Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Dual EP800 vs SVS Ultra 16

Nice !

110 pounds each... be careful moving them.

Holy Crap Batman

I think you'll be very happy.

Good morning,

I am new to this forum and still trying to work my through the settings on posting comments; I hope that I have done it correctly.

I have not owned any Axiom subs, however I just ordered a new EP500 which I'll have in a week or so. What moved me to purchasing from Axiom, sight unseen and and unheard is simply due to my ownership of a pair of Rosewood Bryston Model T main speakers which are in my opinion as good as it gets. Axiom builds the speakers for Bryston and based on the quality of the Bryston's I am good to go with anything from Axiom.

That being said, I have owned over the past year a Pair of SVS Ultra Towers (one crossover failed and the speaker was replaced), the SVS Ultra 16 sub (amplifier failed within the first 2 hours of operation and the speaker was replaced with another), SVS PC 12 plus (driver voice coil melted down two weeks after purchase) Second SVS 12 plus which was the replacement for the first failed one (Voice coil melted down 4 weeks after receiving it) this speaker was replaced with the PC13 Ultra with a payment for the upgrade to what was thought to be a more reliable sub. PC 13 Ultra amplifier failed 2 weeks after receiving it.

I decide to just keep using a 15 year old Def Tech PL 15 Plus with the 500 watt amp (it actually was still working after suffering a lightning hit) and it's been in service for a decade and a half.... the driver just started to wear out and the cost of replacing the driver is perhaps an option, but I decide to order the EP500 and go for new. I still might replace the old driver in the Def Tech, but I will decide on that once I put the Axiom into service and try it out and if it works better with my Model T''s, I might just pick up another EP 500 or EP 800 as the second sub.

Trust me, I really play the Model T's a lot and loud and they are bi-amped from a Parasound A51 putting in 400 watts per section (800 watts total into each speaker divided) at 4 ohms. They are amazing speakers, zero distortion, extremely dynamic and fill a very large room perfectly. I cannot say enough about the quality of these speakers. I look forward to the Axiom sub (very impressed with the build quality of the amp with the large wound transformer vs. what I saw in the SVS amps when I opened them up for testing).

How close to the room boundaries are the Ts?

v3 or v4 tweeter?

V4 latest version tweeter is what I have. The speakers are only about a year or two old. The right speaker is about 5 feet from the wall behind and 5 feet from the side wall; the left speaker is about the same, however is has a balcony at 8 feet over top. The right speaker has an 18 foot vaulted ceiling above. My sub is about 30 feet away at the opposite side of the room from the T's in an alcove with again an overhung room overhead at about 8 feet. The main living area is all open above up to 18 feet. It's a difficult room to work with, however after a lot of trial and error, I am getting it dialed in. Believe it or not, one mid sized sub (the Def Tech 500 watt cube) working in the alcove with the T's across the room blows away anything I heard out of the SVS's I used. Disclaimer: I did not try the SVS's in the Alcove as I didn't have the opportunity to do so. I moved the Def Tech into the corner out of an experiment to see what would happen if I were to build in a sub into the bar I plan on building this winter..... low and behold, it just works!

I suspect that a second sub or perhaps a third at some point might round out this room even better. But I wish to just play with the EP500 first in the bar area. I have a perfect location for the second sub adjacent to the fireplace about mid point/left between the rear bar sub and the main Model T's. If I do this location, I might consider the EP800, however I think the smaller EP500 might blend in better for balancing the sound. I suspect that multiple smaller subs might work more harmoniously: I'll have to defer to Ian on this one before I get too far into this project.

I have the Axiom LFR1100 that is somewhat like your Bryston T's in size. I also have a pair of EP500 subs that match perfectly with them. The LFR like your Bryston T's have a very well designed low frequency response along with good porting, they can give a clean sound down easily to 30hz and with a bit of push and a clean falloff get to 25hz.

I will say that these speakers are one of the few that can get away without having a sub. I run mine off an ADA1000 running full frequency. With some music that I play, you cannot tell the difference between running these speakers with the subs turned on or off. They are that good.

But I do own the pair of EP500s so you might as well get the use out of them. They do add that nice subtle reinforcement to the lower bass. Playing classical loud (as if there is any other way to play it) the presence of a good sealed sub just adds to the stage and presence.

I know that Ian has run 4 of his EP800 for a bit. I don't know if that for me is just simply overkill. When I have used just the 2 small babies that I have, the room has shook when playing them for some movies.

The EP800 is an impressive sub. I can't fathom 4. I have one of IAN's older 800's, with new internals, and it's a beast. I've had a lot of good subs in that room over the years and they just failed to deliver. But the 800 kills it. It's a hard room for bass due to how the floor is made, total bass trap.

I always thought the 800 was massive overkill before actually seeing one in person. In real wood, I have horizontal pine one, it's like a piece of furniture, and I couldn't be happier with it. Certainly a conversation piece with company. The funny thing is, you have to walk through my theater to get to the bar where the 800 is, so people walk passed my HSU's and SVS's and look at them and say wtf? then they walk in and see the 800 and at first they don't know what it is until I pop the screen off and everyone just loves it. Killer is now I want to replace my theater subs with 800's. In horizontal position it fits perfect under my screen.

I have wanted to move the 800 but I am not sure how much benefit it will give me over the 600v2. My environment has terrific extra low frequency content but lacks mid-bass punch. I know this isn't a fault of my environment because I've had other (lesser and equal) subs in there and they punched.

Will the 800 give me mid-bass punch?

try it, it's only a 130lbs to send back!lol