Opinion of S120PII

[FredEmmerich]

Anybody familiar with this sub? Comments? I know nothing of it, saw one on craigs List.

thanks
Fred

[Titanium Dome]

IMO it's the lowest priced JBL sub worth buying.

The Northridge Series and Venue Series 10" and 12" subs are easily bettered by any number of other subs in the price range (lower-end Hsu, SVS, and Velodyne come to mind), but the S120PII at its street price of around $300 is a lot of bang for the buck.

It's a 12" PolyPlas driver, and, despite what some people think of PolyPlas, it's a solid, competent performer. The JBL 8", 10", and 12" PolyPlas units are quite rigid and well damped. People who hear them are surprised; some who haven't heard them make snide comments about how they look. ;)

The 400W amp is powerful enough to really move that PolyPlas cone, and it's got a flared port on the back, along with a pretty complete rear panel.

Again, this is no L8400P ($1100), HTPS400 ($2000) or PS1400 ($1800), but for the money ($699 retail; $300 street) it's a great sub. From what I can tell, it's no longer available new retail from JBL, but it's on the harmanaudio.com specials page, and lots of folks have new ones to sell on ebay.

[bone215]

I own two of them and run them underneath my front left and right speakers in my HT. They handle the lows from around 22-24 Hz (in my room) up to 150Hz. I run the high pass signal to my smaller bookshelves. According to the manual the high pass is 150 Hz. I find their sound to be acceptable considering I paid 280 each for new in the box condition.
Do they go as low and as clean as my ACI Titan II? No, but the ACI was a grand.
I have used them as LFE subs as well. For their intended purpose they are a good value for the money spent. It would be good to consider their worth while taking into consideration when they were made and what was their competition at that time. Since that time I think there are now other offerings, as Ti Dome mentioned above, that go lower and probably a little cleaner.
I have found that these subs, like most subs, need to be set up and calibrated to get the best out of them.
The volume control is a little touchy, but once it is dialed in you don't have to adjust it any more.

[Titanium Dome]

Despite one owner who apparently doesn't know how to set it up, this unit gets very positive reviews by owners here:

http://www.audioreview.com/PRD_132951_2741crx.aspx