Sign up for the FREE Tell Membership and receive benefits that include the digital edition of Tell Magazine sent straight to your inbox, product giveaways, coupons and much more!
Sign up for the FREE Tell Membership and receive benefits that include the digital edition of Tell Magazine sent straight to your inbox, product giveaways, coupons and much more!
They’re excavating the basement for a new apartment building down the street, and every few minutes a dump truck filled with dirt rumbles by. Okay, let’s see if Axiom’s EP400 subwoofer can blast some deep ones right back at them! This heavy, little guy may be designed for small spaces like bedrooms and dens, but with 500 watts of amplification tempered by digital signal processing pouring out of an 8-inch long-throw aluminum driver, the EP, standing for “Epicenter”, doesn’t seem a joke. So it’s about time that my bedroom gets treated to some serious bass.
Rubber feet in place (no need for the included spikes), I push it in a corner out of the way – although the Boston Cherry finish looks good enough to be shown off. I go with the RCA input, rather than using the Balanced XLR connector, and those without a dedicated sub output can use the 5-way binding post connectors (i.e., High Level Input). There’s also a connector for a second subwoofer should you really need your teeth chattering. Axiom suggests setting the sub manually, so I give it a go and find this lets me tweak the sub a bit more intimately than using my amp’s bass management controls. Try it both ways and see which sounds better to you.
There are just two more settings to take care of. The first is the position of the Phase switch. Flip it back and forth a few times and listen to how the other settings respond in comparison (the idea is to get a “smoother” bass response and your ears are the best tools for this); if you don’t hear any difference, then just leave it at zero and forget about it as I did. Then set the Trim based on room size – smaller spaces can benefit from the partially increased frequencies if set to Half or Full, while left at Flat is best suited for larger spaces (Half does it for me). Ignore Load (accessing the internal microprocessor) and Remote since there’s no remote-controlled devices as yet to use with this. And while the USB port is primarily for future software upgrades, Axiom makes a nifty powered light that can be plugged in to make viewing the controls on the back easier when the sub’s placed in a cramped, dark space. Oh and trust me on this, don’t set the bass volume beyond halfway to start.
I put in the DVD of Hot Fuzz which, comedy aside, seems to feature more explosions and gunfire than any action film I’ve ever seen––and boy does the bass blow the heck out of you! Then I try the movie 300 and play through some action scenes. As jarring as the violence is onscreen, the audio experience is even more so it’s like being smacked in the head with a two by four, it’s that intense. To the point where one of the drivers idling outside looks over to my window to see what all the noise is about. So I crank the sub’s volume way up just to see his expression––although I turned it back down real fast; any history of heart problems in my family and I wouldn’t be here to finish this review (the sub didn’t distort even at maximum, by the way).
If you’re tired of putting up with wimpy bass in your bedroom, den or any small space, ask the EP400 to deliver the goods. You won’t be disappointed. yy
Related Posts