My first HGS-12 arrived D.O.A. like the other gentleman. The second one worked find and the sound is quite good. However, I also own the HGS-18, and I would advise you to get the 18 as oppose the the 12. The 18 has subsonic bass that eludes the 12. I give the HGS-12 four stars because as the other gentleman stated, no product should be D.O.A.

Relentless amounts of BASS!

No manual on/off switch.

Upgraded from a velodyne 1210. There is a world of difference between the two. You can just tell the HGS is in another league of subs, as you would expect from a sub costing this much. The woofer seems to look like it's straining a bit but I guess it isn't as I can push it and push it and it keeps getting louder and still sounds clean. This is a great sub. It makes movies, as well as music, that much more fun to listen to.

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Other Velodyne models

This is a great product. At first it took some time to get adjusted listening to bass with little distortion.
My first one arrived out of the box DOA. HiFI house in PA did a great job getting me a second one.

4 stars because no product should be dead out of the BOX.

Great sub. Very tight, accurate bass. Also plays loud when you need it (movie fx). Works great for both music and movies. Highly recommended!

This is my second Velodyne, replacing an F1000.The first arrive dead...
The second arrived in working order and is nothing short of awsome.
Very solid from the bittom up.
Worth every nickel you spend.

Deep, loud, tight, tuneful, musical, and completely clean bass.

Can be almost too loud at times (this is avoided by proper setup and testing)

I intially purchased some Polk tower speakers with decent bass response (down to 28 Hz) so that I could avoid the expenditure on a subwoofer for a while. After a while, I began to get antsy about it and started listening to them. I bought the HGS, and the rest, as they say, is history. I don't know how I lived without this sub. I am impressed by it every single time I listen to anything, be it music, movies, or whatever. The bass response is amazing, but the single greatest aspect of this sub in my opinion is that it is clean; cleaner than any other I've heard. You can here fingers plucking an acoustic bass. You feel the impact of the bass drum. And so on and so forth. I can't say enough good things about this sub.

The CT series, while an excellent value for the performance, is not even in the same league. And the Sunfire, while by no means a bad sub, just didn't give me the same impact and clarity as the Velodyne. That, and the fact that with my job, working for a national electronics chain (I won't say which) we can get dealer cost on the HGS, which certainly helped. The only reason I'm giving a 4 star value rating is b/c while it was an excellent value for me, paying $2000 might not be a great value.

One last note on an earlier reviewer's comment about the sub humming. Everyone who knows anything about audio knows that this problem is most often attributed to electromagnetic or radio frequency interference, most often in the cables. If you buy a $2000 subwoofer and use a $5 sub cable it's going to sound like crap. Use a properly shielded sub cable, such as Monster's Z-Bass or M351, and you won't have this problem.

Similar Products Used:

Velodyne CT Series, Sunfire Signature

tight bass

humming sound

Well, this is my first sub. Shopped around for several months and read a lot of reviews and finally decided on HGS-12.

I like its clean looks and compact size. It sounds great also! Tight bass I had wanted at last!

ONe problem I noticed is that when the music is turned off, there is a low humming noise. However, unless I put my ear to it within one or two fee of the speaker, it's unnoticeable, especially when the music is playing.

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none

Can't say enough about the HGS-12 - this is a very musical sub that can also fill the room with deep, clean sound. I had recently upgraded my speaker system to paradigm reference all around and was using a $400 sub that wasn't very clean. It did not blend well with the paradigms, so I went sub shopping. I was thinking about the sunfire true sub. I set one up at my local dealer with a pair of reference 80's and had a listen. There was plenty of bass, but it still had the muddy sound that was bothering me with the $400.00 sub. I then tried an HGS-10 on the same material. What a difference there was between the two. There was all of the power of the sunfire, but the sound was so much clearer. I could now make out the electric bass and the kick drum clearly, not a jumbled mess of power. I noticed that the 10 was fairly cranked up, and asked if they ever had overheating or clipping problems with it. He said that they did have it shut down on them once, when auditioning heavy for a long time. I asked, “Has that ever been a problem with the HGS-12?” When he said no, I asked to hear one. Here again was the clean, room filling sound, but with much less effort. I bought the HGS-12 and have been very happy with it. The cabinet size is the same as my old model, but the clean sound and room filling bass make it a winner. A true 5-star sub.

I first listened to the HGS-10 because I was sure I could get it past the wife but after talking to the sales person I upgraded to the HGS-12 for the fuller sound.
The smiles were ear-to-ear when I played the Apollo 13 launch segment. Works very well on the music side as well!

Denon 5700
Monitor Audio Silver 5i
Sony 7700 DVD

Low frequencies produced with extreme tightness.
Musically unintrusive, it blends in with entire system.

Lack of on/off switch.

This sub replaces an old Nuance sub from the late 80's early 90's. There is absolutely no comparison between the two. After several long days of auditioning subs to match my exsisting system I came across the Velodyne. Not initially a huge fan of Velodyne in the first place, I was in the right place at the right time when my ears heard a subsonic boom. It was a salesman demonstrating the HGS 12 with the movie U 571. One word UNREAL. This sub is absolutely tight and sonically correct. This sub performs well with both music and movies. Do not count this sub out it will change your entire movie experience.
System Def Tech 2002
Mirage M-3
Mirage M series centre channel
Denon AVR 3600
Anthem Amp2
Pioneer DVD player

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None to date.