BIC America F12 12-Inch 475-Watt Front Firing Powered Subwoofer

The BIC subwoofer came along with the new Yamaha HTR-4064 5.1 Channel A/V Receiver and four custom modified Sony SS-B1000 5-1/4-Inch 2-way Bookshelf Speakers for main and surround, and a BIC AMERICA DV-32CLR 31/2" 2-Way Center Channel Speaker. This is a fairly modest system as home theater setups go. A couple of Batman movies, The Avengers, Megamind, a few hours of Wii and about 10 hours of TV broadcasts have been put through the system before writing this review.The F12 is connected to the Yamaha receiver with the LFE (aka line level) RCA plug using a Belkin 15 feet PureAV Subwoofer Audio Cable. Gain on the F12 is set to less than half and the crossover to max. The LFE crossover frequency on the Yamaha receiver is set to 100Hz, so that is the max the F12 will see. This works best for my particular speakers and room acoustics so experiment with different settings to find the optimum settings. Took me about two weeks to decide what the best all around settings are for my ears at various volume settings.We have "The Avengers" on blue ray, put that on and watched the last half an hour. It was pretty cool! Wife mentioned that the sofa was moving, my son was just grinning from ear to ear, and I was thinking "hmmm got to cut back on the gain to the sub...". So I guess it was a hit. LOL!The BIC does a great job with music too. Played some jazz with acoustic base, and I could hear all the nuances of the bass clearly. The twang of the string, the resonance of wood. Not muddy or just thump, but clear. Then played Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon. Great! Loved it! This is without a doubt the best audio system I've owned, so I am thrilled.I was very satisfied with the performance of the sub. This room is not very big (16 x 20 feet, w/9.5' ceiling) so gain being set at under half was just right. A clear presence without overwhelming the rest of the sound track. So many reviews only mention how well the F12 is for action movies that I was afraid that it would sound muddy or not reproduce music well. I can say don't worry, the sub does music justice! I have been listening to classic jazz for the last hour at low levels because the whole family is asleep, and the sub is still "there" and clean. And it belts out the driving bass from albums like AC/DC's Back In Black so hard you will feel it in your spine. To get the best bass I did have to experiment with different crossover frequency settings on the Yamaha receiverIf you are in the market for a ground shaking sub that does music and movies equally well, this BIC F12 is well worth the money. You will not be disappointed. But act fast, as the F12 will be discontinued soon.BTW, I noticed that the F12 would shut off automatically when playing music at low levels with the amp set to "auto" (or sometimes when watching "talk" TV like the news where there is often little or no LFE output) . This was fixed by backing off the F12 gain, and raising the LFE signal level output by the receiver. Problem solved!Update: 11/25/2012. Been running the sound system for about 6 weeks now so all the speakers, including the F12 are broken in. I found that the F12 sounds best when crossed at the lowest frequency that the other speakers can produce. In my setup, I originally had the F12 crossed at 100 or 120hz, even though the front and surround speakers play down to 80. Recently changed the receiver to cross the sub at 80hz and it sounded even better. By crossing at 120hz, I thought the F12 would make a better bass than the fronts. But the reverse is true, the F12 performs better when creating sound under 80hz, and the fronts do a fine job down to 80. So don't be afraid to cross the sub at a lower frequency than you might assume is correct.

First, let me proclaim that I am not an audiophile by any definition of the term, an neither I have much hands-on experience with quality subwoofers. On the other hand, I do enjoy quality sound, have a pretty good idea of what to expect from quality equipment and have some technical background in relation to audio processing/mixing, as well as 5 years of piano lessons behind my back.I've bought F12 because of many positive reviews I had come across, because it was cheap, but mostly because I just couldn't stand the sound of my Polk PSW108 any longer. The latter was one of the boomiest subs I've ever owned, had no clarity/definition to speak of, was barely audible below 40 HZ and, most importantly fo me, produced a lot of chaffing noise through its front port at any but the lowest volume. Before, I had a similar issue with a Klipch double-firing sub from the Promedia set, just not as pronounced. From online sources I gathered that this issue affects many subs, some higher end Polks included (namely, the PSW505, F12's chief rival). I understand perception of such things varies among people, but to me the port noise of PSW108 was sufficiently irritating to not even consider the PSW505.F12, on the other hand, was claimed by many reviewers to be free of port noise, and here I am happy to report these claims, for the most part, are justified. There IS some barely audible air-pumping noise that can be heard at high volumes, but it is not nearly as distracting as in other subs I owned, and mostly contained in the lower frequencies. With port facing the wall, I can't hear it at all. In fact, while in "music mode", the sub behaves more like a sealed model. Classic: organ, contrabass etc. sound much more realistically without any timbral augmentations from a flapping bathroom sink stopper I experienced before. New age, techno, industrial: maybe not as punchy and defined as would have liked, ideally, but very good nonetheless. Only once during my music listening tests have I encountered a sound which seemed out of place, and that turned out to be loose power cord flapping against the cabinet during the magnificent low D in BWV565. Secured it, everything was fine afterwards. In short, I am very pleased with F12's musical capabilities.Speaking of movies: I am not a huge movie fan, so I don't think I am qualified enough to judge. If, for proper movie enjoyment, a subwoofer is expected to break glasses, shake the coach with its owner and help wall cracks to propagate, then I am afraid F12 comes a bit short. Honestly, I didn't buy it for that, and I don't like loud noises. At 150W RMS to a 12" driver, even theoretically the F12 can not be super loud anyway. Don't get me wrong: with cranked up volume it is perfectly capable of shaking walls and causing peculiar sensation in the stomach, it's just not that kind of over-the-top nauseating loudness some people would expect from a subwoofer this big.A bit on a technical side of things. Some reviewers have mentioned F12 has a low frequency cutoff at 32Hz. This is not true with my unit. I didn't notice any significant change in response at 32 Hz. By my measurements (not very scientific, but easily reproduceable) the F12 has a peak response at about 90-100 Hz which steadily goes down from there to about 22 Hz, after which there is a cutoff. Still, there is some significant response down to about 16 Hz. My unit stops responding at about 8 Hz. Below that, I can't really tell whether is can't respond at all, or the shortcomings of my equipment/audio source come into play. Regardless, I believe this is a VERY good result for a $200 sub. It gets even better, if your receiver has parametric EQ for the sub channel. If you can increase volume at lowest frequencies and adjust it where needed so it blends seamlessly with main speakers, you might achieve an almost flat response at sub frequencies down to 25Hz and good response down to about 20Hz, thus getting the best sound possible from your system. BTW, mine is based around Onkyo TX-NR686 which has five adjustable points at sub channel, and is capable of what I just described (though of course I'd preferred if it was adjustable down to 16, not 25 Hertz).I don't want to waste time writing about things you can read elsewhere (looks, connectivity, crossover, proper placement, reliability issues etc.) So far, I am very happy with my purchase -- I honestly didn't expect F12 to be of such high quality for the price. I can only cross my fingers and hope the amp doesn't burn very soon ;) Thanks for reading.UPDATE (7/24/2024): after 5+ years of ownership the amp neither burned nor degraded in any way. The speaker cone once suffered a powerful leg kick by my toddler but, surprisingly, survived. Overall, the sub sounds just as good as before and I don't feel like I need/want to upgrade it anytime soon. At this point I can confidently say it was money well spent.