I need help on this. I own a front firing sub now from PSB that is 10 yrs old. I looking to buy the Definitive Technology ProCinema 1000 system which sounds great on music and DVD's. I went to 2 audio stores and both said the Def Tech sub is front firing. I looked at the sub but never really looked carefully at he bottom of the sub. I had no reason to doubt what they said since they were high end shops. I need that type of sub as I live in a 60 year old apartment and do not want to have anything firing down into the floor. Front Firing has work well in this environment so far. The brochure on the Def Tech system has 2 statements which make me think this is really not a front firing sub. The first says "New Prosubs with 300 watt digital amps feature forward-firing woofers coupled to down-firing sub-bass radiators. The second is "Specially engineered 8" and 10" high velocity long throw drivers are combined with downward firing pressure-coupled mediate sub base radiators and 300 watt digital amplifiers. So needless to say I went back an looked at the sub and there is what looks like a 10" speaker pointing down and also one in the front pointing out. Will the sub actully fire down or fire frontwards or both. I hope someone can help me understand what this all means.
If it says front firing...then it is front firing. The bass radiators are not speakers, they look like speakers designed to move with the speakers when it is pushing air.
Put "passive radiators" in a search engine and you will get your answers.
I went on the websearch and looked up passive radiators as you suggested and called up Def Tech. I was satisfied with all the info about how a passive radiator works. I went out this afternoon and got the Def Tech ProCinema 1000. Hooked up the sub and 2 minutes into listening to it I was putting it back in the box. Even though it had a down firing passive radiator you would think it was a down firing sub with the mount of sound going into the floor. My 10 year old PSB Subsonic 1 actually worked better. Maybe I will keep my PSB's after all.
