|Dual Empire Subwoofers
In Stock - Ships Immediately
- Reference dual 15 inch high output subwoofer
- Combined 1200W RMS amplifier
- Parallel Drive Technology ™
- Sealed cabinet design for improved sound quality & subsonic performance
- Opposed side-firing drivers cancel out cabinet vibration
- Stackable, side-by-side or seperate placement abilities
- Reference midbass performance
- Massive 1 inch thick cabinet
- 1 inch thick grills with acoustically transparent fabric
- Compact CAD designed enclosure
- Precision CNC machined
- Full 1 inch radius corners throughout
- High quality black laminate finish
- RCA and XLR inputs
- Combined 3000W short-term RMS
- Frequency response : 20-300 Hz +/-3.5 dB
- 10 -12 Hz usable in-room extension
- Weight: 280 pounds shipped duals
- Size: Each 22 H x 18 W x 24 D (16W w/o grills)
What sounds better than one Empire? Two Empires. Epik's new revolutionary subwoofer design is available in a dual subwoofer package with better performance and an improved price. The dual system takes the performance of the Empire to the next level.
Dual Empires completely embarrass subwoofers costing $2000 or more. A pair of them will give you bragging rights and usable output down to 10 Hz in most rooms. Many people love the ability to hide two smaller cabinets into their decor versus trying to place one gigantic subwoofers. You can even place them in two different locations in the same room to achieve a more even in-room frequency response.
There is simply no getting around the fact that four drivers working together creates a sense of effortlessness unmatched by nearly anything else at any price. Physics is on our side. When running at normal levels, the drivers are just coasting along. The result is immaculate musicality and SPL levels most subs can only dream about. Add a pair to your audio system and experience what everybody is talking about!
For those with larger rooms or even larger bass appetites, we also offer a quad Empire setup. The bass output of four Empires is staggering. Extension is unmatched and effortlessness takes on a whole new meaning. There are single subwoofers in stores that cost noticeabley more than quad Empires but can't even begin to compete with their output and low frequency prowess. Taking it to the next level has never been this affordable.
Parallel Drive Technology™
Our new Parallel Drive Technology ™ is the driving force behind its performance. We discovered that designing a pair of drivers to specifically replace a single driver can lead to some very large performance increases without an increase in cost, when done right.
The Empire's two drivers have a surface area equivalent to roughly a 21 inch driver. However, we have TWO motors driving the cones in parallel instead of a single motor. Instead of asking one driver to work very hard, we let a pair of driver’s coast through the most torturous of playback materials. Speed, sound quality, explosive dynamics and effortlessness are the name of the game.
This is taken to another level when running dual Empires. The demand of creating SPL is spread over FOUR drivers. If you compare it to a single 15 driver that has to move an inch peak to -peak for a given output, our drivers will only have to move a 1/4 inch for the same output. Compared to a 12 or 13 inch driver, the difference is even more pronounced.
Performance
There are many advantages to this design approach. Having dual drivers allows us to mount the drivers in an opposite-firing configuration. This results in almost no cabinet vibration, especially when compared to single driver subwoofers. If you put your hand on the subwoofer during a very loud passage, you will notice the cabinet doesn't vibrate. The drivers are internally ‘coupled’ via the bracing to cancel the forces on the cabinet. Virtually no energy is transmitted to the ground or floor via the cabinet.
The genius and efficiency of this design is demonstrated if dual Empires are stacked on top of each other. Even with four drivers and two cabinets, the vibration of stacked Empires at full output is nearly nothing. The design eliminates vibrations that can color the sound. When run in separate locations in the same room, you can rest assured that each subwoofer is free from cabinet vibrations that can give away the location of the subwoofers and plague cheaper-made cabinets. They blend in and disappear into your system, just as they should.
The overall output of a pair of Empires is stunning. When called upon, they can unleash a massive amount of clean SPL.The enormous surface area of the drivers creates a wave of effortless pressure that handles demanding home theater and music with ease. Their musical sound and behavior stays in tact no matter how hard you drive them. Big rooms are no problem for dual Empires.
Thanks to their design, they excel at both digging deep and generating extremely high output. The sealed design means that the drivers can't bottom out no matter how low you play them. This means that movies with subsonic material in the soundtrack can be played back without worrying about their performance. Empires are nearly impossible to overdrive, which we can't say is true for every other subwoofer out there. Fire up your favorite movie or CD and crank it up without worry. Your Empires are bulletproof.
What makes this even better is the portability of dual units versus one larger subwoofer. They can be placed next to each other or in different spots in the room to help with room acoustics. They also allow the option to help visually conceal them since they are smaller. This allows them to be more easily placed in difficult rooms.
Nearly all of our customers need a subwoofer that plays double duty for both music and movies. Dual Empire subwoofers deliver incredible performance no matter what the source material. Their sealed design means clean, tight bass through the entire register. The multiple drivers assure concert level output in your listening room. Why go to the movies when the bass can sound this good at home?
Drivers
Dual Empires are sporting major horsepower under the hood. One look at the picture to the right, and you probably don't need to read another word. With almost 100 pounds of motor structure between them, these drivers are absolutely built for performance. Spreading the motor strength between drivers is a driving force behind our Parallel Drive Technology. ™ It is a big part of what helps these subwoofers sound so great.
The Empire uses a pair of proprietary 15 inch drivers. Dual Empires brings the number up to four. They each utilize a Kevlar-reinforced paper pulp cone for maximum stiffness and rigidity while retaining a lightweight cone that reacts quickly to changes in music or movies. The driver's surround and spider are optimized for our sealed cabinet and provide linear operation throughout their range.
To properly control the cones, we use a big motor to realize their full potential. The combined motor/magnet structure depth of the four drivers is a monstrous 8 inches and nearly 8 inches in diameter. This gives these drivers the highest ratio of motor strength to cone weight that we have ever offered.
The magnets of these drivers are large on purpose. Just like a race car, a larger engine increases the overall performance. The larger we made them, the tighter and more accurate they sounded. Making the motor structures smaller is cheaper, but a larger motor = more control = better sound.
The pair of voice coils run cool as the power of each amplifier is split between them, instead of being sent to just one coil. This was done on purpose to maximize dynamics and minimize compression. This means that if you are listening to music or movies at high output levels for a long period of time, the output stays loud because the voice coils stay cool. That is a great thing!
As many people know by now, the combined performance of four of our proprietary 15 inch drivers is nearly untouchable for the price. The playback demands of any audio source are easily handled by the four voice coils and enormous magnets controlling them. You will be rewarded with effortless bass that sounds amazing at any level.
Cabinet
The low end of the Empire also has some nice advantages thanks to its sealed design. It does not generate ANY port noise. This makes it far more difficult to localize in a room, as it can disappear completely from the soundstage as it should. Its sealed cabinet sounds incredibly tight and clean in the lowest regions with no overhang. Its low end is crisp and controlled.
Subsonic bass occurs more naturally with the sealed design as well. The Empire does not roll off below tuning like a ported subwoofer does. You also can not unload the driver at extremely low frequencies like a ported design, thanks to the natural air-spring inside the cabinet.
We have increased the thickness of our cabinet's outer walls to 1 inch throughout. The dual grills also feature 1 inch thick construction. We've even tooled-up our own massive set of custom metal grill pins to hold the Empire grills without a hint of vibration. Nothing off-the-shelf worked, so we went ahead and designed our own.
But we didn't stop there. The cabinet even features an internal sub-enclosure for the amplifier. The amplifier rests comfortably in its own air-tight enclosure. This is pretty much a first, compared to nearly any other online speaker or subwoofer company. Thanks to the force-cancelling driver configuration and the airtight sub-enclosure, the amplifier experiences almost no vibration or stress. As a result, the amplifier performs better and lasts longer.
When a customer places dual Empires in their room, the build quality is immediately apparent. The pair of them weighs in at nearly 240 pounds total. At this price point, you are lucky if you can find a product that breaks the 100 pound mark. This means our unbelievably stout cabinet design won't degrade the performance with vibrations.
Amplifier
Our proven amplifier design has all of the features you could possibly want and then some. It has dedicated direct inputs for both crossover and LFE usage. We even offer these inputs in both RCA and XLR inputs for the highest quality audio systems. Being able to generate 600 watts RMS and 1500 watts short term RMS doesn't hurt either.
To help with functionality, we've also included several features for plug-and-play setup. The crossover can be bypassed for use with a receiver or set between 50-150 Hz. It has a phase control that can be set at 0 or 180 degrees to help blend with your main speakers. You even also activate the amplifiers 'auto-on' function, which automatically turns the subwoofer on and off when you are listening to music or a movie.
The amplifier is an ultra-efficient Class D design. It features an advanced switching power supply that offers both 120 and 220 Volt operation. The no-hum ground-loop free design means that the only sound coming out of the subwoofer is deep, clean bass. Its thick steel face plate and massive dual internal heat sinks allow it to play clean and stay reliable.
Since the amplifier sits in its own airtight housing, it runs very predictably and stays cool. Thanks to the driver configuration, there are also no vibrations to shorten the life of the amplifier or compromise sound quality. We didn't miss a single detail with this subwoofer or its components.
Dual Empires utilize a pair of these extremely reliable monsters to bring performance to a new level. Thanks to their extremely efficient design, they can run comfortably off of a single household outlet. This means you get all of the performance that dual Empires have to offer.
Satisfaction
We've noticed that our customers often crank up their subwoofers for the first few days with the loudest material possible. They are excited about experiencing bass at high output levels. After the subwoofer system is run through the ceremonial barrage of bass heavy DVD's or recordings and gets dialed in a little bit better to the room, customers start listening to how it actually sounds.
This is when the subwoofer starts to show its true colors. All of the low bass output in the world can not fix muddy, bloated and unmusical bass performance. That is why the Empire was designed around sound quality first and foremost.
When the Empire is reproducing an audio signal, it just sounds better. It gives you everything that you expect from an Epik subwoofer, but it also raises the bar for what to expect at this price. Who knew that reference performance could be so affordable? Epik did.