SVS Question. Anyone switch a ULTRA for 2 CS+ ?? (1 Viewer)

[John Cain]

Has anyone who owned a SVS Ultra switched it out for two CS+ Subs??

If you did, what did you think??

Thanks!!

-- John

 

[Paul Gere]

John,

I sure have been thinking about it lately!!

I too bought my Ultra a couple of weeks before the plus series was announced. I understood that one Ultra = two CS subs, so I went for the single Ultra for its unquestionably superior performance.

Had the plusses been announced before I bought the Ultra, I would have seriously considered a pair of 20-39+'s vs. a single Ultra for the bang-for-the-buck a pair of "+"'s deliver vs. the extra cost for a pair of Ultras.

Now that the reviews are rolling in on the plus series (and my 45 days on the Ultra are gone) Tom and Ron are BOTH touting the plus series as the best performance bang for the buck vs. either CS or Ultra. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE what the Ultra does, but all along I thought that two subs was (and still is) the better option for me.

I believe there are more of us Ultra owners out here in cyberland who are now scratching our heads over weather or not we really got the value we think we did after the CS+ series hit the scene. Particularly those who bought around early December, 2001.

Cheers,

-P

 

[Tom Vodhanel]

Paul, value is sort of a grey issue here.
Dual 20-39CS+ would outgun the CS_U...but cost $100 more and take up twice the space.
The CS_U is still top dog at SVS...even if it's only be a dB or 2.
A single CS_U/S1000($1399)can hold it's own very nicely against the HGS18(refer to the weatherhead review).
So there are things to consider for both *sides*,but you do have the best subwoofer we sell...
TV

 

[John Cain]

Well Paul sort of took the words right off of my keyboard..

When we got the Ultra is was roughly the equivalent of two CS 20-39's for roughly twice the cost.

Now it appears to be about 5-10% more performance than one single 20-39+ subs, but it is still twice the cost. Perhaps I am misunderstanding, and the Ultra is still roughly the equivalent of two CS 20-39+ subs.

I guess we picked a bad time to buy an Ultra, and those of us who bought one in this timeframe are wondering if we would have done better to get dual CS+ subs, as opposed to the single Ultra.

SVS is just doing too good a job of improving the lower level subs!!

-- John

 

[Paul Gere]

Tom,

Fair enough. Your points on value are well taken.

To clarify, I think there are two distinct types of "value" in a conversation such as this:



[a] Price/performance value of any SVS sub vs. a comparably -or higher- priced competetive sub. Every time, the SVS will smoke its foe.



Price/performance value within the SVS product line itself.



I believe the spirit of John's thread (and my post) speaks to the latter.



More later.

-PG

 

[Leon O]

Hi John,

I can certainly understand how you feel. I think many of the people on this forum are early adopters. However, IMHO you are in a pretty good position. You've got the BEST SVS single cylinder available. 2 cs+ plus might seem like a better value, but you usually have to pay a bit of a premium to get the best. With 2 cs+ you would have no option to upgrade (unless you get insane). But, with the ultra, you have the option to eventually ADD a new cs+ or another ultra. Just imagine how Kick A-- that setup would be.

Enjoy

Leon

 

[Steve Zimmerman]

Maybe the SVS guys will come out with a new driver for the Ultra that improves it further, similar to the improvement the new CS offers with its new driver?
--Steve

 

[David Giles]

Well John and Paul, I don't know how much it'll help answer your questions, but I'll tell my story. I bought an Ultra back in late November. At the time, I was trying to be sensible dollar-wise, and saved about $150 by getting a b-stock Samson S700 instead of the S1000. To make a long story short, in late December when Tom and Ron offered the 20% discount to previous SVS customers, after some agonizing (and throwing the fiscally sensible issue out the window), I decided to sell the Ultra/S700 and get a dual 16-46CS+/S1000 package. I had buyers coming out of the woodwork for the Ultra, so I questioned whether I was doing the right thing (and figured I was probably asking too little $$ for it). But the first interested buyer snapped it up before I could change my mind, so I went ahead and ordered the CS+'s

What do I think? Well, I feel like I have significantly more power (headroom). I never performed stringent SPL tests with the Ultra, nor have I done so with the CS+'s. I have taken the intro to Toy Story 2 to ridiculous levels and haven't bottomed the CS+'s yet. Same with Phantom Menace's THX intro and the Podrace. For the record, I never bottomed the Ultra either, but I never felt comfortable pushing it this far, so I'm not sure I've proven anything. But it just seems like the dual CS+'s aren't even breathing hard. But remember, I'm comparing dual 16-46CS+'s pushed with 500 watts each to a single Ultra with "only" 350 watts. It's impossible for me to say how significant the improvement would have seemed if I had been able to fully "push" the Ultra with the bigger S1000 amp. And I'm not sure if I'm just imagining it, but there does seem to be a little more at the bottom end with the 16-46CS+'s. Of course I know there SHOULD be since the 16-46's are tuned lower than the Ultra, so it could just be my mind telling me that I'm hearing (feeling) what I SHOULD be feeling.

I can't detect any difference in the sound "quality". But, it was almost a month between the time I shipped the Ultra to the buyer, and when I received the CS+'s. So I wasn't able to make any direct comparisons. All I know is that the CS+'s sound awesome (as did the Ultra).

I much prefer the new easily-removeable grill over the old screw-down grill. The port plugs are cool too, but I haven't experimented with mine yet. Of course all Ultra owners can get the port plugs, and new Ultras come with the new grill too. Honestly, now that I've got them perfectly placed and calibrated, I may never touch them again, so the grill isn't really much of an issue for me, just cool.

So overall, what are my thoughts? Well, since I had the S700 amp, I wasn't pushing my Ultra to it's full potential. It would have cost me another $900 or so to get a second Ultra, and then I would have had TWO Ultras not being pushed to their full potential. After selling my Ultra and amp, I only had to add about $340 (this is with the 20% discount factored in) to get the dual 16-46CS+ package WITH the Samson S1000 (which DOES push them to their full potential). I'm a very happy camper.

Would I rather have had dual Ultra's with the S1000? Sure, that setup would undoubtably outperform my current setup. But from a value standpoint, I feel like I've got an incredible amount of performance for my money. For the several hundred dollars more, I'd get slightly more max output from the dual Ultras, but at least for MY pocketbook, the price/performance ratio is too steep.

If you own an Ultra/S1000 setup, you've got a killer setup. As Leon says, if you ever add a second Ultra, you'll have the ultimate, and I'm sure you'll never wish you had "only" CS+'s instead. But when you factor VALUE into the equation, the CS+'s are pretty hard to beat.

The fact that SVS has such an awesome line-up, and that they keep pushing the performance envelope, especially with their entry-level and mid-level products, DOES make it tough to choose where in the lineup you should spend your hard earned cash. If money was no object, I'm sure we'd all have dual Ultras (at least I know I would).

David

 

[Paul Gere]

David,

Thanks so much for your thoughts!

Very helpful!

-Paul

 

[John Cain]

Thx for the post David. I knew there was a guy in Alabama who sold his Ultra to get Dual CS+'s so I see now that was you.

I was trying to find you with this post, and seek out your thoughts.

Many thanks for the reply,

-- John

 

[David Giles]

You're welcome guys.

The one point I left out, is that as awesome as the Ultra was, I had this little nagging voice in my head that kept saying I was missing out on that last little Nth degree of DEEP base (on the rare DVD that actually has anything significant below 20 Hz). Knowing that dual 16-46CS+'s would go just a little bit lower, as well as be more powerful than my single Ultra had a lot to do with my decision to make the switch. As I said in my previous post, I'm a happy camper, and I've yet to have any second thoughts about my decision.

But I dread the day that SVS decides to come out with a version of the Ultra tuned to 16 Hz. My wife would surely divorce me if I even mentioned the word "upgrade"

David

 

[John Cain]

Thanks David.
I suspect you were thinking like many recent Ultra owners.
That being that for a little bit more cost you could get superior performance and lower extension by getting two CS-39+ subs versus the Ultra.
As I mentioned earlier. The Ultra used to be about 2X the performance for 2X the cost. Now the Ultra is still 2X the cost but only about 1.05 the performance
Congrats on making the move to maximize performance and value within the SVS line of subs.
-- John