Anyone own a BK Gemini? Or heard one?

WantoN

WantoN

WantoN

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I'm after a new sub for Hi-Fi and Film use. Max budget is £200. The BK stuff seems to be well rated and very well specced for the price.

Anyone have experience or knowedge of it? Any good. Could you suggest alteratives?

Cheers!
Ant :cool:
 
Ive had a Mission M3AS for quite a while now and couldn't be happier with it.

£195 from a well known retailer at the minute.
 
spookywillow said:
photoshop just got one, not sure if he's happy with it tho.
Click to expand...

I got mine a few days ago.
I've been tinkering with it ever since.

Negative:

  1. Known issue with the sub buzzing when using "LFE".Just have a look at all the posts over at AVForums. This buzzing is not exclusivel to the Gemini as other subs sometimes do this aswell. There are a lot of variables that can cause this.
Goes away when you take it off LFE. I leave mine on 120Hz and i find it my setup i get deeper bass when not using LFE so its worked out alright for me.

Positive

  1. Small and compact.
  2. Looks really nice
  3. Has a LED display on the back so you can see what freq you are using (High and Low).
  4. Nice clean deep bass.
  5. Can really hit the high notes and you can see the wattage LED's light up at the back when its producing a thundering bass :)
  6. No distortion or crackling
  7. Music sounds great with the Gemini.

I really like it. Its a perfect companion to my setup and im sure once i have my SPL Metre and have tweaked my setup a bit more, it will only get better.

But, the question is how big is your room?
The Gemini will be a perfect companion in small to small medium sized rooms.

My room is 5x4metres so its around a medium sized room but its well compacted with plenty of furniture and stuff and i believe this has an impact on my sound stage.

If you have a similar sized room then i would recommend the Gemini. If your room is larger then maybe the BK XLS200 will be better but its £100 more....

Heres a pic of it tucked in the corner:

 
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I have a BK Minotaur, its slightly smaller younger brother. Can't say I've noticed buzzing once I've adjusted the low level gain. It really is a wife friendly sub as its small and unobtrusive and for a small room I find it's plenty strong enough.
 
the Gemini is a great sub for the cash and is so dinky as well. very easy to hide. How big is your room though, the Gemini will stuggle in larger rooms. there are soem real bargains to be had if you look around.

EPOS M SUB SUBWOOFER - £244 (was £640!)
EPOS ELS SUB SUBWOOFER - £197 (was £370)

I am so tempted to buy the Epos M, its a steal at that price, I cant see them being around for long.
 
I can only speak of BK as a company as I own the BK Monolith and have not seen the Gemini. The monolith is extremely well built, has worked flawlessly for two years, and will take anything you throw at it. Delivery was excellent, with the two of them carefully boxed and packaged onto a pallet.

It's worth joining up with AVFORUMS, one of the guys on there works for BK so can answer most queries.

Also note that BK have been known to do custom colours/finishes if you want something that fits in with your setup.
 
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kidloco said:
EPOS M SUB SUBWOOFER - £244 (was £640!)
EPOS ELS SUB SUBWOOFER - £197 (was £370)
Click to expand...

Damn they are a steal!!!!!

I'm thinking about getting the EPOS M and putting the Gemini in the other living room...........

Damn you kidloco for pointing that out :D your burning a hole in my pocket
 
photoshop said:
Damn they are a steal!!!!!

I'm thinking about getting the EPOS M and putting the Gemini in the other living room...........
Click to expand...

I own one of these. Its absolutely brilliant with music, its a sealed system, with no port tuning, so you don't get that one-note effect that some port tuned subs seem to produce. The downside is that it doesn't produce as strong spl at the low frequencies as some other subs. However for a small or medium size room, its still plenty powerful enough, my GF complains about it whenever we watch films.

Theres a better review here;
http://www.epoz.com.au/Review AVL M Sub.pdf
 
firstborn said:
So how would the Epos M compare to the XLS200-DF? Anyone have and ideas?
Click to expand...

Now thats the real problem. Because BK sell SPL meters on their website some XLS200 owners purchased them and were able to post up pretty graphs of data recorded using REW. The upshot was that the graphs showed it to be a good sub, and with all the data available to back up the claim people were soothed in justifying the purchase (cunning marketing?)

The downside is that to compare the Epos M against it, I'd either have to buy a SPL meter to produce the pretty graphs for people, or buy a XLS200 to compare it as part of my system. I've never heard an XLS200, my local hifi shops obviously do not stock them (they are direct from the manufacturer), so I couldn't do a comparison test.

For all Hi-Fi equipment I'd recommend listening to it before purchasing and buying the components that suit you and/or the rest of your system.
The lack of option to A/B test the XLS200 against other equipment is the reason I didn't buy it, it could be the best sub for its price point on the planet, it could be average, but the majority of people buying them don't have a way to compare other than by graphs or comparing to their older tech.

Edit - just found a budget sub test result thread in the subwoofer section of avforums. They've tested the XLS200 against other budget subs including a MS 309. The graphing shows the MS 309 is much more controlled from 25-50hz, but the XLS200 has a little bit more oomph at the lower 20's. Upshot begin everyone going ga-ga for the XLS200 despite the slight wobbles across the rest of the soundstage. However they are AV rather than audiophile nuts, so that may explan why they rate it so highly.
 
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photoshop said:
Damn they are a steal!!!!!

I'm thinking about getting the EPOS M and putting the Gemini in the other living room...........

Damn you kidloco for pointing that out :D your burning a hole in my pocket
Click to expand...

LOL sorry mate. Silly price for such a great sub. If I had to choose the epos m or the xls200 I would pick the epos all day long. The xls is a great £250 sub but the m is a great £650 sub. BIG difference. I really want on but I think the missis would be peeved as she bought me my currant sub only 12 months ago.

AVfirjms is a great resource. But they do tend to go ott on certain products. Normally ones advertised on there site or with power buys. I'm not saying they are not great subs. They are.
 
kidloco said:
LOL sorry mate. Silly price for such a great sub. If I had to choose the epos m or the xls200 I would pick the epos all day long. The xls is a great £250 sub but the m is a great £650 sub. BIG difference. I really want on but I think the missis would be peeved as she bought me my currant sub only 12 months ago.

AVfirjms is a great resource. But they do tend to go ott on certain products. Normally ones advertised on there site or with power buys. I'm not saying they are not great subs. They are.
Click to expand...

I've decided to stick with the Gemini as i've just been tinkering with it and it sounds lush :)

Seeing as this is my 1st AV 5.1 setup i rather enjoy it. I think in 6-9months i will probably upgrade amp/speakers/sub but im happy as of yet. I'm just increasing my knowledge at the moment.
 
@ photoshop, how long did you have to wait for yours to be delivered? i ordered mine in cherry last week, and have heard nothign since :confused:
 
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