Subwoofer w/ most SPL's For Music Only System

I second the Bag End comment from Bob.

I have tried all the subs you mentioned and of the 3 I would probably go HGS-15 1st, Earthquake 2nd and the Sunfire Sig last.

The Earthquake 15 is an excellent sub though for music as well and hits harder than any of the above mentioned subs. The Velo is more musical though.

The Bag End goes lower than all of them though as confirmed by my Velodyne SMS-1 EQ and is the best music only sub of the bunch.

The Bag End does not hit as hard as the Earthquake though. The bass from the Earthquake can get scary if you want it to and with a EQ like the Velodyne SMS-1 you can tame it for music as well. I have heard 2 other systems with Supernova 15's and no eq. Both sounded very impressive with music so I guess an EQ is not mandatory. Most people think that since it has a passive radiator and can hit crazy levels of 117+ db at 35 hz that it can't sound good for music but that is just not the case.

I hope this helps some.

Good luck.

I would highly recommend the HSU Research VTF-3 HO.

Why not just get the best bass system for music use not a comprimised subwoofer design but a bass horn.Bass horns are at ease at any level you care to listen to.A subwoofer loses detail due to massive driver excursions a bass horn drivers hardly move so detail thats lost to conventional bass systems is reproduced most folks dont know how much detail is in deep bass a bass horn will let you hear this.

how much detail is in deep bass a bass horn will let you hear this

In terms of power, the horn design is very efficient but you will lose some details from transients and the same can be said for ported designs or passive radiators that boost LF power through resonance. For low cost and high SPL output design you cannot beat a horn.

A subwoofer loses detail due to massive driver excursion

Large excursions in a sealed box are indeed a problem for low cost drivers (small magnets, long voice coils) with correspondingly low levels of linearity (Xmax). The bass output will quickly compress and harmonic distortion will increase dramatically at higher excursions. (although this design may work very well at low SPL levels, more accurate than a resonant design)