Price, sound, style

NONE

Final summery. Hooked it up from CD audio out and it nearly blew the house apart. Can't take past 3 or 4. Actually too strong for music so I left the speaker inputs hooked up for CD's and ran RCA cables from the DVD to the sub inputs. NOW I HAVE THE RAREST OF SUB QUALITIES A MUSICAL SUB USING THE SPEAKER LEVEL INPUTS FOR CD PLAYBACK AND A HT SUB FOR BLOWING THE ROOF OFF ON MOVIES USING THE AUDIO OUT FROM DVD TO SUB INPUTS!!!! WOW! I don't know why it won't work from the receiver level output, but has nothing to do w/ bass management like Infinity says b/c hooked up other subs and they play fine. Frnkly now I do not care. I can always boom the windows apart if I choose by simply playing a CD from my DVD player or go the more musical route of playing them from CD player and using the speaker levels. If you ever figure this glitch out let me know, but I am glad it works the way it does now.WOW WHAT GREAY SOUND FOR UNDER A GRAND IT CANNOT BE BEAT. Even 12-1500$ subs can't do what this can. BUY IT TODAY>

Great Bass

No Auto shut-off.
A little too big. (Both minor points)

Great tight bass. Enhances sound quality to perfection!
Anyone who may have had trouble with a direct RCA-in connection:
Chances are 99.9% the Sub is working properly.
On your DTS receiver you MUST set the Front, Rear, Center speakers to SMALL NOT LARGE, and set the Subwoofer output to YES. Also, set LFE to Zero (0) attenuation for enhanced bass. Also, try setting the Crossover frequency to 100 Hz in your DTS receiver.
Make sure the setting in front of Sub is on Direct if you use the RCA inputs. Set the Gain (Volume) according to your room and setup accoustics.
If you connect the Sub thru the speaker terminals or if you connect a CD player directly to the Sub's RCA-in terminals and the Sub works, there is nothing wrong with the Sub.
As a test, when you connect the CD player directly to the sub, MAKE SURE you begin with a low Gain (Volume). Otherwise there will be some pretty loud noise out of the Sub.
Your DTS receiver/amp must be set up properly as stated above. Then it will charm you!

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None

AMP power

LFE not working? Not working properly?

I like almost everybody else recieved this product via uBid and unfortunatly I am not very happy with it. I hooked everything up through my reciever and it is not (or I believe it is not) working up to full strength. I believe something is wrong with the product its self and I am taking it to a HiFi store this coming monday to make sure it is not that I dont have my reciever settings set up properly. I then have to deal with uBid for the bad product which should be interesting. I listened to everybody that hasa posted here and I have even emailed many of the people here asking for help and many had the same problems. I really want to like this sub, and want to feel the power of ALL 500 watts. Right now I crank the gain up to 10 and it really doesnt pump like it should. Here is my setup for anybody that can help:
Reciever: Yamaha 2095
CD Player: Sony 300 Disc change
Tape: Yamaha
EQ: Yamaha
DVD Player: Toshiba 3107 (plan on new one soon)
Speakers:
Rears: Polk
Fronts A: Bose (they do suck)
Fronts B: KLH (not too good either)
Front Surronds: None yet

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Build, Sound & Asthetics.

Size, Weight (freakin heavy), Retail price ($1000.00? I don't think so)

Well, first of all I'd like to say: UBID SUCKS! They have gotten so big so quickly that they can't keep up with their customer base. Not to mention that I have won some other high ticket items for next to nothing and "miraculously" they were out of stock or they "mis-counted" and they told me "sorry pal, bid again". Ubid has been saturated with use, to the point where you rarely can get a good deal on anything anymore because you've got idiots bidding more for the stuff than its being sold for in retail! (sorry for the rant, ok about the HPS-500.....)

This is ONE FREAKING HELL OF A SUB! I got lucky and landed 2 for much cheaper than I have seen so far on these message boards, and because of Ubids quality control issues (50% of the time your larger/heavier items are delivered damaged, or were already damaged prior to shipment so BE CAREFUL!) I wouldn't have paid anything more than $450ish each for them anyway. Its seems like a lot of other folks that have won them don't know how to use them. I am sure a few were actually lemons, but I have never known Infinity to have quality control issues in the past, and by these message boards I would assume that Infinty sells nothing but defective product: But this is simply not the case!

I read some previous posts that have figured it out, so if you want to know what you are doing wrong, refer to the top of the message board.

The sub is nice! Smooth, tight, controlled bass. I listen to some heavy classical stuff (Mendholsons' 1st 4 symphonies) and the Bass cellos' roar! The sub sounds much better than other subs that can be 3 times as much as this one retails for! I am not into the home theater thing, part of the love of movie going for me is the crowd interaction, but as far as music this thing kicks anus!

It has a highly controlled output. It doesn't howl or resonate at some nerve wracking frequency, the HPS-500 is truly a thumpasaurus beast of the best kind! My system consists of:

Onkyo P-304 preamp (0.009% THD thats why!), (4) Madrigal Citation 700 watt power amps running in mono, each feeding an Infinity Sigma tower(4), NAD S500 silver edition CD transporter, Miko Fire Wire GOLD intreconnects, and PS7 transmission cable.

So why do I have the HPS-500 you ask? Because it puts an smooth low end edge over the Sigmas thats I just love!

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None that I could find

Inefficient, heavy, large, no sound out through LFE hookups

Do not buy this unit. All of the other reviewers are correct. It does not work with the LFE signal in a 5.1 setup. You many get some sound by running all your bass from all your other speakers through it but you shouldn't have to do this. I have my BU-120 hooked up directly to the LFE signal and it puts out 20 times the bass and it's only 150 watts compared to 500 watss for the hps-500. I had it examined by Inifnity who found a bad wiring harness but still only a whisper comes out. I've returned it to ubid. And as for Infinity quality: in the last year I have purchased 6 Infinity speakers. 3 out of 4 of the SM-215 speakers were defective (the crossover knobs didnt work), the BU-120 emits a very loud hum (see reviews on it) and the HPS-500 is a dog. Maybe Infinity is using the internet to unload all their units that don't pass inspection. Stay away. Infinity sounds great but buy locally where you can return it since it probably won't work.

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Infinity BU-120

This thing rocks

No auto on/off, I just leave on all the time

After setting all my speakers to small and breaking the sub in for a couple days, this thing really rocks. I have seen some reviews that say the lfe in doesnt work, mine works just fine. I have a sony reciever with a bass boost which I use with movies and just turn it off for music. When the helicopter hits the bulding in the matrix, I had pictures falling off my walls. When listening to music you can tell a 15 incher is playing but still sounds good. movies - 20/10 Music - 8/10 Gains on sub set to mid way but I did use the bass boost. I guess someone doesnt know how to hook this sub up or I just got really lucky..

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First sub

Great Sound

None, really

To all those who have had trouble getting sound out of this sub, especially if using LFE:

Please read my post (8/3) and blj's post (8/5)below.
Your DTS receiver/amp and/or your DVD player or both are the most likely causes of no sound.
If you do the CD hook-up test as described below and you get sound (be carefull) from the sub there is nothing wrong with the sub.

You can avoid all the hassles of shipping the unit back or to a repair center, and dealing with Ubid if you purchased the unit there.

There are simply too many complaints of no sound for a product of this reputation. Statistically it just doesn't make sense. You'd think that Infinity is producing junk in a third world country.

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2nd review

Okay, now I'm really pissed. After getting this thing fixed, again, it has crapped out again. So it has had two amps installed in it under warranty, but they keep getting this glitch. This makes me wonder if there is some other component in the speaker that is either the problem itself, or is frying out something in the amps everytime they get replaced.
So after calling Infinity's crazy slow customer support number, I finally am getting a new and different sub sent to me. Its their IL 120, which is a forward firing 12 500watt. To me, this is a downgrade, which of course pisses me off to no end. But I would now rather have a different unit than to keep hassling with this POS. I'm not going to get this one fixed again, because I would never trust its reliablility. My luck, it will fry out as soon as the warranty is up again. Its probably a good value for the people that get one that works. I'm sure that this symptom is isolated to the ubid shipment, but that's neither here nor there. Basically, this unit seems to be a total gamble with your sanity.