New sub on the way; previous sub will go up for sale

[HDSapper]

I bought a pair of Emo UltraSub 12s years back. They served me well until one of them died recently. I tried a new fuse, but that wasn't it. Contacted Emotiva CS to see if I could send in the plate amp for service, but unfortunately they can no longer service or replace those amps.

So I've been shopping for a replacement. After reading a lot of great reviews for the Monolith subs I ordered a Mono 12. If it performs as well as I'm expecting it to, I'll probably use it alone. My current theater room is very small. We plan on moving next year after I retire from the Army, so if the new room is bigger I'll add another Monolith 12.

If anyone is interested in a working and/or non-working Ultra 12, make an offer. I assume the non-working one could be easily fixed with some tinkering (worse case scenario replacing the plate amp with a similar size one). Just hate to see it end up in a landfill when the cabinet and driver look perfect.

I hope to get the new sub by the weekend. I'll give some impressions once the 100 lb beast is set up.

[Boomzilla]

Where are you located?

[HDSapper]

North Carolina.

[leonski]

I would personally ONLY purchase a sub from a Prime Manufacturer.

Who actually builds the sub? SVS? HSU? That's where I'd be looking.

You could probably replace the plate amp on your 'dead' sub with one from Parts Express or Madisound.

If EMO won't fix the one you have? Will they at least part with a Schematic? If NO, they should remove them from the list of any future consideration.

[HDSapper]

My initial impressions of the Monolith 12 are very positive.

Because of its size and weight, placement options are limited in my small theater room. I did not do a sub crawl, mainly because I'm currently unwilling to hoist this 98.5 lb box into my primary listen position. So for now it is along the right wall, between my front right and right surround speakers, approximately along side my couch. There's a bit of a null in the center position, but not so a couple feet to the right.

I watched a couple movies so far (Lone Survivor, Overlord, Oblivion, and Live Free or Die Hard) and it did not disappoint. Great, full sound, some tactile response, and everything else you'd expect from a large, ported subwoofer for movies. What surprised me, though, was how good it sounds with music! No boominess at all, just deep, articulate grounding of the sound. I guess the low distortion needed to get the THX Ultra certification must help in this regards.

If you're looking for a sub under $1000 (it was $799) I highly recommend the Mono 12. Now I REALLY look forward to getting Dirac on the XMC-2!

[HDSapper]

I spent another evening listening to high res files and SACDs. I am LOVING what I'm hearing. Gotta give some credit to the XMC-2, but I never knew what I was missing before I got this sub. I would start a song with the intention of just sampling how it sounded, but more often than not I would end up listening to the whole track. It was just so smooth and refined.

One note about SACD - If you output DSD from your player you don't take advantage of the XMC-2 bass management. This may have been obvious to all of you, but I learned it last night. After listening to a bunch of FLAC files from HDTracks, I put in a SACD from Audio Fidelity. It sounded good, but a little shallow (read: I was disappointed). Then I saw the XMC-2 display said "DSD 2.0". After changing the SACD player output from Auto to PCM I tried the same track and... wow, that's more like it!

[leonski]

The improvement of stage and depth with a sub is remarkable. Even with very low settings on the crossover, well below 80hz I hear as 'recommended' in some corners.