# My Dual SS-18.1's and SHO-10 Impressions



## dduval (Feb 26, 2012)

Just wanted share my excellent experience with CHT products.

This is long winded, so be warned

For me to really express my experience accurately, just some background info first.

I have been in the music/audio scene for over 30 years. At 16 years old I was the sound-man for my brothers band for about 4 years, prior to starting my own rock/top 40 band playing guitar and drums. Then finally got married (thank god or I would have died from partying ) and setup my own home recording studio just for my own personal use.

As the years rolled by, getting a real job, having kids, etc I eventually sold all my gear.

Anyway, I have always had an "OK" stereo system, not great and thousands of dollars invested, but something that got me by so as to keep listening to my old favs of rock, metal and progressive rock. But have grown to appreciate all music, from country, blues, some jaz, rock, metal, progressive rock, pop, disco, etc. Ok enough of the boring stuff...:innocent:

So for the past couple of years I've really been getting back into my music. More recently Home theater and blu ray movies.

Before upgrading my subs, my system was all Axiom with Dual EP500 subs. Prior to that I had a couple older JBL subs and an EP350 sub.

Like most I researched all subs for many months. Been a long time reader of all audio forums for years, so as to keep up with the latest news, good and bad.

So I decided to place my order for Dual SS-18.1's from CHT.
Couple days later I ordered one SHO-10 to replace my Axiom EP150 as well.

Ordering process was straight forward and simple, about a week later I received my subs and SHO-10. R&L called me prior to delivery and all went smooth. I have had my share of really bad luck ordering from ID companies. I call it the "Duval curse" :help:

Pretty much anything I have ever ordered from speakers to amps, to cables, whatever, either the amp would fail, 12 volt triggers didn't work, showed up DOA, whatever could go wrong did. I actually received my Axiom QS8's in 2 different colors. Ordered Cherry and got one cherry and one black. But hey at least they got 1/2 the order right, eh?
I will add that every vendor I had issues with addressed all the above issues quickly and professionally and always took good care of me.

So I did express this to Craig prior to ordering about the "Duval Curse". I will tell you this. Craig was very professional and addressed my concerns. Every time I called, emailed, PM'd...Craig answered. Very impressive.

So anyway, I got the subs/SHO-10 in place, but had no amp yet for the subs as I was debating on what amp(s) to get. I was dead set on a 2 channel pro amp to take advantage Audyssey XT32 Sub HT eq. or should I just go with 2 Dayton amps, one for each sub/channel.

I ended up getting 2 Dayton amps one from Craig and a used one from a private owner.

All is now in place. The fit and finish are excellent and I have no complaints to speak of at all. Nice job Craig and thank you for going above and beyond! Has the "Duval Curse" gone away? Pics below of my modest setup...excuse the wires please.


Now on to the Sound!

After running XT32, all 8 positions, the settings were basically the same as the Axiom subs and center. Audyssey always crossed the center at 80hz and the subs at 40hz. Now with the Axiom EP500 I have always left xo at 40hz, my M80's always gave great punch down to 40hz in my room. I've experimented many, many times with different xo's and the sound was always best at 40hz. Not that the EP500 couldn't handle above 40hz, just my thoughts are the M80's did a better job of providing the tight musical bass I preferred.

So I decided that now that I have 2 18 inch drivers, lets change the crossover to 80hz and take some tasks off the M80's.

Now keep in mind that I have only heard the SHO-10 as my center (while waiting on my sub amps) with the EP500 and I was blown away by the SHO-10. On my Onkyo 3008 the sub level was -0- (EP500) and the SHO-10 was set by Audyssey at -6, but I much prefer -1. The SHO-10 destroyed my Axiom VP150 center by a long shot. I only listen to 9.1 "All Channel" music. I have wides and heights as well as QS8's surrounds. The full impact of 9.1 channels and the ambiance effects are killer in my room for music listening.

Now I have always evaluated my system performance with one reference song that I know very well and have listened to for over 25 years. I know this song so well from the bass guitar notes to the punch of the kick drum to the sizzle of the high-hat cymbals, and how it's supposed to sound to me. I have always used it as reference song whenever I make changes/additions to my system. And always use this song for final tweaking after audyssey. The song is Molly Hatchet's Dreams I'll never See.

So I set the Daytons gain just a little over 3 (10:00 o clock) and AVR level to -2 for both sub channels from Audysseys level of -4. Bass Boost and subsonic filter are both off.

Cue the song, set the volume at -12 on my AVR as this is the volume I always use to evaluate this song. Press enter on the remote and the song starts...

The room is dead silent, then the guitar starts with a pluck of the strings, nice so far...I'm thinking I can't wait to hear this song kick in full bore. Just the guitar goes on, then you start to hear the keyboards slowly ramp up, then the harmonic bass guitar plucks start to shine through, getting louder...and louder. Then the lead vocalist starts his "hmmm" and "yea, yea" ever so gently. It's all starting to come together preparing for that moment when the drummer joins in with the rest of the instruments. If you ever played guitar or drums, you could appreciate this even more. Finally, a few seconds into the song intro, the drums crack the low toms, then the loud huge crack of the snare drum and the brilliant crystal clear crash of the cymbal and all of the impact of the musicians instruments come together on that first note and the room is filled with a powerful musical nirvana bliss that I not experienced before with this song...ever.

It's hard to describe but let me tell you that my heart beat increased, my stomach started to feel funny and a wave of adrenaline came over my whole body, then as the song is belting out 107 dbs (see pic below) so cleanly and clearly, a huge smile came across my face and I actually yelled out (during the song)! :bigsmile:

Needless to say I am very happy, I listened to so many of my favorite songs it was awesome and I listened to them loud. Last night and this morning I started demo'ing the blu-ray of Super 8, Avatar and Battle LA.

The visceral impact and my living room walls shaking on the train crash of Super 8 was nothing short of amazing. One of height speakers actually fell off the wall and broke! ticked me off, but it was still awesome. Just knowing that the subsonic power from my SS-18's actually destroyed some of my property was pretty cool. My wife was mad, she just walked out of the room after I turned it way down and said..."That's just ridiculous for something to be that loud." I starting laughing when she said that.

So there you have it, sorry for the long post. I would definitely recommend CHT products to anyone and have already done so. Craig has come a long way and I congratulate him. The customer service I got was outstanding, the product I got is just awesome, and the price...well, we already know the price to performance ratio, at least in my mind, cannot be beat. I'm so happy I did not order from the "other ID companies". What a value CHT products really are.

Now, I just have to get 2 more SHO-10's to replace my wides...


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## sub_crazy (Nov 17, 2007)

Nice review and nice set-up!

Are you planning on replacing your Axiom mains with CHT speakers as well?


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## 86eldel68-deactivated (Nov 30, 2010)

Great review, and congrats on your new acquisitions! :T


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## tcarcio (Jun 27, 2007)

Great review. I just got 2 pro10's and a Sho10 for my LCR and I am very impressed so far. I am going to do some break in time before I run Audyssey and then give my best opinion. Sounds like you are very happy with your set up though. Good luck. TC.


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## dduval (Feb 26, 2012)

sub_crazy said:


> Nice review and nice set-up!
> 
> Are you planning on replacing your Axiom mains with CHT speakers as well?



That is the plan! I will try the SHO-10 as wides first then mains and make the decision then.
I'm thinking moving the M80's to wides and using SHO-10's as mains may just be the ticket...


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## dduval (Feb 26, 2012)

tcarcio said:


> Great review. I just got 2 pro10's and a Sho10 for my LCR and I am very impressed so far. I am going to do some break in time before I run Audyssey and then give my best opinion. Sounds like you are very happy with your set up though. Good luck. TC.



Thanks TC and congrats on your new setup as well! Enjoy them...:T


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## sbdman (Dec 21, 2008)

tcarcio said:


> Great review. I just got 2 pro10's and a Sho10 for my LCR and I am very impressed so far. I am going to do some break in time before I run Audyssey and then give my best opinion. Sounds like you are very happy with your set up though. Good luck. TC.


Same setup as mine! And I'm very pleased with the results. Really clears up the dialog during those intense scenes with explosions, down to the whispering scenes where a lesser setup would need to be turned up because you missed what was being said.

And the dynamics, I see no reason to think about an external amp. Just keeps getting louder and never muddies up.


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## madpoet (Jul 26, 2010)

Yeah I just sold my beloved Outlaw 770 to fund the purchase of the Sho10s. With that sensitivity I won't need it. But I will miss my 90 pound beast!


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## tcarcio (Jun 27, 2007)

sbdman said:


> Same setup as mine! And I'm very pleased with the results. Really clears up the dialog during those intense scenes with explosions, down to the whispering scenes where a lesser setup would need to be turned up because you missed what was being said.
> 
> And the dynamics, I see no reason to think about an external amp. Just keeps getting louder and never muddies up.


I haven't even run Audyssey yet and they sound great. The louder that you play them they just keep getting better. I was watching a Ted Nugent BD yesterday and I was at 100db at my LP with still plenty more to go and they never distorted or broke up at all. I am running them on Crown amps at 300w per channel though so that helps....:bigsmile:


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## tesseract (Aug 9, 2010)

Thanks for sharing, Dana. Nice system! :banana:

I run my SHO-10s with a 75 wpc (8 ohm) British integrated amp. No issues and my amp runs cooler than it did with any of the other 4 pairs of speaker I have had it hooked up to recently.


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## engtaz (Jul 9, 2010)

Beautiful setup. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on the Dual SS-18.1's and SHO-10. The hard part now is refraining from adding more subs. The SS18.1 are very accurate and have tons of punch and blend very very well with the front speakers for great 2 channel listening.


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## madpoet (Jul 26, 2010)

Bah, there's no such thing as too many subs! Add all ya want :hsd:


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## sbdman (Dec 21, 2008)

engtaz said:


> Beautiful setup. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on the Dual SS-18.1's and SHO-10. The hard part now is refraining from adding more subs. The SS18.1 are very accurate and have tons of punch and blend very very well with the front speakers for great 2 channel listening.


The only hard part is convincing the wife, "those Dayton amps are only doing half their part. They need an extra SS-18.1 stacked on top to work correctly!"

I guess there's that silly problem of buying them?

It will be interesting to see if you change out your front L/R system - they are formidable speakers.


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## dduval (Feb 26, 2012)

sbdman said:


> The only hard part is convincing the wife, "those Dayton amps are only doing half their part. They need an extra SS-18.1 stacked on top to work correctly!"
> 
> I guess there's that silly problem of buying them?
> 
> It will be interesting to see if you change out your front L/R system - they are formidable speakers.


Yep! That's where I'm at, convincing the wife...:sweat:

I will let you know if they (SHO-10's) best the M80's...I really love the M80's and pretty excited to see if the SHO's beat them. I read where another guy replaced his M80's with the SHO's and he stated it was a fairly significant upgrade. Indeed, it will be interesting...


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## sbdman (Dec 21, 2008)

What did you think about Dale Rasco's review of the Sho-10's compared to his M80s? The comment that stuck out to me was


> The sound coming from the SHO-10’s is sheer bliss as the speakers reproduce the song with as perfect rendering as I have ever heard with a sonic accuracy not found in any other speaker I’ve heard in this price range.


I guess you might PM him about which he would prefer without qualification, I think he did say they were a little bright compared to his system.

Overall, I thought it was a revealing review.


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## dduval (Feb 26, 2012)

sbdman said:


> What did you think about Dale Rasco's review of the Sho-10's compared to his M80s? The comment that stuck out to me was
> I guess you might PM him about which he would prefer without qualification, I think he did say they were a little bright compared to his system.
> 
> Overall, I thought it was a revealing review.


Dale's comment about accuracy is exactly what struck me as well. The other words I keep hearing about the sho-10's are "excellent dynamics" "wide" "soundstage". 

It's funny too, I hear people describe the axiom M80's as "bright" which is exactly one of the reasons I purchased them to begin with. I highly prefer more emphasis on the higher end of the frequency range. I cannot stand any speaker that sounds muffled or restrained on the highs. Probably my hearing but sometimes I actually bump up the treble on my M80's when listening to music. :bigsmile:

This is also what I love about using the sho-10 as my center speaker, it just cuts like a knife, clear and precise. :T


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## 86eldel68-deactivated (Nov 30, 2010)

My buddy's Axiom M60s were bright but, more importantly, they sounded a bit harsh when played at louder volumes. His VP150 was never quite up to the task. He switched to SHO-10s across the front and now he can crank the volume as loud as he wants and nothing ever sounds harsh. Just big, clean and precise. The SHO-10s are very impressive HT speakers. :T

FWIW, another buddy and I - both of whom have Studio 60v4s + CC-690v5 - admire what the SHOs can do but, ultimately, prefer our Paradigms for overall (HT *and* music) sound. YMMV.


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## Technosponge (Oct 28, 2011)

What are thoughts on doing just a sho 10 for center duty until able to replace l/r? Will my front stage be off a lot as I have infinity rs5 as l/r now? I use Aud xt if that makes a difference.


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## Technosponge (Oct 28, 2011)

I am pretty confident ill like sho 10 for center duty. Now struggle is to get shos for l/r or pros. I have never owned speakers like sho before. Mostly silk dome tweeter.


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## dduval (Feb 26, 2012)

I have had the sho10 as a center for almost a month now (with axiom m80 mains) and love it. Blends in great with my axioms.

It was a huge step up from my axiom vp150 center-fyi


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## Technosponge (Oct 28, 2011)

Thanks. I'm looking forward to replacement of all my speakers with exception of my qaudpole surrounds. I'm curious as to why some use sho for center and pro for other channels? Can you hear a difference in drivers during a movie?


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## dduval (Feb 26, 2012)

Not sure on that Techno. I only have sho-10 center. 
I was going to replace my mains with sho's, but changed my mind. I do hear that the pro's are slightly more warmer and better for music, but it's all personal preference as well

I do know that I'm very happy with my sho-10 as a center. Especially for the money spent.


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