Which sub is better for audio

Hi, Go for the Bag End, I love mine with all my speakers. Read a review by Galen Carol below. Also Stereophile class A. I’d like to draw your attention to a quite wonderful subwoofer, the Bag End Infrasub 18. What’s a "Bag End," I hear you say. While the Company has been a well recognized fixture in the professional industry for some time (many of the movies you watch were mastered on systems using Bag End woofers), it has only recently become known in the consumer world. The Infrasub 18 uses a single 18" driver (don’t stop reading, this one has none of the negatives you’d expect from such large a driver) powered by a 400 watt built-in amplifier. The system is special due to the Company’s proprietary ELF integration circuitry. The system is capable of reproduction to an astonishing 8Hz! But never fear, you’ll not find the distracting pumping and rumble so pervasive in lesser designs. What you will get is fast, tight, clean and very extended bass appropriate and consistent with the music. An ongoing subwoofer review in Widescreen Review has, over several issues, compared many subwoofers. The latest issue contained rave coverage of the Infrasub 18, it scoring better than any other woofer tested. Richard Hardesty writes "…this subwoofer is so good it’s hard to find faults to write about… the Infrasub 18 will be like a breath of fresh air to the critical listener who wants to really hear what’s going on down there. The performance of the Infrasub 18 is outstanding in every way. It will be at home in a high end audio system or the finest home theater." High praise indeed, especially considering the Infrasub 18 sells for only $1495.00! For the first time, I find myself able to recommend a subwoofer priced within reach of most serious enthusiasts. How good is it? Better, in my opinion, than anything under ten Grand. Rated

In a recent special issue by Widescreen mag, they published all of the reviews they had done on subs over the past 3 years. The highest rated subs for audio were the Vandersteens and the powered Velodynes. When rated for both audio and video playback, the Vandersteens are the best choice.

I am not big on subs as I have never heard one improve the musical quality of the bass, but that may be more a reflection of my skills in integrating one with my main speakers. But I have tried a few and was rather impressed with the tightness of the Triad subs, even their cheapest one, which lost little in quality terms to the more expensive subs, just moved less air. I only mention it because I have never seen anyone else mention the Triads before on this site. Has anyone else heard them?

Sorry Redkiwi I have not heard of Triad. I have however heard lots of others and have come to the conclusion that really good base usually costs plenty and is very difficult to do properly. I have a small Kef unit in my home theatre system that is just OK. The best for home theatre I've heard are the velodyne and in the set up we used It took two to work well. They were 15 inch 450 watt downfiring. M and K used to be good makers of subs but now cater to the home theatre market/doesn't everyone/ . Blending subs into 2 channel is hard. My preference to bearly hear the sub and for it to really just add a presence. In two chanel the best I heard was a product call a David by D box. see www.d-box.com. A small company in Quebec, Canada which also makes the better known Mammouth . The David was playing with a small pair of castle monitors and the over all stage was huge. A crossover was not used but instead was fed from a second pre out from the pre amp. Then the volume turned up just till you start to hear it. There was not enough here to do organ well but it could make these small monitors much larger. My 2 cents is unless your budgets is in the many thousands leave it alone. cheers steve

The Vandersteen 2Wq's are impecable in integrating with the main speakers. While bass output is not prodigiousit always manages to reach very lo freq. with flat response. I love em immensely for music & film & would imagine a better sub costing substantially more (if there is one).