SVS loud but not very accurate (1 Viewer)

[SVS-Ron]

Jeremy,
Thanks for the correction. You can tell the marketing arm of SVS needs to get out more ;^). Seriously, can you now imagine a driver and amp which togther perform even better? And around $100 less than you paid?
As we keep telling folks the "old" SVS PC subs were good. Very good. The PCi's are better, and less expensive.
I'm not surprised the SVS won out in your case. With our improved line, on any sort of remotely fair comparison basis (I gotta admit I do like that gloss black finish of the HGS's though ;^) it'd hardly be a fair fight.
When the PC-Plus is out in a few months (around the $1,000 price point) I'd almost feel sorry for someone drawing comparisons. Almost.
Keep in mind that if we had to pay for a dealer support network and $50K twin page ads in Sound and Vision a PCi might cost over $2,000 too.
Fortunately for all our customers that's not the case. We're always game for a credible reviewer to compare subs for all the would-be dealers out there. But how many of you think Velo, Sunfire, Mirage or Polk, et al, will send subs into the ring when it's clear SVS will be there? Just in case you are wondering why there aren't more high-profile reviews out there that include a direct sale subwoofer from our offerings.
PS I think the informal dealer demo Bill referred to is here.. No Velo involved, and the SVS was a first generation PC (vastly improved now with the PCi's now on sale) but I think it speaks to some of the brick and mortar dealer brand-based bravado, and downright ignorance (fear?) of what the web is bringing to the table of the home theater enthusiast these days. Think Diva, Outlaw, Better Cables and other high-content, mid-priced components get praised by the high-margin, high-overhead dealer cadre often?
Not.
Ron

 

[Jeremy Hegna]

"Seriously, can you now imagine a driver and amp which togther perform even better? And around $100 less than you paid?"
It is hard to imagine, but hearing is believing I'll be catching the SVS train again next month...I'm busy paying off my new speakers today....
Ron,
In your opinion, will companies like M&K, Vel, and Sunfire be able to meet the THX Ultra 2 specs? Will the prices be so outrageous for true 20hz output that the public will have limited access to them?
It makes an SVS owner smile everytime he/she is at an audio shop that sells high-end woofin' The price doesn't have to be bank breaking to achieve TRUE thump...look no further than SVS!
Jeremy

 

[Barry Barnes]

I'd bet a buck that not only did he not order one, he has never even heard one. Give TV his name and the approximate date he supposedly bought one and I'll bet you find he's just blowing smoke up your hiney.

Frequency charts don't lie. SVS subs are very accurate. As far as Servo subs go, they are not nearly as dynamic, nor do they have the nice roll off that ported non servo subs do. I have never heard a servo sub that I liked as well as a properly designed conventional ported model. The servos just wimp them out too much IMO.

 

[Arron H]

It's kind of scary how expensive the Velo HGS subs are. I auditioned the HGS10 when I was looking at the small cubes ($1500 list). It seemed preety average considering the $1500 price tag.

The salesperson's big selling point was "watch the sub during the big bass scenes - it moves back and forth!" This was supposed to be an impressive selling point? He had the sub placed right in the middle of about a 15" wall. Not only could I locate the sub, it seemed like it was only filling up the right side of the room. I asked him if he thought it might help to place the sub closer to a corner and he took it as an affront. I don't know how many he has sold but the HGS10 sure seemed weak for $1500.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

Well, aside from the lying about having tested the SVS, I personally think that he wasn't lying so much about the Velodyne being the better sub, if you do an apples to apples comparison - ie, take one SVS sub and compare it to a Velo 18 incher.

Obviously, the velo will be immensely more expensive, but the sales droid wasn't saying the velo was cheaper, he was saying it was better... and I'm not so sure he was lying.

Now if you actually factor in stuff like price and try to compare what kind of bass you get at a given amount of dollars, I'm sure things will look a lot different. As they already noted in the review that was quoted in this thread, two SVS's effectively torpedoed the Velo 18 when it comes to sheer impact and sounded plenty good as well. Adding a BFD to the SVS solution could only improve things further.

Still... in theory you could take two Velo 18 inchers, use a BFD with them as well and again no doubt beat the SVS dual sub configuration for sound. You'd just have to pay truckloads of money to do it, and that is the important thing to consider, IMHO; at an equivalent price point, SVS will apparently out-bass the Velodyne.

 

[Will Gatlin Jr]

Hello...

My buddy is the head of customer service at Velodyne, and I'll send him this thread today. I HOPE he'll report back with some words about Velodyne.

 

[Mark Seaton]

Hi all,
Quite a thread going here...
There are a few issues which should probably be fleshed out here. First, I have acknowledged in the past, and have little complaint in stating that when price and deep bass for the dollar are the primary deciding factors, few will compare well to SVS. Direct sales, elegantly simple cosmetic and construction, and the high expectations of TV and Ron S. make a very potent combo. That said, if we take ultimate price out of the first priority for a moment, we find there are some competent other options on the market. Unfortunately there are still many more heavily limited "boom boxes" calling rather significant pricetags. With minor effort, or even right off the lot, a Camaro SS can run the drag strip with many/most more expensive cars, but often there are many other deciding factors in what car people choose to buy.
Now in this case with Velodyne, particularly the HGS series, we have a somewhat odd duck. The visibility and reputation of the HGS is greatly founded on the FSR series which supposedly they morphed into the HGS making it have more output per cu.ft., not per dollar. In doing so they also happened to bring in some additional compromises. I do get a kick out of posters here commenting that you can't bottom or distort an HGS. You guys need some more capable mains and/or bigger rooms to play in! With various DVDs I have had no trouble ever finding the limit of any single HGS subwoofer, from the HGS-10 to the HGS-18. That limit is quite offensive sounding, try Super Speedway with all speakers set to small, especially in a large room. The only ones I didn't have any occasion with were the systems which I designed mulitple HGS subwoofers into. A dual HGS-18, full Aerial Acoustics system I did in a large basement was one of my favorites prior to joining Sound Physics Labs/ServoDrive. The crutch of all HGS subwoofers is their protection and limiter. It is very noisy in operation. Up to that point, the sub can be very clean and articulate.
There are trade-offs in any subwoofer, and most consumers have a hard time understanding how much of a compromise is made to gain low frequency output. Those in the pro-audio side of things look at our ContraBass and often think the output is on the order of a typicall double 18" pro cabinet, which typically don't even attempt flat response below 40Hz. Instead, the large box is used to allow response to 14-16Hz. As such, the sub isn't meant to produce 125-130dB, but rather produce 114dB at 16Hz (1M ground plane), with modest power and single digit distortion levels. Taking our box, or one of the SVS subwoofers and designing a new driver optomized for a cuttoff 1 octave higher (30Hz rather than 15Hz), we could make a 9dB!!! gain in sensitivity. Of course we all love our very low frequencies.
The HGS subwoofers mostly use the high excursion and power available to force a response which is flat to 20Hz in the 10 & 12 models, and force an even lower cutoff with the 15 and 18. This servo feeback (ServoDrive(TM), our company, is a very different system) system using an accelorometer uses significant power and amplifier headroom to maintain low distortion and flat frequency response within its operating range. This sort of system does make casual comparisons with a non-corrected or limited systems rather difficult. The big catch here is that IF there is not enough very low frequency energy to engage the limiter, then there can be some HUGE headroom in the upper bass range of the HGS subs, with this headroom increasing as you move from model to model. While it obviously makes for a very different response, a flip of the high pass filter switch on an HGS is rather enlightening to demonstrate that it can be quite clean and fine sounding. Unfortunately, most of the movies I own have many other things goin on when deep bass energy is present. The only way to insure that you get the full benefits of the HGS subs is to design in enough headroom for the listening space down to it's low frequency limit. In my personal oppinion and experience, this makes the HGS-10 suited best for obtaining deep, flat response in small spaces from a very small box, definitely not a tiny box that can fill a large room. If we examine the situation a bit more, it makes sense that there could be quite radically different perceptions of this subwoofer's performance dependent on both the space it is used in, the desired level of playback, and the material used for evaluation.
The HGS subwoofers make for an interesting comparison, but for the most part I would currently tend toward the offerings from companies like Triad, NHT's new subs shown at CES, Martin Logan's Descent, Aerial Acoustics' SW-12, Revel, etc. when looking for a different phyisical form or characteristics than what SVS offers. If you want to get really nutty in a given amount of space, you can drop me an e-mail or phone call.
Regards,

 

[Rey_Ramos]

Doesn't bass just bring out the best in everyone?! I had the HGS 18 in my home for about 3 weeks. Really beautiful looking. Sounded very good but sent it back, now waiting for my Ultra. Simply put I could not justify buying it when I knew that I was missing the bottom end because of the way it was designed?!!! (Damn Servo!!!) I paid over 2k for an 18 inch woof that didn't want to go deep. Just bothered me too much. I know people say it has useable output down low, but not at really high volumes. And I know most people don't listen to stuff at reference level but if you pay that much money for something it better do whatever the heck you throw at it. Just the way I think, that's all. Don't mean to step on any toes, don't want to offend anyone. If you did buy it, then that's great you have a very very good performer. Just wan't my cup of tea....bass...whatever.

 

[Arron H]

The only way to insure that you get the full benefits of the HGS subs is to design in enough headroom for the listening space down to it's low frequency limit. In my personal oppinion and experience, this makes the HGS-10 suited best for obtaining deep, flat response in small spaces from a very small box, definitely not a tiny box that can fill a large room. If we examine the situation a bit more, it makes sense that there could be quite radically different perceptions of this subwoofer's performance dependent on both the space it is used in, the desired level of playback, and the material used for evaluation.

Mark, absolutely. But shouldn't the consumer expect more from a $1,500 unit (the HGS10 is actually listed at $1,799 on Velos website) than just deep, flat response in small spaces? It seems like for $1,500 that small box should be able to fill a large room

 

[Mark Seaton]

Mark, absolutely. But shouldn't the consumer expect more from a $1,500 unit (the HGS10 is actually listed at $1,799 on Velos website) than just deep, flat response in small spaces? It seems like for $1,500 that small box should be able to fill a large room

Hi Arron,

That's something for the purchaser to decide. I don't know of many (any?) current products which can play flat to 20Hz with such a small form factor. Carver's boxes are the only other option. The fact is you can't cheat the physics of sound. In fact that's where the name of our company came from. With a single, sealed 10" driver with 1" of excursion each way, there are hard limits on what you can produce, and what sort of power will be required in a given enclosure. If you want an HGS-10 to fill a monsterous room, just flip the HP switch for the 35Hz -3dB point... Or get another box. There may be rooms where you have only 12" of height and depth under cabinets, table, or whatever, but let's say you do have width. If asthetics dictated that in no way you could have a large black SVS cylinder out in the room, a pair of HGS-10 subwoofers would probably be one of the best solutions to obtaining the best performance. To some, ~$3k would be worth not hearing moaning from the significant other while you can enjoy some deep bass.

The form factor of SVS takes advantage of larger enclosure volumes to achieve better deep bass performance at reasonable costs. If you can accomidate them, they offer a great price to performance ratio. Some prefer the look of a rosewood Aerial SW-12, a Revel B-15, a Martin Logan Descent or the size of a Velodyne or Triad sub over a black cylinder. Albeit at a higher cost, all of these are valid solutions to achieving quality deep bass reproduction. Ironically, in single use, I would say the HGS 10,12,15 are my least preferred of those mentioned above.

Regards,

 

[Randy G]

>>It seems like for $1500, that small box should be able to fill a large room

 

[Jim_C]

>>To me, the REAL challenge is to try to get better and better performance from a smaller and smaller enclosure...that is, unless you don't give a hoot HOW big your sub is.

 

[Mark Seaton]

Jim,
You wrote:

It might be a challenge to get better and better performance from smaller enclosures. However, I don't agree with you that it's the REAL challenge. That, to me, would be to create a product that has a perfectly flat FR and produces music exactly as you would hear it in a live setting. All while playing at the volume that you were intended to listen to.

I fully agree, yet we need to also consider the application and work to design products which will work in the intented space. Not everyone can find a place to mount an 4+ driver IB subwoofer system. While we can't suspend the laws of physics, we can work with them. Manufacturing and other limits of building drivers dictate that traditional drivers still leave room to reach for the maximum theoretical output from a given size enclosure. Likewise efforts to solving the small box requirement need to concentrate on allowing linear operation at high power and the required excursion levels.
How does >2" p-p from a pair of 18" cones in a ~3.5 cu.ft. sealed box sound? NO EQ required in most rooms. :rolleyes

 

[Tom Vodhanel]

>>>How does >2" p-p from a pair of 18" cones in a ~3.5 cu.ft. sealed box sound? NO EQ required in most rooms...

 

[Jim_C]

Mark and Randy,

Just to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with the entire argument because Randy has some valid points. I'm only providing an opposing opinion to the specific statement that I quoted.

What I do disagree with is the notion that the goal to be achieved is to make a sub as small as possible. We're not talking about cell phones and laptops here. The goal should be accurate, distortion free sound that doesn't cost a fortune. Size matters not.

 

[Brian Bunge]

Jim,
Randy's whole point is that aesthetics is the deciding factor for him. As long as he's getting adequate output he's happy. Plus he gives me this crap about living in a high rise condo, blah, blah, blah...
If I were in his situation I'd have to bit the bullet and get the Adire Rava/Rava SE for $399/$529 in the gloss black and just live with an 18" cube. It would give him all the output he required in his current environment and won't break the bank in the process. After all, it's only 4" larger per side than the HGS 12 he's getting!
Brian

 

[Randy G]

Geez Brian, if you were gonna recommend a sub twice as big as the HGS-12, I would have bet my last dollar that it would have been the Titan II.

And as for Jim_C's comment that "size matters not", well, I'll admit that there are many on this forum that would agree with him, but one must acknowledge that there are many more satisfied Bose owners that would happily disagree(no, I'm not one of them). Yes, the laws of physics are immutable, but there is still considerable room for improvement until we reach the boundaries of those laws...like Mr. Seaton said.

As for Velodyne, I'm happy that they're there to satisfy MY particular market niche...although I am a little tempted by the upcoming 25-31 PC+.

 

[SkiingNinja]

>>>if you have mains that are 4-5' tall and weigh 100 lbs and also use SVS/HSU tubes you better have a dedicated HT or else your room will be full of monolithic objects.

 

[Arron H]

If asthetics dictated that in no way you could have a large black SVS cylinder out in the room, a pair of HGS-10 subwoofers would probably be one of the best solutions to obtaining the best performance. To some, ~$3k would be worth not hearing moaning from the significant other while you can enjoy some deep bass.

I guess it's somewhat encouraging that there are solutions for everybody, albeit expensive solutions

 

[ling_w]

I think one of the problems for many is that they skimp on their mains which in many cases puts much more demand on the subwoofer. It seems so many people (especially on HTF) build their speaker system (or even their entire system) around SVS subs and SVS sub packages. This is easy to understand in some ways as when some one goes from either no sub or a lousy sub to SVS they are blown away by how much it adds to their DVD enjoyment. I always thought that subs were used to enhance the mains, not the opposite.

That seems to be the general consensus for the HT world where all they want is to be shaken during explosions while watching a movie.

It seems to depend on what they had interest first, were they videophiles first or audiophiles (note I didn't say HT or 2ch, since many people probably had 2ch systems they could get by and had no desire of making it better.)

I think part of the problem is how HT speakers are judged. 3-D soundstage, imaging, midrange are rarely emphasized. They always go into dialog intelligibility & handling the SPL, with a brushover on basic L-R soundstage.

The best way to test a sub and its integration with the mains is to not know the sub is on until one turns the sub off.