Spec Overview
Speaker type: powered, double ported
Continuous power handling: 250 W
Peak power handling: 1000 W
Frequency response range: 21 – 200 Hz (+/- 3dB)
Warranty: 5 years electronics, 8 years parts
Review and Discussion
BIC America is a lesser known company, and their website looks like its stuck in the 90s, but they’ve emerged with some really great loudspeakers that compete for the best value at a given price range. The second generation Acoustic PL-200 II, with the roman numeral 2 aptly appending the title of the original, is an outstanding subwoofer at a very competitive price, something which can pair with almost any popular main speakers and last for many years.
The main change they implemented is a bigger cabinet and moving the port to the front and adding a second port. A double port, besides looking pretty neat, allows for more air to move more freely through the cabinet which generally corresponds to better performance. Otherwise the specs remain the same, and they’re excellent. 250 W of continuous power is plenty loud for almost any non commercial home theater system, and the peak of 1000 W is quite high as well, which can really accommodate the short bursts of booming bass. Add to that a response range that’s the best we’ve seen at the price this currently sells for. These are the kinds of specs you want to see on a subwoofer that can really reproduce things like booming explosions when watching movies.
The design is great too – you have the option of removing the front cover to expose the chrome metallic driver and ports. The sides are fairly standard grainy MDF, but the tom/bottom bezels are a neat looking shiny piano black. The unit is on the heavier and larger side but it’s not quite as bulky as some of it’s similarly powered competitors. Also you don’t have to worry too much about placing it on an optimal surface since the ports are on the front rather than the bottom.
Beyond that, this subwoofer comes with a 5 year warranty on electronics and extended 8 year warranty on the driver and cabinet, which is the best coverage we’ve seen at this price. You know you’ll be getting something that’s built to last.
Our Overall Take, As Compared to the Competition
The value you get for the price on the PL-200 II is amazing – we haven’t seen any other sub that’s gone for ~$300 that brings so much to the table.
BIC’s F12 (reviewed here) is a similarly great subwoofer, one of our favorite budget subwoofers actually, and is a great alternative if you don’t quite need the size and/or power of the PL-200 II.
Also a great lower priced option is Polk’s PSW505 (reviewed here) – this actually has more continuous power output than the PL-200 II but an inferior range and warranty. We’d say, between this and the F12 as an alternative, just going with the best deal at the time is a safe bet.
Another popular competitor is Klipsch’s R-12SW (reviewed here), and while we like Klipsch and think they make many great speakers, we can’t recommend this as it’s both more expensive and inferior to the PL-200 II in pretty much every way. Maybe if you could snag it at a great price, maybe.
Beyond that, we also realize and will say that plenty of people just don’t need a 200 w + subwoofer – there are plenty of cheaper options that are perfectly decent and will pair just fine with lesser main speakers, and that might be all you need if your room is on the smaller side. Check out the links below for more information on that.
