SVS or Sunfire (1 Viewer)

[TonyWright]

Ron,

Thanks for your reply. What do you think of the PB2-ISD in the following room dimensions:

17' wide and 25' long. one of the 25' walls has 4 windows and a door. The other 25' wall opens into a kitchen. I would guess that 12' of that wall is solid up to the 10' ceiling and the remaining part of that wall is approximately 4.5' tall and opens into my kitchen as mentioned before.

I don't necessarily need to shake the doors on the other side of the house, but I don't want to be able to bottom out the drivers when a movie really gets intense.

Any suggestions here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Tony

 

[SVS-Ron]

Tony,

That's a tough call, but of course your subwoofer will "see" all that space, the open area to the kitchen, everything.

If it was a closed room at 17x25' for sure I'd find the 95 percentile customer bowled over by a PB2-ISD. Even if they could spend more, I'd advise against it.

In your case I'd probably error on the side of having "more than you might need". The added dB's of clean output the PB2-Plus has means it's ALWAYS running at lower stress than its less expensive PB2-ISD brother.

Given the open nature of your room the PB2-Plus might well be worth the added insurance against "upgrade-itis". If budget allows I don't think you would ever feel it was wasted. On the other hand, if budget does NOT really allow spending that much I can honestly say you are unlikely to ever find the PB2-ISD wanting in any way. They have virtually the same frequency response, but the PB2-Plus will have more fire in the belly when the PB2-ISD is hitting its very considerable limits.

In the end it's all a question of spending what you are comfortable with, and no more. We can't help much with the comfort levels, but we work like hell to make sure that if someone does spend more, that they are accorded a matching increase in value to go with it.

The PB2-ISD is hard to improve on, but the PB2-Plus does it; though in the end the "improvement" is simply more power and less likelihood of ever finding your sub's limits. Whether anyone "needs" what it brings to the table is as hard to define as how much anyone might "want" to know they got the best sub they could afford.

Not to get too philosophical about it. I said it was a tough call ;^)

Ron

 

[TonyWright]

Thanks Ron.

Your comments have been quite helpful. I'll need to run these remarks by my wife to show her what we looking at. I am still on the fence. Technically I can afford to go for the PB2+. I have some things to consider it seems.

Thanks again for your help. I will most definitely be doing business with your company. The customer service (even before the sale) is outstanding!

Tony

 

[Tim O...]

If you can afford the PB2+ I would go for it. After the size issue drifts away you'll have a permanent smile on your face and I doubt you'll ever need more.

 

[JoeHard]

Let's face it. Asking subwoofer comparison questions on this forum is like asking who has the best mom.

 

[Brandon:W]

I think you will find that based on my cookies baked per unit time graph that my mom is the best....

Hey, statistics don't lie.

Brandon

 

[ChrisWiggles]

No, I don't think so at all. Comparisons are good, you just have to ignore the comparisons from people who have not experienced both of the products in question. The "I have an SVS and it's great, oh and btw never heard a sunfire" doesn't add much. Same with the "I have a sunfire and it's awesome, never heard an SVS." Doesn't add much.

I've heard both, and for 600 bucks my money went to SVS no problem. Sunfire was not in the running because space was not an issue. There were other subs that had much more consideration by me, such as velodynes and paradigm PW2200 and servo15.

 

[Tim O...]

Chris,

Frankly I find your post a bit of an affront. Tony's asked for feedback from people on these subs. Because I've never heard the Sunfire I'm not supposed to offer any help I suppose. And if he ends up buying a PB2-ISD, which he wasn't even considering before, and is completely happy with, and saves either $300 or $700, I didn't add much I suppose.

 

[Robb Roy]

Tim,

Personally, I think you both raise good points. Lacking hard numbers from the likes of Nousaine, our experiences with these different subs is all we have (the closest in this case is the original SVS driver vs. the Sunfire Jr., with the advantage going to the SVS). My familiarity is strongest with Boston Acoustics, Infinity, Velodyne, and SVS, for example. I, for one, when looking for smaller subs, compared the Sunfire to the BA PV-1000, and went with the PV-1000. I should mention those were only auditions in the same showroom, and not in my space. If someone asks for opinions of these subs, I think it's OK to share them. When someone asks for opinions of one of them vs. another, my opinion of both is valid. When someone asks for my opinion of one of them I am familiar with intimately vs. another I have never heard, my opinion is valid (of the one I’m familiar with) but not as much as if I'd heard both. If the conversation strays to recommendations based on needs or money, and one of the subs I'm familiar with fits the bill, it's valid for me to bring that up. Still, if someone is interested strictly in one sub vs. another, the person with experience with both will probably provide the most valuable input.

Edit: After the PV-1000, which I felt was superior to the Sunfire, I went with an SVS 20-39 PC+. I didn't want my post to look like I was hiding anything.

Another edit: that has to be the worst paragraph I've constructed sine the 7th grade. I just hope it makes sense.

-Robb

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Sure, opinions are valid, but for me to even consider opinions, I need to have some kind of background to judge how much worth to give that opinion. There are hundreds of posts littering the forums that say "buy this, I did and it's the best" or "I bought this product and it's AWESOME," without providing ANY frame of reference to whether the poster did tons of research, or just bought something at random and was happy. People buy Bose and think it's the greatest thing, but only because they have no experience comparing various products.

I know people want to be happy with their purchases, but I'm not going to be sympathetic in criticising people for poor choices in products because they didn't audition different things, or seek good comparisons, etc.

There are many folks espousing products around here that don't provide any background to their posts even briefly. There are tons of A/B threads, and half the posts will end up looking something like this "I bought product A (orB) and it's AWESOME, buy it you'll love it. Oh and BTW, I never heard product B (orA)." Those opinions get ignored by me. Anyway, this went OT.

But having heard sunfires and owning an SVS, there was a post that summarized well what I think: SVS is absolutely a superior unit, but designed for a performance value standpoint. Sunfire is absolutely a right design for someone wanting small size, and willing to pay for it in $$. They are completely different design goals, and if space is not an issue, than no question SVS is a better choice between these two.

 

O.k. I have noticed a strong SVS bias. And granted, they are awesome subs. But you guys are telling him to ignore his price points, size limitations and so on just to promote your favorite. I will admit I have only gone through three quarters of these comments, but good god it looks like a SVS promotion tour. Only a Sunfire Super Junior has been mentioned so far I think, lemme scroll back up...in comparison yes, but some one else mentioned the True Subwoofer EQ, which is a much more comparable sub.


But these SVS's are huge in comparison. Of course they are going to out perform on some levels. But it is truly a close thing, if you get into True Subwoofer EQ or EQ Signature which is even better, territory. I have heard most of the of the subs mentioned here. If money is no option you go Krell or Paradigm and if you really have money like that, you go for THE and I say THE Thor's Hammer by Wilson Audio. If you've got two grand, you go SVS, especially if you have a large room. Hell get two if you've got three and half grand. But if you have a medium sized room, man you don't need anything that big. You just need something big enough to move the air and do it accurately and efficiently. You can't go wrong with a Sunfire in this instance.


First you don't have a new end table to figure out where to put, the largest of the Sunfires will fit under your end table. The EQ10 at 2700watts 18-100Hz is powerful at 110db's. The EQ12 Signature at 2700watts 16-100Hz is insane,rocking 116db's. In a large room, it by itself, will do just fine. With two taking up the same space as one of any of SVS's subs, they will make the roof come down. If you've got a tiny room the Jr. or the Definitive Minicube will do you fine and both under a grand, a bargain indeed, considering the amazing sound coming out of the little midgets. If it's value you want and don't mind the size, SVS is the way. They are good looking despite there size and as mentioned before are great performers. But for it's Size the Sunfire has no peer. It can be out performed only because of the larger enclosures that others use. Imagine a Sub with Sunfire internals in a SVS enclosure. I can only wish, hope and pray for the day. But Sunfire products are specialized towards compact minimalism. That's part of there pitch you see. But for the technology that brings that small size, comes a price. You gotta weigh it on your own scale.


As for quality. I had an issue with the MkII's as everyone did using that woofer design, which an number of companies used at the time, so impressed by it's potential. But they were prone to blowing as well as humming as if it had a short. It turned out to be a manufacturing problem as they contracted out the woofers. The MkIV's though were a revelation. And now they are at MkV and believe me as an owner of two EQ12 Signatures of series MkV, quality is not an issue as well as the look of them being improved also. They also come with self tuners now, so no, that muddy sound mentioned before is non existent. That muddy sound by the way is common problem of people not tuning there subs to there room and there system. A very common problem. Also people fail to properly break in there subs, amps or what have you. Very common. Not saying that you guys don't know this, but you'd be surprised at how many people don't.


Anyhoo! I'm going to bed.

 

[Robert_J]

Welcome to the forum, James. I want to congratulate you on the longest response to a 6 year old thread I have ever seen.


We have a huge SVS bias in a positive way. Ron (the S in SVS) and Tom (the V in SVS) met in your old DIY section when Ron was trying to build his first sub. The idea of SVS basically started in this forum and they have been a long-time supporter. Other long-time members have gone on to work in the customer support department. A few years ago they hired one of the best transducer engineers in the US (maybe the world) when they decided to bring their driver manufacturing in-house.


Your concerns about size are noted. But we are a huge fan of Hoffman and his Iron Law. If you can take advantage of the extra efficiency of ported enclosures, you will lower your distortion.


Finally, since this post was originally created, SVS has come out with a line of smaller sealed subs that we recommend as well.

 

[DaveF]

James,

Also, welcome to HTF As you've probably seen, this thread and its advice from 2004; for better or worse, that purchase decision has certainly long since been made


For a more recent conversation about SVS speakers, you might enjoy mine on my purchase process earlier this year. I wound up choosing a complete MTS kit after a lot of discussion here and demo's around town.