New SVS Sealed Sub (1 Viewer)

[SethH]

I'm really surprised this hasn't been discussed yet. SVS announced on their news page that they are about to begin pre-orders for their first sealed sub. It is a 14" cube with the new 12.3 driver in it. It will run between $700 and $800 dollars.

I, for one, am certainly looking forward to Ed Mullen getting his hands on one of these so we can find out what it's capable of.

Here's the link:
http://svsound.com/news-news.cfm

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Same here...a sealed sub with SVS's know-how is an interesting proposition. The market is flooded with little subs who's only claim is to size...we'll see how this one changes things. Ed would be the guy to tell it like it is, of course.
I think they might even hit their timeline, which is unusual in this market.

 

[John Garcia]

Well, it said they were in development for almost 2 years on it, and they kept it relatively quiet. My sub is larger than a 16-46, so size isn't a concern to me, but I'm still really interested in hearing a review (Ed) of this sub

 

[Rudi B]

I built a similiar design little sealed cube with a SS RL-I12 driver (a TC Sounds TC2+). It was actually sonically very similiar to the PB12/2+ except when it came to the deep stuff - obviously.

The "punchy" characterstic of this design now serves me well in the trunk of the car.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it does in its class. Some cool features. Not sure how many will use the XLR's, but they're cool, too.

 

[Brent_S]

Uhm, the press release doesn't actually say it's a 12.3 driver. If TomV wanted to plop one of his existing drivers into a sealed cabinet with some tweaked EQ, he probably could have done that anytime he wanted in the last 6 years.

I will be surprised if the SB12 doesn't use a driver that's optimized for the sealed alignment.

 

[mylan]

It will be interesting to find out how this thing sounds but, from experience with a sealed sub, it had better be something unreal or it will fall short on performance for H.T. I have a Velodyne HGS 10 that had good output in my old house but in my dedicated home theater on carpet over concrete, it just dies. I know we are talking 10" vs. 12" drivers but I doubt there would be that much more output considering amp power, size, and design. There are some things you just can't beat the law of physics on and enclosure size= better output. I'm no engineer, I can be proven wrong but until I hear from one of our sub experts, I will have to believe that this is going to be a good music sub and nothing else.

 

[LanceJ]

Wow, some of y'all have such stratospheric goals for subs!

I remember when we sold the Cambridge SoundWorks subwoofer back in 1994 and while relatively speaking it wasn't quite as loud as the Cerwin-Vega 10" and AudioSource 12" ported subs in the speaker theater, it most definitely beat the crap out of them depth-wise. An overall clean/rich/rumbly personality. It only had a 140 watt amp for some reason (probably because Henry Kloss was always a bit on the conservative side) so a more potent version would probably be in order for really large rooms. Stereo Review (yea I know not the ultimate in testing but anyway...) said it had useful output down to 20 Hz and I believe it. Unfortunately it was rather overpriced & also not exactly a work of art.

A more recent example of an acoustic-suspension sub I thought sounded excellent and had no problems shaking the room was Martin-Logan's "Descent". It uses three 10" drivers + a 400 watt RMS amp (.07% THD) in a tidy-sized cabinet.

From ML's site:


Though I've never heard it, Adire's Rava subwoofer has always received great reviews, though I sure wish they hadn't doubled the price over the nearly-identical first generation version. :frowning:

And I have to get this out: I don't care what the number-crunchers say, similar-sized bass reflex and acoustic-suspension systems do not always sound the same. Again: not their output or depth of response, their sound. I find it weird that on some design sites some writers go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to prove they do, when my own ears have told me numerous times they do NOT.

BTW: compared to bass reflex designs, enclosure size for acoustic-suspension systems doesn't play as big a role in determining its performance. Anybody who's heard one of those Sunfire subs has a good idea of what I'm speaking of.

 

[mylan]

Yep, I have heard the Sunfire, it was between it and the Velodyne when I was auditioning subs. The Sunfire sounded bloaty and one-notety. You could hear the cone material vibrate when it reached its limit, similiar to a whoopee cushion. The Velo just stopped getting louder. The cones in these small subs have about four inches of excursion to overcome their size, being pushed by an amp with 1000W R.M.S./3000W peak. This is how they overcome their limited size. I still say i'll believe it when/if I hear it with regards to the SB-01.

 

[SethH]

 

[Jack Gilvey]

So, despite one's personal feelings over sealed/vented, this one exists because it's small, and sealed allows small.

 

[mylan]

That is essentially what I have been trying to say, Ron just put it better than I. It is not a personal feeling one way or the other. I know I would prefer smaller rather than larger, even now having more space but not wanting to accommodate that large of a box (that and not having the cash!). I do know I will still get a sub from SVS, just not one of these. My space is simply too large and no small sub is really going to pressurize the room properly.

 

[LanceJ]

I used the Sunfire as a common - and extreme - example of one of those ultra-compact subs, but I never said it sounded the best. And anyway, EVERY sub has its limits and even a $500 15" driver in a 6 cu/ft enclosure will eventually slam against its internal mechanical limiters if pushed too hard.

If any speaker brand made sealed designs look bad IMO it was probably Acoustic Research (this was back in the late 70s/early 80s) . While they had awesome extension for their size, many models reaching further down than most peoples' actual music ever did, gawd were they ever major power sponges. Couple that with their usual 4 ohm impedance and you've got an excellent recipe for blown amp power line fuses, tripping protection circuitry in most mid-fi receivers and blown tweeters because an amp was being pushed past its clean output limits. Certain English speakers also shared some of these qualities but luckily were usually rated at 8 ohms to prevent the really nasty stuff from happening. And in my opinion, most AR's dry and staid sound, unfairly or not, subtly added to the displeasure with the sealed design, helping to put more nails in the acoustic-suspension coffin.

On the other hand............Advent, EPI, Genesis, Boston Acoustics and many other brands that used sealed systems were designed more reasonably (IIRC most of their larger models with 10" drivers made it to "only" the low 30s) and didn't require the monster amps many ARs required. They still weren't as efficient as a bass reflex speaker with a similar-sized woofer, but that was just a relative thing. And for many people their velvety & rich bass was and still is a positive thing. Though I'll admit sophisticated computer-modeling techniques (starting in the early 80s) have allowed reflex designs, which are inherently more complicated to design, to capture some of that special sound.

But by the mid 80s or so, the loudness wars were heating up (and receiver specs were twisted to artificially inflate wattage specs & [just a coincidence?] power meters on receivers had basically disappeared) and anything that didn't contribute to a colon-emptying atmosphere was frowned upon. :frowning:

 

[MaRtIn^dB]

it'll be interesting to see how this sub will compare to the UFW-12...albeit a little above it in price. With such a small cabinet...it does'nt inspire a lot of confidence. How much amplifier power they'll use is another question. The biggest limitation, of course, will be the Xmax of the driver...the bane of all sealed subwoofers. Undoubtedly, like the ufw12, it'll be highpassed in the 20-25 Hz range...i'd guess at least a 2nd order subsonic. Thus you'll be losing the preferred 2nd order roll off of the sub.

I'm sure that adherents of the sealed sound will use multiples of this sub to boost HT output...like many have done with ufw12. It will probably be less visceral than its vented counterparts down low.

It is my opinion that dual driver configurations are the only way to go with a sealed subwoofer...preferably 15". Too much output and extension is lost versus vented designs. These single driver applications really have to work hard, especially when equalized to low f3's.

While i'm sure this sub will be quite musical, i would'nt expect all-world output...as Jack stated, there is only so much displacement available in a 12" driver.

 

[LanceJ]

So this sub won't be usable at all for movies?

Or, maybe SVS should build a driver like this for their sealed sub.

 

[MaRtIn^dB]

It'll be usable for movies but, depending on the roll off (subsonic filter), may not have the tactility of the vented 12" models which can tune down to 16 and even 12 Hz.

The ufw12 incorporates a highpass filter at about 23 Hz, iirc, this results in a *84 dB/octave roll-off slope, as noted by Ed Mullen in his review...as a result, response below 25 Hz falls rapidly...he did'nt even bother to test at 20 Hz!

You'll need a "very" small room to circumvent the steep roll off. In any event, by 16 Hz, where the vented 12's have the port at maximum response, the sealed 12, at this roll off slope, will be only whispering.

Now running two of these will get you more output, but you still won't realize any added extension. The biggest advantage for this sub will be in the regions above 25-30 Hz. A lot of what we call "slam" in movies, occurs from 25-80 Hz, so i'd say that two of them would be quite formidable. That said, there would definitely be less "observed" infrasound than the vented models.

There are few guys that use a ufw12-SVS combination...crossing the svs low and letting it concentrate on frequencies below about 40 Hz...meanwhile the ufw12 does it thing from there, on up to 80 or 100 Hz. There's some advanced integration involved, i'm sure, but some have obtained good results...a best of both worlds approach, if you will.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

That should be an interesting comparison, if an obvious one. The Onix has been highly touted in subjective reviews as quite "musical" despite its higher-than-reflex group delay and upper-bass non-linearity (both of which have been blamed for amusicality when present in other subwoofers). Directly comparable testing from Ed Mullen would be illustrative, hopefully he gets one.

 

[LanceJ]

Thanks Martin. I use my HT system for about 60% music and I watch a lot of old-moldy movies (especially sci-fi and comedy varieties) with only mono soundtracks, so I look at subs differently than most people here.

 

[Tom Vodhanel]

SVS Hi all,

Please don't hesitate to email SVS directly with any questions about the suitability of any SVS/SVSound product for your situation. As most have noted, if you are considering ANY small cube, it should be because you cannot accept a larger enclosure into the room for some reason. A larger subwoofer is always going to offer the potential for more “bang for the buck”. (see Hoffman’s Iron Law ).

If the primary driving force in the purchase decision is budget…then look for the best performing $700-$800 subwoofer you can find(and the SB12 surely isn’t it.. For exmaple, our own $429 subwoofer will be very close >40-45hz and have a substantial advantage in the 16-32hz octave. But if the primary issue is size…and you are limited to something around 14”(cube)…I do believe the new SB12($699) will offer a combination of size/performance/features that many will consider an attractive value.

Tom V.

 

[mylan]

Thanks for your input Tom, I was wondering when you were going to chime in. I appreciate your honesty. Lance, if you need a small sub for music listening and those"moldy old movies" PM me and we'll talk about setting you up with my Velo so I can get a PB12/plus