# Any thoughts on the Premier Acoustic PA-120?



## paints (Feb 3, 2008)

I'm leaning this way on PA-120 as it fits my budget and after looking around a bit. It seems to be getting decent reviews.



Anyways....just wondering if a fellow Shackster has this sub and wouldn't mind tossing out their opinion.

Thanks!


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## tcarcio (Jun 27, 2007)

I have this sub, I picked it up for my living room setup as I already have two diy subs for my HT. I will say for the money it isn't bad at all. I hooked it up to my sms-1 to get a reading and the specs they give you are correct. It goes down to 25hz before dropping off significantly. I put in WOTW and I thought the little guy was going to blow up but it actually held it's own so I think that if that is your budget and you don't want to go the diy route then it should be good enough for you until the time comes when you can make a change to something better. That does only apply if you don't have an enormous room, but for a small to medium size room it should do. Also if you go to www.live.com and sign up you can then search the pa-120 and it will give you 10% or more off the price. The money goes into your paypal account for use on anything you buy later, not too shabby. Good luck and I hope this helped.:wave:


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## paints (Feb 3, 2008)

It does and thanks!

My room isn't to big. 17x17 room in the basement,


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## sickboy013 (Feb 28, 2009)

I placed an order for one over the weekend! Should be here tomorrow!! :jump: Seems like people really like it over on avsforum. I'll post a pic or two when i get it and a brief review (although I am not an audiophile)


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## paints (Feb 3, 2008)

Me neither. This is the last piece to my first real system. Of course the longer we play this game (and hang out at this site), it won't be long before upgraditis hits us.

Can't wait to see your review. Hopefully mine will ship before tomorrow.


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## sickboy013 (Feb 28, 2009)

Cool! So I assume you ended up ordering one? I picked mine up today from UPS and played around with it a little before work. I can tell a major difference between the two subs. The bass from the PA120 is A LOT cleaner and blends WAY better with my speakers than the sub that came with the HTIB.

I tested it with some scenes from The Incredibles, The Hulk (2008), and Star Wars Ep.2. It performed great on every scene I tested it on. And I can definitely FEEL more with this sub and I haven't even played things really loud. I'm still gonna go in and mess with settings, but for the little while I used it, it was great!

The finish is beautiful, I didn't realize that it had a gloss piano black top and bottom, flanked with the black woodgrain on the sides.

I'll post some more info after tonight with some pics.


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## paints (Feb 3, 2008)

Yeppers! Mine is due on monday (wish it was tomorrow so I could play with it).

Glad to see your pretty happy with it. This will be my first ever sub and if performs moderately...I'm sure I'll be pleased. Keep up the reviews! It's just making long for my delivery even more.


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## paints (Feb 3, 2008)

It got here. It's hooked up...and WOW!!

Haft to say at first I was like eh..that's it? Now I was watching 24 on cable and while occasionaly the sub stood out. I really didn't notice it much. Then I watched Castle and the news. 

THEN! I figured I should stick in a DVD that I knew had some punch to it. Enter Lord of the Ring's Fellowhip opening 10 minutes.

Oh boy! The wife came stomping down and told me turn it down but instead sat down for a few minutes and just said "well, it works".

Tomorrow I'll get a longer cable and play around with positioning and run the Audessey and try to dial it in. So far I just followed the sub's stock settings. I don't have an SPL meter or anything like that. But to me. If felt like every seating area sounded the same and I was amazed that I could feel the bass (espicially when the army's were marching during LOTR's).

Any suggestions on some movies that I should watch to see what this thing can and can't do? What little I've sampled so far has been tremendous. Nothing sounded stressed or cracked and I was nothing but ear to ear grinning. Can't wait to get the house all to my self and let er' rip. I should probably cue up Batman Begins and Serenity (the only HD-DVD's I will ever own).

People of the Shack...I thank you for all the help. 

Off to read up on tweaks and positioning now!


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## sickboy013 (Feb 28, 2009)

paints said:


> It got here. It's hooked up...and WOW!!
> 
> Haft to say at first I was like eh..that's it? Now I was watching 24 on cable and while occasionaly the sub stood out. I really didn't notice it much. Then I watched Castle and the news.
> 
> ...


AWESOME isn't it!? Congrats on joining in on the PA-120 club.

I finally bought Kung Fu Panda and watched the "Skadoosh" scene. It's AWESOME with this sub, the wife didn't even mind it when I kept rewinding it to play again! :bigsmile:

The Incredibles, The Hulk (2008), Hot Fuzz, and the opening to Star Wars 2 are good. Those are pretty much what I have tested so far. I am going to get an SPL meter tomorrow and do some sutff, maybe even give REW a shot.


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## paints (Feb 3, 2008)

Yeah...I'll make sure to check out those titles as well.

Hey! Let me know if getting an SPL meter is really worth it.


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## tcarcio (Jun 27, 2007)

Glad you like it. You should check out War of the worlds,U571,The Matrix, or Transformers. Good luck....:T


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## sickboy013 (Feb 28, 2009)

paints said:


> Yeah...I'll make sure to check out those titles as well.
> 
> Hey! Let me know if getting an SPL meter is really worth it.


I will if I can figure out how to use the dumb thing! Playing the internal pink noise tones on my receiver, I can't pick anything up from my listening position. It'll pick up the noise if I am about a foot away from the speakers. :huh:


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## sickboy013 (Feb 28, 2009)

Well never mind that last post. I figured it out. I thought I had tried to raise the volume while playing the tones, but I think I had the wrong button pushed on the remote and it wasn't getting the receiver volume to go up. I'm gonna mess around with it a little more. :bigsmile:


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## paints (Feb 3, 2008)

Oh man! The opening scene of Clones was fantastic! I'm going to haft to secure all the pictures in my sports room and do something with all my knick-Knacks on the sports shelf.

Be a shame for them to vibrate off the shelves over time and break.

To think....this all started with me just wanting to watch Jayhawk Hoops on a huge screen.

Ok, to buisness now. I need to get this thing dialed in. Now that I'm over the shock of hearing some kick. I need to run the Audessey and tweak it's positioning a bit. Have fun with that SPL. Lemme know if it's worth buying to tweak out your room.

Have fun!


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## sickboy013 (Feb 28, 2009)

paints said:


> Oh man! The opening scene of Clones was fantastic! I'm going to haft to secure all the pictures in my sports room and do something with all my knick-Knacks on the sports shelf.
> 
> Be a shame for them to vibrate off the shelves over time and break.
> 
> ...


Will do. :T

I am going to post a separate thread about a sub riser that I am building. Check it out. From the preliminary testing I did, it sounds like this will really make a difference.


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## RaZmAn (Mar 17, 2009)

paints said:


> I'm leaning this way on PA-120 as it fits my budget and after looking around a bit. It seems to be getting decent reviews.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




how much was is total after s & h? Ebay is selling it for 229 too but free shipping...is there any difference? Would you recommend this over the Bic Acoustech H100?


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## paints (Feb 3, 2008)

Same price if you order off ebay or through the Shack. No shipping charge either way. If your plugged into Amazon. You can breeze through checkout.

As for the sub. 

I've spent all weekend re-watching my collection of DVD's. It's like seeing or rather hearing them for the 1st time.

Bear in mind I haven't a point of reference as I've never owned a sub before. However if you like clean sounding rumbles and explosion that sound just like they do at the theater. I don't think any non-audiophile/1st time HT owner will be disappointed.


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## RaZmAn (Mar 17, 2009)

paints said:


> Bear in mind I haven't a point of reference as I've never owned a sub before. However if you like clean sounding rumbles and explosion that sound just like they do at the theater. I don't think any non-audiophile/1st time HT owner will be disappointed.



I'm just like you bro, this is in fact my first real non htib home theater system I'm getting so I'm all paranoid and I don't want buyer's remorse...so I'm just trying to do all the research I can get and get all the advice I can get before buying it. Technically any sub would probably be awe for me since I've never had a good one before...so yea I'll check into this one and add it to my list.


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## sickboy013 (Feb 28, 2009)

paints said:


> Same price if you order off ebay or through the Shack. No shipping charge either way. If your plugged into Amazon. You can breeze through checkout.
> 
> As for the sub.
> 
> ...


I just watched The Dark Knight over the weekend and WHOA!! The movie is just crazy with this sub. This sub passed everything with flying colors. If you haven't watched it yet I recommend it. :R


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## sickboy013 (Feb 28, 2009)

RaZmAn said:


> I'm just like you bro, this is in fact my first real non htib home theater system I'm getting so I'm all paranoid and I don't want buyer's remorse...so I'm just trying to do all the research I can get and get all the advice I can get before buying it. Technically any sub would probably be awe for me since I've never had a good one before...so yea I'll check into this one and add it to my list.


I don't think you would be disappointed with this sub. It seriously blows my onkyo HTIB sub away by a long shot.

Just for laughs I tried running both subs together over the weekend, the thing that stood out the most was the onkyo sub sounding like it was overdriven and struggling to keep up (the gain on the onkyo was set to the lowest it would go). I unplugged it, ran the movie scenes again, and there was nothing but loud crisp deep bass from the pa-120. The onkyo sub, which is not a terrible sub, was put to absolute shame by the pa-120.


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