Need a subwoofer reccomendation.....

Greetings!

My former subwoofer, the Klipsch RW-12d blew its amp board after only 3 years of very "light" work. Just slightly out of warranty, too. After some discussions with Klipsch, I was told a new amp board would cost $256 plus S&H costs both ways or I could drop it off at their local repair facility to save some money in Holland, MI.

I am in Dallas, TX.

Yeah. Since the entire subwoofer only cost $350 through Newegg (on Super sale on one Saturday only), I am not about to pay that kind of money to repair it. Incidentally, I would also like to say the Klipsch tech's attitude was very...un-Klipsch like if you remember Klipsch from back in the day as I do. I point blank asked him if they'd been acquired by Pioneer :) I mention this so that people that might be looking at Klipsch gear right now know that certain things have changed there in just the last few years so...buyer beware.

On to my question...I need a new sub (not THAT kind of sub) and my price range is around $500. I can stretch to $600 if I have to but my wife will start really yelling if I go above $500.

I have conferred with a couple of close friends and we are mostly in agreement and I am staring at the HSU models in that range as well as the Sunfire models. Sunfire makes both a $500 sub and a $600 one but if memory serves, I heard they were having some QC problems when they first came out. Did they ever get those issues cleared up? I am very happy to see they offer a 5 year warranty on all their subs (which is a lot considering you potentially can abuse both an amp and a speaker if you screw around).

The blown Klipsch worked fine in my media room. Here are the specifics....

20x20x13 in feet so a lot of cubic space to fill. The rest of the system is beautiful vintage equipment....

B&K ST-202+ Sonata amp (1993), matching B&K Pro-10 MC Sonata preamp, Oppo Digital BDP-105 as the source, and Monitor Audio Silver RS 8 speakers (10 years old now, I guess they are vintage, too).

You would not believe how beautiful this system sounds. Now..you would not REALLY want to listen to a string quartet on it (though you could, the B&K gear DOES have that "soft" tube-like sound...as much as you can get from MOSFET electronics) but it truly shines with Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, pretty much all electronic dance music (I drove my wife out of the room playing Chemical Bothers over and over), and it does not do bad at all with large classical pieces like Beethoven's 9th. I highly recommend those Monitor Audio speakers.

But in the end, in a room that size, it was just missing a little punch on the lower end. And a subwoofer is the answer unless I wish to break down the whole system and start over with something more powerful. I can hear my wife screaming even as I type that.

So, HSU, Sunfire, and I am open to any other suggestions you all may have for subs in the $500-$600 range that will will blend nicely with electronics like that, in a room that size.

Thanks for any and all replies...

j