Good quality for the price. Great for theater sound.

Lacks the precision for music but still acceptable.

I have had mine for close to 3 years. I am impressed with the bang for the buck. I have a Kenwood amp driving it with high end cables. I have noticed the pop when it comes on but have gotten used to it and it doesn't bother me at all. I have not noticed any response lag. It is more well suited for movies than music because it produces a boomy noise very well but lacks the precision to produce intricate bass beats in music. I do use the system for music often and it requires a lot of tweaking to keep the bass and vibrations of things aroud it from overriding the music, however it is acceptable. Placing the unit in a corner greatly affects the way it performs. I have tried both against a wall facing out and in a corner facing in. It is almost twice as loud in the corner. The acoustics of the room directly affect the performance of the equipment.

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I also have KLH 8 inch floor towers with tweeters that I am also very impressed by the value. As far as I am concerned KLH makes a very good product.

Cheap.

Cheap junk. We will see if a schematic is available.

Very boomy. However, the case is much thicker that a previous review indicates. Tried to use the device after 2 years, and it didn't work. I opened it and the positive speaker wire was disconnected from the speaker. There was a loose piece of white fiberous dampening material laying loose inside. The circuit board was blackened and one of the capacitors apparently blown. Not very impressed.

Loud

Tightness

I came here looking for a review on a new Sony receiver and found myself typing in this little story. The previous post before this one tells a similar story.
I purchased this sub-woofer about 2-3 years ago, and it has been very tempting to replace it. However, I do not because I do not think that I could find a better one for the price. For starters the sub is highly modified. The only two original pieces are the box and amp. I replaced the 12” woofer with a Kicker Free-Air woofer. This woofer has about 10 times the power handling and about 5 times the mass of the original. Well maybe that is a little too much, but the general idea is it’s a better speaker. I then replaced the port with a longer, but narrower flared port. The port is tuned to about 45hz. I also repacked the insulation with poly-foam that I stapled to the inside of the box.
Just to give an example of the difference this made…imagine. I live in a 20-year-old house that is solid brick on all four sides. I keep all my controls flat. When the receiver output is at about 30% you can hear the sub from a distance of about one house away or 200ft. I do not know if that is enough for everyone, but it is good enough for me. Oh…and I have never heard the speaker pop or heard distortion from it.

great deal on a decent sub

none

like others who got dvd players for christmas, i wanted to build a ht system and with a yamaha reciever in hand with dolby digital, was looking to get an inexpensive sub to play the low frequencies. i saw the klh a local costco for $100 and came back home to check out the reviews. after reading the positive reviews and checking out prices on other subs of similar size and wattage (12"/120 watts) $100 was a complete bargain! i don't think i would've been able to afford more in fact, so i thought i'd take a chance.

it works beautifully! my receiver had direct sub output as well as for the other channels, but even folks with holder receivers can take advantage of it, because there's outputs for satellites directly on the sub (since it's got it's own amp, it will just divert non-low frequency to the satellites). you will need to buy a subwoofer audio cable (i picked up a monster cable because it happened to be all that the place i got my receiver had...they gave me 10% off but it still cost > $30 for a cable so keep that in mind).

there's a frequency and volume knob in the back so you can adjust according to how much you want to sub to work (if your receiver doesn't give you that control). construction seems top rate. there's stereo inputs..most people will just plug into the right/mono or if you buy the monster cable, an adapter's included to use both inputs. it's great not just for dolby digital dvds, but just watching tv (ie. music videos, etc.)

summary: awesome deal on a good sub for $100! perfect for people getting into audio/home theatre on a tight budget.

Auto on/off Adjustable level/freq. sub in or spkr in.
plenty of reserve power.

None when placed properly.

This sub performed a little differently when driven by spkr inputs from my old Pioneer SX1080. Now driving it on low level line in from a JVC RX8000VBK. But in all fairness, we moved the HT to the den. It's 14 X 28 feet and placing the sub got a little hairy. Close to the walls or floor it gets boomy and "muddy". Ended up placing it on top of the Klipsch KLF20B tower which is 42" off the floor, (front right) and most of the bomminess was gone. Seems a bit shy on the high bass. There's no shortage of power in this beast. Ran "Earthquake" on DVD the other night. Thought it was real. I was reading other reviews on "woofer flatuation" and blown amps. Hasn't happened yet (knock on wood) I agree with most that it needs some "tweaking" of it's inards to be a real musical companion. For HT it's fine.What? For $140 I'm going gripe? I'm considering another for the left tower. Recommend this as a starting place for beginner HT enthusiasts
73 W1FBW

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RS passive floor firing 12"

ASW-12-200. Sounds great. Lots of power. Reasonably small size. Well made enclosure

a little boomy out of the box

This is a terrific entry level HT and HS subwoofer. It makes my bookshelf speakers sound great. I added a little acoustic insulation to the inside walls and now it responds quickly and still has great power. I run mine in a corner and I have to set the volume control to 10% to keep it from drowning out my main speakers. I was impressed with the solid construction of the enclosure. This unit can seriously shake the walls.
I have listened to other low costs models from RS and CSW and this unit is much better sounding, and lower cost.

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RS and CSW

Good smooth bass and enough power for home cinema use.

The off switch is on the back side all the way down...
What goofy guy invented that ? It's like starting your car
in the trunk !!!!
Shoot the guy !!! The new Klipsch pro media set has the same stupid switch on the back of the sub!! But why beats me, I wish I knew !!!

I own two SW 15 subs one I placed near the screen in front of me and the other behind me and it gives a very good
result. I never had any problems with them !!
It's a nice made model but the only thing i had to do was
give them another color. The store only had 3 models left
and they where all painted in wood color and I needed black
models so I repainted them....
And the result was even better then my other Klipsch speakers. If they plan on making a new model i would
like them to have a remote on/off switch or just a switch
on the front and a thicker wooden cabinet so it would look
even stronger. I heared a rumour that they would make an 18
inch model as well but so far I haven't seen anything yet!!
Because I'm certainly interested !! I've read some reviews
of the Bag End 18"infra sub and I must say I'm quite
curious! I think I will get me one just for fun.....

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Only pro stuff like EAW, JBL, MARTIN AUDIO, MASTER BLASTER and stuuf like that but not realy for home use.

If you're in the market for a solid powered sub that won't empty your pockets, but will "bring the walls down" with shattering bass, sheck KLH's SW-12.
While shopping in Best Buys, a couple of kids were testing subs from various manufacturers. They brought in their own CD (rock music), then proceeded to crank the volume setting for each unit to the max, also varying the cross-over setting.

To my surprise, the least distorting speaker with the cleaniest bass came from the SW-12. To tell the truth, I hadn't even considered this baby, but their test sold me.

After setting up my new home theater equiptment, the heart of which is the Pioneer 606 DD receiver and the Toshiba 3006 DVD player, I popped "The Mask" and sat back. The sound was unbelievable!

Test drive this sucker for yourself!

KLH has certainly surprised me with this low-cost subwoofer. The bass is full and rich and certainly clean. When turned up, this thing can really shake the foundation. When compared to others in it's price range, it's the best hands down.

Very strong bass, very inexpensive.

It's a little boomy.

I also bought the ASW12-120 through Damark, after reading reviews here. For the $180 that I paid, this sub is great! The bass is very loud and clean, but it does seem a little boomy. The sheer output is more than I could ever need - by the time it's at 50% it's shaking the entire house. I'm sure it doesn't quite keep up with higher-end, more expensive 12" subs in terms of output or frequency response, but if you don't have lots of money to spend this sub is very hard to beat.

Value rating: Five stars, it's a great deal for this price.
Overall rating: Four stars, because of the slight boominess.