I can not begin to express my absolute gratitude for creating such a wondeful sub. When i first installed it I thought i had a doa, but it was much insync with my other speakers *the bu2 had the same location*.. that I could not locate it, but ofcourse placing my hands on the port, or on the woofer. Reminded me of how it worked. This thing does not bottom out, and it rattles the hell out of the walls when you blast it but you can listen to it softly. And with music just not movies. It sounds exquisite. The build quality is tremendous you can control the high level output to another subwoofer, the high pass speaker binding posts.. are 5 way very high quality, much nicer than what my reciever has. An amazing product from Harmon industries. But do not for the love of god pay 1000 dollars for this, for that go get a velodyne or something better. But if you can fetch this for 1000.. GET IT:) it will redifine how you think subs, this thin absolutely humiliates my former sub, there is no comparison. IT doesnt nto bottome out, the bass is very very smooth.
get it.. try it out you will like.

PRICE, my god. I dont think this sub is worth the 1000 or so its supposed to fetch,but if you get lucky and can get it for 500 like I did on ubid. Then my friend you have an amazing deal. You dont have an auto off feature, kind of annoying since you end up leaving it on all the time. They should come up with a feature that lets you decided whether or not you want to use the auto off feature.

First sub 1000 dollar sub i have heard that sounds good with music. For 500 its an absolute steal. Very nice finish. Also works beautifully as a night table in my bed room :)

Similar Products Used:

System Configuration is as Follows:
Reciever: Denon AVR 3300
CD Player: Harman/Kardon FL8350
Tape Player:Harman/Kardon TD5300
DVD: JVC xv701
VCR: JVC SVHS 3600U
DSS:RCA model 222
Front Speakers: Infinity Overture 2
Center Channel: Infinity CC3
Surrounds: Infinity Overture 1
Former Subwoofer: Infinity BU2

Smooth, not boomy, extremely low lows, great price

Controls feel cheap

This sub is great! I read all the reviews and was worried about compatibility issues with my Denon AVR-4800, but I did not find any issues that couldn't be solved with some minor adjustments. When I first hooked it up, it did seem a little quiet. I went into the on screen speaker level controls and adjusted the gain on the sub to +5 on the Denon. The difference was very noticeable. I then pushed the input button on the sub from LFE to Normal/Speaker level. A difference of night and day. Suddenly the base was loud and with the gain control on the sub only a little passed half way. Of course turning the bass knob up on the Denon would increase the sub, but would also increase the bass in all the speakers, so I leave it flat. A high quality RCA cable like those from AudioQuest helps too. In all, an excellent sub for the money.

Distinctive Look, Relatively Lightweight (not necessarily a good thing when considering subs)

Very sloppy bass output, Cannot compete in clarity, depth, or output with similarly priced subs.

I do not own this sub, but had the opportunity to audition this unit along side a Definitive 2200, Polk PSW 650, A/R ASW 500, Klipsch KSW-15, B&W 1000, and M&K MX125. I am also suprised that I did not buy this sub, as it was priced at $489 at the shop I was auditioning these subs at.

As a side note, my equipment consists of:

Denon AVR 3200 Receiver
Sony ES CD Player
Sony 41" Videoscope TV
Sony DVD Player
Sony Hifi VCR
Infinity Crescendo 3009 4 way Mains
Infinity Center Channel
Infinity Reference One Surrounds
Etc.

I have been installing mobile and home audio products for a number of years and have always been impressed with the sound quality and value of Infinity products (Kappa Perfect car subwoofers are some of the best I've owned). I tell you this because it pains me deeply to admit that Infinity's recent subwoofer attempts for home applications have been less than impressive since the SW series went away some 7 years ago.

Before testing these subs, I was sure I would walk away with a $1,000 Infinity sub for a steal at $500 out the door. Having all older Infinity speakers, it would be a logical progression. After the audition, I could hardly believe that an Infinity speaker could be embarassed so badly.

We set all these subs up in the same manner (crossovers, gain, placement, etc). My findings were as follows:

The HPS 500 was the muddiest of the bunch (with the Klipsch KSW-15 not far behind). It sounded sloppy on music selections and did not have the tight impact that many of these other subs exhibited.

The tightest bass of the group came from the M&K (go figure, it also costs a lot more). The Polk 650 and the B&W 1000 were right behind in tightness, with the Definitive and A/R just below. Tight, controlled bass was important to me as I spend more than half my time with music.

For pure impact, depth, and volume, the leaders in my opinion were the B&W, A/R and Definitive. The Polk was very good, but was more musical than powerful.

If music is important to you, but you still want to feel the deep impact of movies, I would recommend the B&W, M&K, A/R or Definitive. If your tastes are more toward music, then the M&K and Polk would be my recommendations.

Take my opinions with a grain of salt as what sounds good to me may not be what others are looking for. Good luck.

Similar Products Used:

B&W, Velodyne, Klipsch, Acoustic Research, Polk, Definitive Tech, M&K, Sunfire

Nice bass if hooked up properly

Still not sure if it is defective

I bought it from UBid, and like everybody else, had the same problem -- almost no sound.
I hooked it up directly to audio out, and almost blew the windows out :) Next, I played with the receiver settings (Harman Kardon AVR 75) and found that there were two menus to adjust output levels of the speakers. One screen, accessible from regular menu adjusts all speakers, another screen, accessible only from remote allows to adjust all speakers and subwoofer. After adjusting it to the max of +10, I was able to hear the sub even when plugged in to LFE. But... it is a 500W, 15 inch sub, one would expect it to work with regular settings. The bass is OK, but not as nice as I heard from other subs (Klipsch for example). Now, if I plug it directly into the CD player, it rocks.
So, here is my question. Is this sub defective, and should I get it fixed, while it is still on the warranty. Or that's the way it is supposed to be? Please e-mail me with your comments.

Similar Products Used:

Klipsch

few, looks better than a black box

LFE, no power, poor quality controll

Even with the gain turned up tho the last 1/5th of the dial there is little to no bass out of this unit. I have a paradigm ps1000 and even at level 1 it blows this sub away. I have read that there is a poor compatability problem with LFE hookups and i may be having that problem. there was also a screw loose inside this unit when it arived so i feel that there is little to no quality controll with this unit. even at this price -more than half of retail- there are much better subs for the money

Similar Products Used:

paradigm ps1000

price, style

no auto on

Got a great price on Ubid, $487 plus s/h. Problem was mine arrived and did not work properly. Ran cables from my receiver to it and could barely hear it. So then I ran speaker cables and it was just a little better. Still you could turn every control on it to the max and it was barely audible. My 100 watt Radioshack played louder. Will call Ubid first thing monday for a refund. Now the problem is do I try another or just get my cash back and go buy the NHT subtwo for a couple hundred more like I started to. The 500 watt sunfire amp is appealing, but I have mostly gotten good products from Ubid and for under 500 this would be a great coup if I could pull it off. Nice style though and the front controls are easy to get to so I didnt mind the lack of auto on. Still, glad i didnt sell my two BIC Americas yet. Got them for $147 at Ubid and for 200 watts they do movies great, just a little sloppy on music. Good luck w/ these. the prices are right if you get a good one.Will rate it on stlyle and price and what i haerd at the stores months ago from good ones.

Similar Products Used:

BIC D1210R, Radioshack sub

Front controls; appearance; solid

Size/weight; lack of auto on/off

I just received this sub from UBID for about $550 including shipping. I seem to have the same problem as Dan. I cannot get the Sub to PRODUCE when connected from my Yamaha receiver low-pass out directly to the SUB. I tried a couple things to get the SUB going. As a trial, it worked great and produced the beautiful bass that it is capable of when I connected audio out from my CD player directly to the SUB's inputs. I am certain that I have not done anything incorrectly in setting the bad-boy up because I use the exact same connection on my 100 Watt JBL. It produces much higher output than the HPS-500 in its current state. I get a very faint signal from the HPS-500 when connected from the receiver's low-pass output to the SUB's inputs. Does anybody have a legitimate answer for me other than the SUB is defective?

The bass is very tight when the HPS 500 is working correctly and I want to get this thing working. Any suggestions? Will try to connect the SUB directly to my front speakers and see if that works. If I find a solution, I will be back. I definitely recommend this SUB when operating properly.

Similar Products Used:

JBL; Velodyne

Deep Bass, Outstadning Design

Yet to know

Purchased it at Ubid.com for $369.00 plus a $80.00 shipping which was an outrageous charge.
Bought all six Infinity speakers for my HT from Ubid as follows:

RS-8 Front
SM-185 Rear
HPS-500 Sub
Video 1 center channel

I set them up with a Marantz SR-96 receiver which comes with a 6 CH Direct Input. Followed the manual instructions from SR-96 and set my center channel to SMALL with Sub Woofer to ON. For HPS-500, I hooked it to the left LOW LEVEL IN directly from the receiver's subwoofer (LFE)output. I selected TEST TONE and all the six speakers were responding well. I was impressed by the HPS-500, which really trembled my living room, when I adjusted the sound level to test its output. From the front panel control, I noticed when I set the INPUT with NORMAL instead of DIRECT, the output was much clear, loud and solid. While playing the Matrix at the scene after the helicopter crashed into a building, the explosion trembled all over my body and the floor through the ceiling so much that I have to say my HPS-500 is a perfect one so far.

MY HPS-500 Front Panel Setting:
Crossover at 90
Phase at 0'
Gain at 6
Input at Normal

Similar Products Used:

none

Great bass for Movies & Music

Footprint, No Automatic Off

Don't let the people who purchased bad units from UBid fool you. This is a great sub. Deep, clean, powerful bass comes out of this unit. It rumbles the house but still blend perfectly with the rest of my system.

Onkyo 777 reciever
Overture 2 fronts
cc3 center
hps 1.5 rears

It performs equally well on music as it does on movies. If you can still find one (not from ubid) buy it. Especially, if you are using Infinity for the rest of your speakers.

Can use as end table due to finish (you can look at that as weakness too!)

Cheap controls/switches, flimsy front panel, poor packing, skimpy manual.

I have not spent enough time moving it around to know how it sounds yet though there is promise. I paid $487 from uBid and am not happy with the build quality and the idea of running my DAC output through it's lossy high-pass filter. If I had it to do over I'd look harder at alternatives.

Similar Products Used:

JBL