While it doesn’t have the highest power out there, the BIC America manages to provide you with a fairly good bass topped by a design that brings out the best audio quality you can get at this price range. And above that excellent value performance, it even comes with a great build that holds it firm above your table letting the sound reach through to the edges of your room. Thus, with all that paired with the wider frequency response than more expensive products, the BIC America F12 stands out to be one of the best subwoofers you can get for your home theater.
Why We Like It – BIC AMERICA F12
With a greater frequency response than the Polk Audio PSW505, the BIC America F12 is a subwoofer with great sound quality paired with a very affordable price. It comes with a fairly simple yet elegant design and with Dolby technology implemented into the system it stands out even among its more higher priced counterparts. And to further add to that, the BIC America F12 even manages to bring in a great amount of controls, allowing you to set it up for the best performance of the 12-Inch Injection Molded long throw woofer.
- Powerful and clear bass
- Adjustable crossover and volume control
- Excellent value
- May heat up a bit
Performance
Powered by a constant wattage of 150W, and a peak power of 475W, the BIC America doesn’t provide as powerful a bass as the Polk Audio PSW505 but it does surpass the Polk Audio PSW10 in Polk’s lineup. And so the BIC F12 still manages to provide you a pretty powerful and deep bass response. It will reach out through to the ends of your living room and with the implementation of Dolby Pro Logic and Dolby Digital you can now customize its sound to the exact needs based on the placement of the box and the music you’re playing. This is made much easier thanks to the fact that the powered subwoofer has a 12-Inch injection molded long throw woofer and a bash designed amplifier all of which can easily be controlled by the number of controls present on the back. These controls range from a frequency control, volume control to a crossover control and phase switch for each sub. For a subwoofer that costs less than $300, read our Bic acoustech pl 200 II review.
Thus, with all that at hand you get a sound quality with clearly represented low notes with no form of muddiness and distortion even when the volume is raised as high as it could be. But, if you have trouble adjusting the different fields of the sound or you’re just new to it, be assured that there is plenty of support available from both the subwoofer review of many products and available customer service representatives of BIC America.
As for the set up of the BIC F12 it’s as easy as a set up can be by just connecting the power cable and the receiver through the sub input only to result in the ever so great music or movie audio throughout your living room as the magnetic shielding makes for more noise reduction. And finally, thanks to the patented BIC vent named Venturi you’ll be rid of the ever so annoying port noise you’ll have to deal with in the Polk Audio PSW505. You can also read about a digital amplifier with 300 watts peak power is featured in our Klipsch R 100SW 10 subwoofer review.
Design
Having dimensions of 21 x 19 x 22 inches the BIC America F12 is most certainly not the most compact subwoofer out there. It will need some space to fit in on a table or the floor and it weighs 42.7 pounds as well as a decent looking design. Apart from the gold plated terminal you get yourself a large black case made of an MDF board and laminate with thick walls inside to prevent any unwanted resonances or formation of stationary waves. What gives it the standard yet not so aesthetic look of a subwoofer is the presence of the panel consisting of the amplifier and the inputs which range from the speakers stereo output terminal, an RCA connection and a port of brass reflex.
Moreover, the BIC F12 also comes with a green light as the power indicator which may be a very small problem to a few people in the dark. But other than that, with 4 rubber feet and rubber bushings to fix the fabric mesh of the plastic pins on the front panel, the BIC F12 has a pretty large yet solid build that will make sure it provides the best performance available.
Value
Priced at $210, the BIC America is usually much cheaper than the Polk Audio PSW505 and although it may be slightly higher priced than the Sony SACS9, it does live up to its price with a much larger power wattage and a quite similar frequency response allowing the music to reach your neighbours in the United States. It reaches out throughout your room with the best audio quality while taking up just a little bit more space than usual with its slightly larger size. All in all it’s a very small compromise to make to get such an amazing subwoofer at such a great price.
BIC AMERICA F12 Wrap Up
It may not have the highest constant power wattage, nor does it have the most compact size, but those small compromises make for an amazing sound system that provides you with great customizability as well as a powerful bass with no presence of the annoying port noise. And so with all that at a very affordable price, the BIC America is among one of the best subwoofers you can get for the money, perfect for your home theatre system while providing both amazing movie and music audio.
