Have 2 of them for last few years . Had bought the first one , after a few hours of use I liked its performance and rich sound so much , I went and got another one and got it on sale as well . Must say 2 of these in my home theater living room about 14x18 gives tremendous accurate sub bass . Love these subs . Can't be beat for the price . I do think for the price 2 of these 10 inchers will do a better job than a more expensive single 12 inch sub . Better coverage and more cone area moving more air . 20 inches vs 12 inches and 2x10 subs spread apart one on each side of room = awesome , effortless tight deep bass all around . Highly recommend . Very good video presentation . Good solid product .Running flawless for last few years .
Totally agree with you. This is the best sub for the $. The fact that it offers connections for any set up is another huge benefit. Not the absolute greatest, but this will fill the bottom for any budget minded system.
Nice review on the Polk, I'm glad you mentioned the hum you hear at idle with certain powered subs, I find it super annoying , especially since the humming only goes away when you unplug the unit from the mains outlet. Its the power transformer on the subs amplifier plate that makes that hum.
May have the mic too close. I can hear the port noise through the cellphone mic. I have had mine for about 5yrs now as well... but I don't go above maybe 50-60% volume on it.
I have this sub. I have the red and white rca plugged into my TV, and into the red and white on the sub, but when I put speaker wires in the slots, I don't get any sound from them. Do I need a receiver or amplifier to make them work?
Can’t go wrong for the money no question, do not hesitate, I’ve paired this sub with the Polk S20’s, Klipsch R-15M, JBL Studio 530’s, JBL Studio 230’s, Polk TSI100, Klipsch R-14M (don’t sleep on these little R-14’s!) Polk monitor 40’s and the Polk T-15’s, everything sounded great, the Polk S20s probably were the best then the JBL 530’s a very close 2nd but they have the best detail I’ve ever heard. On a budget any of those lesser expensive speakers should bring smiles regardless. Amps used, the Sony STRDH190 will do the trick on a budget as well, although the majority of the time I used a more expensive high current Yamaha amp, the Sony is great especially if you can catch it for $99, Bluetooth and phono input.
Exactly... I just bought a pair of HTS 10s to replace these which will be doing a review on and here in a little while I put the PSW 10s out in my garage
Am I right to presume you can plug a turntable directly into the sub and run speakers off of this and circumvent a standalone amp? I'm just starting my vinyl journey and bought a Denon record player that ended up being preamped. But I'm looking at a PSW10 and if I can save from buying an amp as well I'd love to.
I already have one, but I like it so much I just spent $250 on Amazon for another. (January 2024). I don’t regret buying the second one at all. My Yamaha RX-V683 has been screaming for a little more ways to be great! Especially since I got my 4k BluRay player. I would recommend this subwoofer to anyone who wants great bass sound for not so much money. I haven’t received the twin yet, but if it performs as well as its counterpart, I’ll definitely be happy with the upgrade to my sound system.
I just bought 2 polk audio bookshelf speakers. I was looking for a powerful sub and found an amazing deal on a JBL 500W 12 in. for $299, regular $500, so I bought it. Is there an issue with mixing brands like that?
I'm really new to any kind of audio setup that isn't an already prepackaged set of speakers with the sub, so I'm curious to know if this will work with the Edifier R1280DBs? I'm looking to hook up a pair of bookshelf speakers to my PC, and I am completely lost, lol.
debating if I should replace my sony SA-WM500 with this or not. I already bought it on craiglist with original box for $70. Its just that I had another receiver in the house that needed a sub for the living room and bought this for that setup originally. The sony is in my bedroom setup connected to my yamaha recever.
@@addismultitasking3504 Am listening to Fleetwood Mac Rumours , best produced album probably.Thanks for your review, the reason i bought it , anyways time for some Jack and great sound , Cheers from Canada
What did you think of the feet? In my old room with hard floors they were moving around alot. I bought hockey pucks drilled them centered and screwed them in existing holes.
hi, nice review...Have you tried to connect it thru speakers level input - output for stereo music? I wonder if it will cut off the low frequencies from the main speakers thru that connection...
I have heard this sub and this review is spot on. If you were to upgrade you could find (if they still make it) the Polk psw 505 12 inch sub for under 200 sometimes, i was very lucky to get it for 170 dollars on Amazon. However after 3 years the amp on mine died, so now i have an svs sb2000 which cost a lot more but is a phenomenal subwoofer in every sense of the word. By the way the BIC f12 (under 200) and the BIC PL200 (as low as 249 to 299) are also excellent choices.
My guess is that if he runs that PSW 10 3/4 of the way up all the time he’s gonna blow it eventually.. I have that sub in my TV room and it really only needs to be about a third of the way up with a medium bass setting out of the HT system coming from its mono rca sub out. I noticed that anything past halfway on the sub amp gain wasn’t as clean either.
These currently cost $238 US on Amazon, and $330 in Canada. I wonder what happened to the pricing. Is it still worth it at the current, much-higher price?
Yes I run this to a 3.5 mm splitter that goes with my exos9 speaker perfect for a small college apartment extremely powerful don’t see a use for anything more than this as I can hear it through the concrete walls of the apartment
Tried it for 1/2 a day and returned it. It replaced my Energy EW-100 which was also sold as a Klipsch KSW-10 and was failing (amp) after 7 years of daily use. BTW, yeah, pay twice as much and get a good one even if it is still from Polk.
Sad thing is that there are better subs that are close in price to the Polk Audio. The Dayton Audio SUB-1200 can regularly be had for $135-$140 with a coupon code for parts express (widely available on the various coupon sites) and it takes you from 50 watts RMS to 120 watts RMS, 10 inch ported sub to 12 inch ported sub and a bottom end of 40HZ down to a bottom end of 25HZ. That's a fair bit of improvement for an additional $35-$40 spent. Best of all they are designed by folks who have been in the DIY subwoofer business for decades.
Have owned the Polk audio PSW10 since 2010 and love it. I have no plans to upgrade. I also own an Acoustic audio PSW10 downfiring sub that also works well with a set of Klipsch Quintet ii satellites.
The sub is Definitely being Overdriven , especially in that movie scene...I'd recommend not driving it as hard but of course, to each his own... serious distortion happenning as that cone does the macarana! PS: I Do own one of these as well as its big brother the psw505.
grabbed this from Newegg for $90 around same time u did. I've been using it for everything. Incredible sub until you have $500 for an SVS 1000 pro series. Tho I am half way interested to try a minidsp hd on the Polk, or even the Dayton dsp which is just $60. Looking for any1 with a vid of trying this and comparing it to svs.
I see people complaining about the port noise on this subwoofer and there is a piece of metal on the port tube that you have to remove to eliminate the noise , have you heard about it?
Yes. It is at the back of the port inside the box. It is primarily there to prevent rats from what I recall. It def helps stop the chuffing when removed. If you can't get to it by reaching your hand or pliers inside, then just unscrew the back plate amp and it's right there. Super easy. But.... since you're already getting into the sub box, you should take out the woofer and the plate amp, remove that rat stop from the port, and glue or staple polyfill sheets to all the walls of the box. It's a ported design so dont completely stuff the box, just line the walls. It def helps with low end reproduction, and I say this from experience
I took mine out even though they were spaced away from the port more than the video I had seen. Soon as I looked in the port I knew they would be an issue and the Polk sound engineer likely didn't put them there.
Ive compared this and the Elac 1010. This sounded boomier and way out of control, the Elac had a tighter response and sounded way more musical. This goes a wee bit louder though, just a wee bit, you wont notice it without a side by side. The Elac plays a little lower at around 30hz or so too. The Elac is the way to go. In my country, it is known as the Elac 1020.
Nope. For the price of 4 of them I would go with a single RSL Speedwoofer 10s. Much more powerful, much tighter and cleaner bass, much better lower frequency response and includes 30 day in home trial to send it back for a full refund. They are in a totally different league. $399 shipped from RSL directly
I have had this sub for years now. I like it, but my ears are picky i feel like there is a lot of rough wind noise from the port. It depends on the music but it can be harsh at times. And with movies even. I have other subs now, but this is still an unbeatable value. I don't regret the psw10 for a sec, worth every penny imo.
There's a RU-vidr who shows how to fix that noise. Unscrew the amp off the back, look for a metal bracket over the firing port that looks like the X-Men logo which comes off by removing 2 screws and a good pull as it's glued. You're welcome.
@@addismultitasking3504 good, when adding the second one to your set-up, did you change the phase? Or how did you integrated both? I'm planning to add a second one of these Polks on the back of my room (I already have one in the front)
@@addismultitasking3504 its port noise bro, at those levels and with that much excursion going on, for sure...there is a simple mod for these subs online thats costs nothing and eliminates the chuffing,, take a look
He tells the truth. This is the best $100 Sub on the market. It needs to break in. New out of the box it sounds pretty bad. After about 100 hours it cleans up and becomes more musical and powerful. If you take out the rubber feet and screw in brass spikes it sounds even better. Be careful the box is made of partial board. The only cheap sub that sounds better was the 8” martin Logan dynamo 300. It was $149 new. You can’t find one used for under $350 now.
Try the Dayton Audio Sub-1200. It's $150 new and is a definite improvement over the Polk. Keep an eye out for coupon codes for the parts-express website and you can get it for $135-$140 shipped.
The klipsch r-12sw can be purchased for 189 quite often. I just bought one from Costco at that price. It is actually much better than the polk psw10. I moved the polk to the master. It still sounds decent for the price, but that klipsch is quite a steal at 189
@@addismultitasking3504 it's def not the best sub, but I was shocked at how decent it was, especially for the price. Where did you read the negative reviews? Amazon has it at 4.5/5, google has it at 4.8/5, crutchfield had it 5/5, bestbuy has it at 4.7, and klipsch has it at 4.4/5. For its original asking price, which was like 4-500 bucks, def a no. But for 189 the forums consensus is def a yes. I probably prefer the polk psw505, but those are usually pretty expensive comparatively speaking. I might pick up a used one for around 100ish, which I would replace my klipsch for it. But regardless, the polk psw10 sounds great for 100 bucks, completely agree with you
The Klipsch subs seem decent at first but they have had really bad quality control problems with their plate amps on their lower end subs (saw this first hand when I had a SUB-12). The problem is that people keep limiting themselves to big box store type commercial brands which never deliver more than decent for the money (unless you are getting them for next to nothing used). The internet brands deliver a much better bang for buck in pretty much every price range when you are talking about a new sub. Dayton Audio makes a sub that definitely outperforms this Polk in the $135-$140 range with coupon code for parts express. Yes it is a little more expensive but IMHO still within the same realm as the Polk and is a much better HT Sub and a better value overall. They are well known among the DIY subwoofer community and deliver a very solid product for the amount of money spent. The larger Dayton Audio SUB-1500 runs about $220 shipped with coupon code and it easily beats the Klipsch (had a few staunch Klipsch enthusiasts pick one up for comparison and they were blown away by how much better it sounds). It steps you up to a 15 inch sub that goes to 23HZ. Probably the closest thing to a commercial sub that I would recommend in the $200 range would be the BIC America F12. Once you get into the $300-$400 range just go with the RSL Speedwoofer 10 as it easily outperforms anything else in that price range and a number of subs in the $500 and up range. $500-$600 range it's impossible to beat (unless you go DIY) the HSU VT2-MK5, although Monoprice's Monolith is a solid runner up. Bottom line people need to quit just going with what they find at Best Buy, Costco, etc. and start looking at who is actually designing the best subwoofers for the money.
Thanks for all the good info I'm actually doing a home theater out in my back garage and I'm looking for some new 10-in subs in the 300.00 under price range what would you recommend
This is only rated down to 40Hz, seems more like a woofer. The 100 watts is a peak rating, it's only a 50 watts RMS amplifier. The movement of the cone during the Avengers looks sloppy. May be okay paired with small speakers in a small room. There are better rated bargain subs.
@@beaulong3270 videos and Amazon reviews are a good place to start but it best to look for someone actually qualified to test and review subs. www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-budget-subwoofer/
yeah im getting sick of these usa prices i dont get it... i go buy graphic card its 2500$ here 800$ in america... i go buy speaker its 300$ here 99$ in america... what in the world....
Really wanted to like this sub, it sounded OK. But the PS505 sounds alot better in terms of both quality and volume of bass. The size difference isnt big either. I sent it back and kept the PS505.
Maybe it's just me but...i have this one too, only one, I use the volume on 50% and still shakes my seat, I'm planning to add another one in the back of the room, and maybe I'll have to run both at even lower volume...yes, I think he's waking up some zombies haha
I don't have this sub but have another one that's also a 10 inch and sound amazing, it's not Polk might be better but it's also quite a bit more expensive
They are defiantly better but I'm not sure that they are worth the cost over the psw10. The bass is tighter for sure, but they are not really any louder
Well then you would love the HTS tens I should be doing a review comparison here in a couple weeks I want to use them a little bit more.. I like your avatar
Easy because the $300 sub is going to give you a much larger frequency response range which is crucial for things like a home theater application. A bottom end of 40hz and only 50 watts continuous makes it very easy for other subs to outperform multiple polks. For $300 a pair of Dayton Audio Sub1200s would outperform 3 polks in every respect. For $399 shipped a single RSL Speedwoofer 10s would make 4 of these polks look like a complete joke.
@@jesterscorner879 my old movie buff uncle built a downsized theater with projector room in large basement sloped floor ,real chairs 16:9 screen over 100" yes but 15x20 livingroom it doesn't take much 1 or 2 polks get it done for most people on budget
@@broken1965 That's because you don't know what you are missing. Most folks who get this sub either have nothing to compare it by or have only compared it with big box store type brands. The internet direct brands deliver more for your money. My point is that you can get a decent sub for $100 on sale or you can get the best budget sub for $150 (or a little less if they have a coupon code) that has nearly 2.5 times the continuous power, steps you up to a 12 inch sub and has a more respectable bottom end frequency response of 25HZ vs 40HZ. It's also a cleaner sub with a lot less distortion. All this for a whopping $50 extra or less. I paid $140 shipped for my Dayton Audio Sub 1200 and have owned Polk Subs in the past and there is no contest.
It's a sub that plays bass and is cheap, but it isnt great. It's muddy and boomy. I've had mine for the last 7 years and finally got to replace it. I suppose this sub is better than no sub.
Some Subs need a much better Quality double shielded sub cable. This will fix any humming. Also the Polk psw108 is even a lil better and more powerful than this one. They are Great Bang for the Buck Subs.
I bought this sub for like, $70 years and years ago. Believe it's a 2012 model. For $70 it's great. Though it's not that good from the perspective of owning a better sub. I've got an Ultimax 18 + Ultimax 10 Sealed and they are considerably better sounding. Both in tightness and extension. I'd recommend a Dayton Audio Ultimax 10 over this sub any day. Though that's a whole different price bracket. But it's a whole other beast. (The Polk sub isn't even a standard 10" since the Ultimax 10 can't even remotely fit into the PSW10's enclosure. (Yes I tried haha)
Sounds good my whole point of the video was pretty much the best for the money I've heard an $800 sub sound 10 times better but that's totally different ball game
ADD is multitasking I suppose that's true. They're cheap enough to get two for better in room response without breaking the bank and actually do advertised frequency response while sounding pretty good. I think I was getting close to 30Hz very usable in my room which is pretty good for that terrible room for bass. I'm just someone that would rather save a bit of that money and DIY something instead and that isn't something everyone can do.
@@JoshM7 Thing is that Dayton Audio still makes a ready made sub that can outperform the PSW10 for pretty close to the $100 price point. The Dayton Audio SUB-1200 can be had for $135 shipped with coupon code. It's no where near the class of the UM Subs but it easily outperforms the Polk PSW10 for not much more money. You go from 50 watts RMS to 120 watts RMS, 10 inch ported sub to 12 inch ported sub and a bottom end of 25HZ. Furthermore they distort less and are tuned lower so you get closer to that true deep movie theater bass than you do with a polk (or pretty much any budget priced commercial sub for that matter). I've had one for going on 6 years now and it continually amazes me with what it can do for such a small price.
@@jesterscorner879 Actually I literally have a Sub-1200 sitting next to my PSW10 and while it has more output. It's not worth it because the extension isn't much better than the PSW10. [Edit, Maybe saying it's not worth it is a little much, if that's enough output and extension for someone then that's a great price and not too much more than the PSW10. However it lacks bass under 30Hz in my house, but not everyone has my issues, so it might have more extension for someone else.] Also the driver makes a small clipping sound on kicks if they're loud enough. Nothing too bad but It still does it. Not a good sub for low end but it does have more headroom for sure.
@@JoshM7 I've never had any clipping issues with the SUB-1200 and I've had it cranked up really good. I've had polk subs and they always distort too easily for my tastes. I didn't find that with the SUB-1200. Not saying it won't distort, it just doesn't do it as bad as Polks do. It's definitely not going to be hitting into the low 20s but to me it sounds and feels closer to a true sub than the PSW10 (which feels more like a lower midrange). I feel that it's worth the extra $35 over the PSW10, but maybe that's just me. Obviously once you move into the UMs everything is going to come up short. I have been looking into building a UM12 setup for my next sub and looking at a variant of the "Hammer Sub" that was designed. I have also been looking into the RSL Speedwoofer as a more cost effective and hassle free alternative. A DIY sub doesn't bother me but the box design is pretty intricate and I don't want to spend $250 to buy a prefab box.
