basically you get the quality of a sub costing at least twice the price, it doesnt look all fancy with chrome finish and colorful graphics, just a very solid speaker. the 12" sub on its own is great for almost every application, build your own cabinet to save a few bucks, or get the complete kit, either way its probably impossible to beat for the price.

none considering the price

i bought the 12" titanic sub and the 250 watt amp with the separate volume and frequency adjustment that you mount to the front of the cabinet, with remote control. i also built my own 2.2 cubic foot cabinet to save a few bucks, i have built plenty of boxes before, but for the price of the complete kit from parts express i recommend you get the whole setup from them unless you have special needs. now pe offers the 12" titanic kit with the 500 watt amp, you lose the front mounted remote controlled adjustments, but the sub really needs that extra wattage for its full potential. my 250 watt amp does just fine, until you want really ground shaking super low end bass, then you can tell that the sub is still hungry for more, but it rarely becomes an issue with me. this setup goes down around 20 hz and can still make your vision blurr a bit when you crank it up. the bass disappears and blends nicely with my def tech bp8b's, especially with the remote controlled frequency adjustment, i couldnt ask for anything better for the price. i have heard plenty of subs before, but for this price range and the overall versatility of the dayton line of speakers in general, they cant be beat. if i wanted to equal the sound in this price range from a different company, i would have to buy a used b&w, velodyne or def tech off of ebay, maybe a dealer demo or something.

Customer Service

parts express has the best customer service i have experienced from any company ever!!! the 1st amp they sent me actually fried my existing 15" dbx sub, i told them what happened, sent the amp back, they confirmed it was their fault, they sent me a new amp at no charge, and they actually sold me the 12" titanic for $80 ($100 off) to replace the blown dbx sub. they were going to give me a comparable 15" sub for free to replace the dbx, but i figured $80 for the upgrade was worth it, and i never looked back.

Similar Products Used:

cerwin vega, old dbx sw15, various car subs, nothing compared but the cerwin vegas come close, not the new ones, the old ones with the orange surrounds from the late 90's, those were the best.

Build quality, price to performance ratio, features

none at this price, truly a 5 star

This is a review for the 10" MKIII sub. Searching for a musical sub to match my Totem Arros. The Totems are known for their accuracy and I needed a fast and tight sub to keep up and most of all I was not willing to spend outrageous money for it. I've owned various 8" to 12" subs. My 8" sub was tight and fast, but boomy and not deep and loud enough. The 10" inch I had was musical, but underpowered. My 12" was good for home theatre, but too slow. So realized, I had to spend big bucks for a musical sub like "Rel" or...just build my own with quality parts. After surfing around the net, I stumbled onto the idea of building your own sub. I am no handy man, but realize, most important component of a sub are design, cabinet, driver and amp and the Dayton subs seemed simple to assemble met my criteria. Assembly was indeed easy and I tell you, it easily met my expectations and outperformed all my previous subs. It has all the strenths of my previous subs without it any major shortcomings. And once you factor in the price, this is a giant killer. If I wanted to be critical, I can only say, cosmetics are a little generic and does not have "brand name". In conclusion, this sub is highly recommended for anyone who doesn't mind doing a quick assembly and values build quality and a good price over typical mass marketed subs. Sub is very good for price but not excellent, you will have to go to $1000+ for that.

Similar Products Used:

Energy, Paradigm, other brand names

Inexpensive, good output, OK for music, great for HT in a reasonable setup plenty of fine-tuing options, fun to build

For $350? You must be joking!

This is a review of the Vance Dickason 10” Titanic II Subwoofer kit. The assembly of the sub is actually quite fun, if you like that sort of thing. I applied some CAE acoustic dampening spray to the interior cabinet to reduce the chance of cabinet resonances. I'm not sure if it needed it or not because the enclosure seems well built with adequate bracing. Be careful when screwing the bolts into the T-nuts to secure the woofer, do not put any downward pressure when screwing in, let the threads do there thing. I had a T-nut come loose because, guess what..., I put too much downward pressure when screwing the bolt into the T-nut and ended up pushing the T-nut out of the enclosure. I fixed with a little creative caulking, and the reset of the install was a snap. This sub works in conjunction with an ACI Titan II sub in a music/hometheater room. Having the variable phase and variable crossover point really helped in blending this sub into my system. I have this sub connected to an Anthem AVM 20 pre/pro via a do-it-yourself Belden 89259 coax with Cardas SLVR RCAs. It took about 50 hours or break in time before the sub “came to life”. Do not judge this sub based on the first few hours of listening; allow it time to break in because it will sound different (i.e. better) after sufficient break in time. This Dayton sub actually compares very favorably to my ACI Titan II. The Dayton sub is not quite as competent as the ACI Titan II in the music category, but is till OK for music use. Both subs are about neck-in-neck in hometheater performance. The Dayton sub produces deep, accurate bass at sufficient volumes. It’s not going to wake up your neighbors, but in a well balanced system (not you bass heads out there) the Dayton subwoofer is a very good performer. The Titan II cost three times as much as the Dayton, but by no means performs three times better. This is a VERY good bargain! good output, decent accuracy, plenty of fine-tuning options on the amp. I’ve heard many subwoofers that cost more that do not perform as well as the Dayton sub, but have never heard a sub below $500 that sounds better.

Similar Products Used:

ACI Titan II, Paradigm PW-2200, Paradigm Servo 15, Definitive Tech PF15TL+, Mirage BPS400, various Polk, Klipsch and Infinity models.

Everything.

Having to build your own enclosure, also the lack of power handling for larger rooms(and I mean larger)

This review is for the Mk II titanic 12" woofer. I used this driver in a 2.0 cubic foot enclosure running off of 280w from a QSC RMX 850 pro amp. This sub is currently being used for a LFE application in a customer's home theater. Now that I got that off my chest, let me move on to the opinions. Amazing. Simply amazing! From 9' @ 280w this sub put out 112db at 15Hz! How many woofers can do that for this price? I personally broke this unit in using my own home theater and needless to say, I was amazed. The lows are clean and accurate and in all my moderate watching I never heard a sign of distortion or bottoming out. The very few affordable subs on the market today (sunfire, earthquake) cant touch this unit in price. This hits were clean and precise. Excellent driver

Similar Products Used:

sunfire,B&W,Earthquake,Klipch,Monitor Audio,JBL,Polk etc...

These subs can go awfully deep if you biuld the right size cab for them. they will also play VERY loud without strain (provided you have enough power - see weaknesses). A great bargain for the DIYer who wants to biuld an impressive and just damn good sub!

the subs do need at LEAST 30 to 35 hours of run in time. A large cabinet needed for REAL bass and output (I even find the ones that Pars Express offers are a little small for reall in room extension). 4 ohm rating may be a problem with lesser amps- they are power hungry for the deep response.

I bought two of these woofers to add bottom end to my Dahlquist DQ-10s (they roll out fast below 50 hz), and because I wanted to have stereo bass response for my fave classical organ recordings. I built two large bandpass enclosures measuring roughly 16"w x 21"d x 36" h (I did say large!) for these drivers in order for them to get deep bass (meaured low end cut off is around 17 hz in my room!). I power them with an SWR Stereo 800 power amp (400 Watts into the 1200's 4 ohm load) and can get near earthquake levels and REAL bass- not this jacked up car stereo crap! These subs DO take a long time to break in properly. I heard some weird noises for the first few weeks and thought that I'd screwed up on the carpentry with these cabs! After about 35 hours of listening, they just seemed to gel into place, soundwise. Anyone who has a complaint about the subs bottoming out while using less than 200w/pc is simply not giving them adequate power- its thier amp giving up trying! That 350 watt RMS handling rating is VERY conservative. Hint: I ran both subs in parallel for a short term with the SWR amp bridged out to over 900 watts and the only THEN did the subs start crying (and the nieghbours wanted to know who the drummer was I had over!)

Similar Products Used:

Peerless isobaric dual 10" subwoofer powered by NAD 2600PE amplifier.

Sound Quality!!!!, Build Quality, especially the speaker, its massive!! Small size, Cheap Cost!!! You get to assemble it and modify it too.

None, unless you dont want to build it.

This review is also for the Vance Dickason 10” Titanic II Subwoofer kit. As the previous review on this subwoofer below listed the physical attributes and his pain of a very simple assembly, failed to actually tell us what we really wanted to know, “How does it sound?”. The kit has changed somewhat making it easier to assemble. For instance they have now already installed the T-nut inside the enclosure for the carpet spikes and the driver so all you have to do is screw them in. They supplies more than enough foam to line the box. I ordered the kit with the remote control module and amplifier. Let me tell you, this is the way to go! Especially since it is only 20 bucks more. I didn’t like the black crinkle finish on the cabinet so I sanded it down and it gave a textured finish much like leather. I bought a paint kit from Home Depot that simulates antique leather finish. It turned out great and the finished product really looks like I paid big bucks for this thing! Now I am getting to how it sounds. It sounds awesome! It is produces very deep controlled bass. This is the most musical sounding sub I have ever heard. I used to sell Paradigm speaker systems about 5 years ago and nothing they sold for fewer than 1000 dollars sounded as clean and accurate as this subwoofer and Paradigm makes great speakers. This sub is not extremely loud and it will not shake your house but what it will do is fill your room with that phantom room filling non-directional bass with no over hang or booming. You can actually feel every bass note distinctively without playing the sub at a louder volume than your main speakers. I will tell you right now that this sub is not for bass heads, If you want loud slamming bass than look at the Dayton 15” DVC kit. Audiophiles, this is your subwoofer, you will not find a cheaper deal on a brand new subwoofer in this class for any where near this SQ and Performance anywhere. This system is first-rate quality, better than the Paradigm subwoofers I sold under $1000. Second of all, those who want a Home Theater system that you can leave the subwoofer on at night playing an action movie without waking up your kids at night. Its is distortion that creates rattling and booming in your house. This sub has no audible distortion, just clean, tight bass. For its size it produces an amazing mount of output. It doesn’t compare to the sheer out put of

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm, Velodyne, Sunfire

Assembly required. All basic controls present. Cheap. Sealed design.

Assembly required. Level control very sensative. Attacment of spikes problematic.

This is actually the "Dayton 10" Vance Titanic II" sub but is very similar to earlier versions. This is a sealed design, which is the simplest form of sub. Extention down to 24Hz is achieved by an equalized circuit attached to the amp. It is user modifiable if you have good de-solder/solder skills. The sound quality is as good or better than any sub I''ve listened to under $750 and most under $1k. Set up is no harder or easier than your typical sub. It is neither pretty nor ugly - just a black 14" cube. Line and speaker level inputs. Level, X0 40-160Hz and phase control. Assembly is <1hr if you exclude the spike feet. It is more like knock-down furnature than a true DIY. If you are not sold on the benefit of spikes-don''t install BUT you must plug the predrilled holes. If you want the spikes, ADD 1-2 hours and proceed slowly and deliberately. They are very difficult to install without damaging the cabinet. In set up, the biggest difficulty is the seting the level control (input sensativity). There is a very small range between way too low and way to high. One must use a very light touch. In sum: Unless you can''t bear even minimal assembly or has some feature such a appearence or size or remote control, it is hard for me to see what more you could get without paying twice as much.

Similar Products Used:

M&K, CSW

goes way low, shakes the room

bottomed out on loud passages,It's huge, have to build it.

This thing rocks, it goes super low compared to my bu120, it's like you can't here the explosion as much as you can feel it watching movies, It's very due to it's sealed box. I have a hundred and fifty watt power supply which does well on movies but it could use a little more power on music. Very well worth the money if you want to build it, which is fun!!!!

Similar Products Used:

infinity bu120

Fantastic, tight bass; how low can you go?

none

Just thought I add a few hints on building the box. The recommended glue is a 'polyurethane' glue, which does not come with the kit. You can also use Elmer's Carpenters Glue, which is slightly cheaper. The polyurethane that is recommended can be purchased from Wal-Mart in the paint section.

The case that Dayton sells is 1" thick MDF, which causes a few problems when veneering. It's easy to glue, but absorbs almost any varnish. Also, don't choose a water-based, quick-bond adhesive for the veneer; it'll be absorbed ad infinitum. I'd recommend the Bondex, solvent based adhesive. You'll have to put on three or four coats to get the veneer to seat properly, but it'll work well, if you see that semi-gloss sheen.

I tried using Minwax satin polyurethane varnish, but had the same absorbtion problem, so I switched to Formby's tung oil and that worked fine. You'll have to add 7-10 coats, but it's worth the effort.

You'll then have an incredible piece of sonic excellence. I hope the Dayton folks never come to their senses and triple the price of these great products. I've just finished auditioning Bach's great Toccata and Fugue and am awestruck by the majesty added by this speaker.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha, Advent, JBL subs

Very tight bass; lowers the response of any system in a very audio-friendly way.

It is a behemoth. You kids can probably use it as a play house. Break-in period of apx. 30 hrs.

I built this from the kit that Dayton speaker also makes. It's an fully, enclosed acoustic suspension design. Dayton also sells ported versions of their enclosure.

You can also purchase the acoustic foam and fillers from parts express. They have very good service and products.

I did not purchase the subwoofer amp from partsExp. Instead, I chose to buy the Marchand offering, which is a MOSFET amp rated at apx. 175 Watts. I decided on this amp because it matches my other amps better than the Parts Express products.

I also finished the box with Sandia Rosewood veneer on four sides, but finished the front in burled, Mazur birch. I had to get rid of some of my veneers, which is why I chose this big box.

The result: A very beautiful, but large and heavy piece of Audio heaven. The speaker bottomed out somewhat until I played it for more than 30 hours. The sound is very rich and satisfying. I have no complaints. It complements my Von Schweikert VR-3s perfectly.

The Marchand amp is an excellent booster for the speaker, but the speaker does need more power for very loud passages.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha, Advent subs