SVS--Not that impressed yet (1 Viewer)

[Neil Joseph]

For some reason, it seems like people get very personal when it comes to the subject of SVS subs. I believe we have to word our responses carefully. Kenny looks like an intelligent and open minded member. How about we restrict ourselves to helping him to get the best out of his equipment. One of the responses I read could be taken the wrong way by the original poster. Keep it positive!

Kenny, you are in good hands. The folks here and at SVS will help you get the optimum setup for your new sub.

 

[Matt Meyer]

Hey Ron: What about phase when the sub is placed in the rear of the room?
Now for the rest you sailors....oh never mind.
Matt

 

[Steve_Ma]

Kenny,

If your expectations are met, then it might be the incentive I need to try to convinve the wife to let me spend the $.

 

[Stacy Huff]

I'm sorry guys I was just expecting it to be like my first blow job. Fell a little short I'm

What does that mean? You expected the experience to last about a minute, then you were going to take a nap?

 

[Max Knight]

I'll toss in my upgrading to SVS experience here:

I replaced a crap sub with a 25-31 CS powered by a 240 watt Parasound monoblock. Sure enough, the first time I tried out the SVS I was floored. I think this mainly had to do with the fact that my previous sub was an 8" 100 watt cube that was an anemic milk-sop of a sub to begin with.

So I did the usual listen to bass movies/rap and reveled in the THUMP THUMP THUMP.

But it wasn't until much later that I started to realize why I liked my new sub so much. Sure I could make glasses in the back of the room rattle, but what really got me was going back through my music collection and listening to accoustic bass (upright bass, real drum sets, etc.). I was actually beginning to hear notes rather than a general *thud*. This was my "calibrating my ears" stage. I was so used to the mushy thump that my old sub produced I didn't really get what was happening with the SVS.

Shortly after that I went to a live jazz show, and sure enough the sound I was hearing at the home when I listened to jazz with low end was MUCH closer to the real thing than it used to be with my old sub.

Bass isn't all about depth charges and getting punched in the chest (though the SVS can do all that exceedingly well for the money). Bass is also about proper decay in notes, and resolving low frequency noise in all its glory (not just the big blasts). A lot of subs can make a big thump. Not all can do it well.

 

[Lito]

silly question, but was a SPL meter involved in this calibration, or was it by ear??
didn't see a mention of it anywhere above

 

[Chris_O]

I just got a SVS 20-39 PCi last week and didn't have a sub at all before. I was using my towers set as large for my bass. I hooked up the SVS set all speakers to small calibrated 3db hot, played TS2 and TPM and I wasn't very impressed at all. I did the LFE sweep on AVIA and I was getting a huge drop off of at lest 20db below 40 HZ. I moved my sub to another corner and recalibrated and now I was only lossing a couple of DB on the frequency sweep. I tried TS2 and TPM again and "Wow" my floors and sofa were shaking. No exageration here, during scences with a lot of LFE I can feel my floor and sofa vibrating. It drives my dogs nuts. I usually listen to movies 10db below reference because my ears just can't take reference for very long. But even at 10db below reference I can still feel my sofa shaking.

So if you havn't tried it already I would try moving your sub around, it made a night and day difference for me.

Good luck,

Chris

 

[Michael R Price]

Ah, the room placement gremlins come again. If you're not getting the performance you think you should be, try moving the sub and using measurements to verify your changes. I was surprised at the difference myself.

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Chris,

You have a point here. Most of the "bass problems" are related to poor location or less than ideal acoustics at the "sweet spot".

Kenny,

You should try to move your sub (and your sitting location) to see how the bass changes. If you are really interested in having true bass, you need (at least) an SPL meter and a test tones CD. You can do it even better with a laptop, a calibrated mic and an RTA software.

When I first started to design a methodology to set up my system I was amazed to discover how IMPORTANT are the acoustical properties of our particular room, and the enormous effect that this properties have on the sound.

Trust me on this, with proper location, you will note that your SVS have the bass to really impress you.

 

[Arron H]

What does that mean? You expected the experience to last about a minute, then you were going to take a nap?

 

[Legairre]

From the post I've read the SVS subs should blow away a JBL PB10 sub. I have two PB10s as surrounds subs. There decent subs, but nothing to brag about. I would guess the the PB12 is better. I would expect SVS subs to be a night and day difference. Someone please tell me there is a night and day difference between a PB10 and an SVS. Otherwise I'll have no reason to upgrade.

 

[David_Stein]

me either, but then again, all the adjectives that i see describing SVSs (fast, accurate, deep) I don't think i can attribute to my pb10.

 

[Jeffrey Forner]

Guys,

Believe me, it IS a night and day difference, especially for many DVD soundtracks. I know because a friend of mine recently upgraded his JBL PB10 to an SVS 16-46PC.

The day the SVS arrived at his house, I received an e-mail from him with the subject "SVS." In the body of the message itself, he wrote something along the lines of,

SWEET MOTHER OF GOD!!!! That is all.

I'd say he was pleased.

The JBL was an okay sub, but nothing compared to the SVS. Whereas the JBL was essentially dead at 30 Hz, the SVS went strong well down below 20 Hz. That's some serious bass to have in any system. How anyone could not notice a difference between those two models is beyond me.

Kenny, you forgot to answer one of my questions. Which SVS did you get?

 

[Bob_L]

Well, I have to admit that I've had a quite different experience with my subwoofer than most of you have had. So far, it really HASN'T MADE ANY IMPROVEMENT in my system.
I purchased a used SVS CS20-39 about two weeks ago and placed it in the same spot I previously had a sub, so I knew that it was good placement in the room.
I also purchased a used Samson S1000. I knew that it was more power than the CS needed, but I got an excellent price on it and it gave me room to upgrade or grow at a future date.
So far, however, I've observed that my system sounds NO DIFFERENT AT ALL. The sub is sitting there in the corner but is making absolutely NO IMPACT whatsoever. I pulled out my Radio Shack SPL meter and tried to calibrate it and STILL NO IMPROVEMENT. It LOOKS IMPOSING over there but ADDS NOTHING AT ALL to the audio experience NO MATTER WHETHER I HAVE MOVIE DVD'S OR AUDIO CD'S IN THE PLAYER.
I suspect that part of the reason is because The Outlaws have once again delayed shipment of the Outlaw 950 preamp, so I haven't been able to hook up the SVS and actually use it. I sit in front of it expectantly, like the apes in front of the black monolith in "2001." I even scratch a flea and grunt from time to time. But, without input and power, even the SVS won't do much. I bet that when I actually have it plugged in, I'll be more favorably impressed. Now I'm just going to sit back and see if Ron or Tom take the bait of this email. If so, guys, I gotcha! Big grin. And this is no reflection on Kenny, at all; I just thought of a way to pull a practical joke, so I went for it.
Bob L.

 

[Mark Larson]

I've traversed this whole thread, and we don't know whether the sub was calibrated with an SPL meter or not, and which model he actually has.

Can Tom or Ron fill us in?

 

[Jeffrey Forner]

Bob_L;
Aw man, I seriously hope that people read your post in its entirety before responding to it. You almost had me. I thought, "Oh no, not another one!"
With a little luck, your painful ordeal will soon come to an end. I certainly hope it does soon.

 

[Will Gatlin Jr]

IMHO (and out of all-due-respect), I don't even think "Kenny" has an SVS sub. You'd be suprised how many people on these forums sit here and knock the great things that are going on. These ??? have been asked of him a few times in this thread that he has felled to answer: What SVS subs do you have? What is the size of your room?, among others. What's up Ken? This forum is for helping all, and that is exactly what everyone is trying to do without any help from Kenny. The words I have for Kenny will get me kicked off the forum. What other secrets are you hiding?

 

[Larry Seno Jr.]

It's not like SVS is Ford (So large they cant keep track of who owns what), I imagine that Ron wouldn't be here exchanging emails with him if he didnt own a sub.

 

[Steve Zimmerman]

Will, you say "out of all-due-respect" and then you basically claim the guy is lying about owning a sub. Are you saying the guy is due absolutely no respect? I'm not particularly enamored of the language and writing style Mr. Booth has employed to describe his situation, but to claim that he's simply a troll is unconstructive.

As an aside, I think sometimes the "shake the walls" reviews of the SV subs are misleading. I'm guilty of having made similar statements myself, but unless a subwoofer is calibrated incorrectly, it should not dominate audio playback. It should simply be *really* good at playing bass at the CORRECT volume level. For regular music, especially music where the bass content is actually above 80Hz, the difference is not likely to be at all noticeable for obvious reasons.

At first listen, the difference when listening to music between my past sub and my current CS Ultra was indeed subtle. It actually did take me a short while (a day maybe) to observe that--wow--the bass is tight and quick rather than boomy and floppy like my previous sub. But I think sometimes people are led to believe that music is all of a sudden going to be really bass heavy when they plug in the SVS. That's obviously not the goal.

That said, for the LFE-heavy DVD test tracks that everyone recommends (Phantom Menace, intro to Toy Story 2, THX thunder etc) the difference was indeed stunning and yes the Ultra did knock a picture off the wall 25 feet away.

--Steve

 

[Richard Greene]

Room acoustics dominate the sound quality below 100Hz.

Most home listening rooms have at least one annoying bass "boom" caused by standing waves. That "boom" will dominate the bass sound quality whether you use a cheap subwoofer or the best subwoofer money can buy. Room acoustics problems are a primary reason why a better subwoofer may not sound that much different than a cheap subwoofer.

In fact, a better sub may sound worse if it resonates the walls at 20Hz. ... while the cheap subwoofer it replaced did not have enough output at 20Hz. to rattle any walls.

The solutions to these problems can be inexpensive:

-Radio Shack sound meter - $40

-Stryke.com Basszone test CD - $12

-Behringer Feedback Destroyer (parametric EQ) - $130

-Home Depot patio stones to lean against any wall

that rattles (not expensive)

So for less than $200 you can reduce the effects of standing waves ... and after you've quieted the most annoying room modes using a parametric equalizer, you'll easily hear the advantages of a well designed subwoofer such as the SVS's. If you don't believe me you can play both subwoofers outdoors for a comparison where there are no room acoustics problems. There you should hear the differences and I'd expect the SVS to sound better,

not to mention louder and deeper.