. One of the reasons I purchased another SMS-1 is so that I can auto power off the rear (near field) F113's when listening to music. This will also give me some flexibility in setting the front F112's (stereo or mono) as well as the afore mentioned EQ flexibility.

 

[Gimpy Ric]

Alex - not meaning to ignore you...Dual subs are out, I've got a SVS PB13-Ultra in my master bedroom, and its waaaay more sub than I need. I was surfing XM on Directv, and found some rap, my caregiver smiled and cranked it up and I thought my house was going to crumble in on me! I keep forgetting how much sub that monster really is.

Ebay - Scares the heck out of me. Too many horror stories. Have not tried Audiogon.

I really appreciate everybody giving me advice. I think I'll play with my port plugs, and eq on the sub first, but I know myself, I won't be happy till I get a DCX 2496.

 

[Alex2507]

Ric,
I just did a quick search on your sub and see what you mean. This is what I came up with:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/subwoofer-tests/8147-svs-pb13-ultra-sealed-new.html

It looked impressive to me and thought you might enjoy the graphs and what not. The cost is kind of up there too. Between the cost and performance I can see why you feel that one is enough. I just got a second sub but it was a $200 addition, not an addition of well in excess of $1000. I wasn't looking to get increased SPL's but rather a better room response.

I'm pretty happy with the way things sound but that might have something to do with never having heard a set up as nice as yours. It's a stroke of luck in a strange way.

Unlike David, I am willing to put time into tweaking. For right now it's a Rives Audio Test CD2 and an old EQ but I enjoy developing an understanding of how it all comes together. Bigger and better toys will always be on the horizon.