HSU VTF-2, VTF-3, or SVS PB12 NSD??

What's the size of your space in cubic feet? The room volume (and any connected open areas) affects performance.

I understand you want to be that aside but without that room info it would be tough to give you any usefukl recommendations. For example lets say you have 6,000 cubic feet room (lets say we dont know this too). Now you are asking us to give you recommendations...some might list subs that are only really useful for 3000cubic feet rooms.



So many folks coming here and posting which subs and no room info or budget lol. Without that information we can't really help you! The best ones are the folks who come here and say money isn't an issue....dangerous thing to say in this hobby.

HSU and SVS subs are great My vote is for one of the HSUs.

HSU rates the VTF-2 MK4 for "large rooms." Click that icon on the page. 4500 cubic feet is a pretty big room. Should be more than enough unless you move to a big place.

You realize your neighbors in the dorm will HATE you

Go ahead. Get the bigger SVS or HSU, although I would lean toward the HSU for the maximum extension mode. Either one will be great. It'll feel like Thor's lightning striking in your room, the blades on the helicoptor in Black Hawk Down are coming right at you, or the train wreck in Super 8 is happening right in front of you. And I don't mean that it will shake the walls and make a lot of noise like cheaper 12" subs. In that small room, these subs will make it feel very close to real like some kind of ride at Disneyland. You are in for a big (but fun) surprise

Make certain you get some of these 4 or 5 star blu-rays before the sub gets there: The New Master List of BASS in Movies with Frequency Charts. You'll have all the guys on your floor wanting to come and watch movies in your room.

Yes. Either sub will blend fine. Set the gain (volume) on the sub down very low, the phase at 0, and run the room correction software with your receiver. If the receiver sets the channel/trim level of the sub less than -3db or greater than +3db, adjust the gain on the gain on the back of the sub and repeat until in that range. Then, set all your speakers to small and adjust the crossover on the receiver. 80hz is good to try first. If you need a little more bass, turn the channel level on the receiver up a couple of db.

Hsu vtf 2.4 for a dorm room! You could go 3.4 if you plan on using it later down the road

Buy big. Buy once. You don't hear complaints about a new sub's being too powerful ;-)

I have a PC12-NSD and I strongly encourage you to check it out. It's the cylinder form of the PB12-NSD. I don't know the dimensions of your room but if they still make dorms like the ones I lived in, then floor space is still at a premium. SVSounds' cylinder models are easy on the floor space and they're conversation pieces as well.

Cel's assessment (in a small space, these monster subs are more like an amusement park ride than a speaker) is spot-on.

The svs because I prefer front firing, either the vtf-3 or svs is going to preform very closely to each other so it comes down to aesthetics... why front firing? I like to watch the driver do it's thing.

You may not have got called on yet but even at low volumes bass travels through everything easily.

You won't get a definitive answer here over which of those subs is better. It's like the Coke vs Pepsi, Marvel vs. DC, or Battlefield vs Call of Duty debates--no matter what everyone else tells you, you can't really know which is better for you unless you have tried them, and one might even be slightly better in one room and setup over another. Right now while they are the same price with shipping, I would go with the HSU because of the extra configuration options. But otherwise, they are so similar in performance that you can't make a wrong decision.

Well said and worth repeating either way you can't really go wrong.

Since you are only 5% music you should get the SVS PB-12NSD. It will have better deep bass without having a port plugged. In other words the native tune of the PB-12 is lower than the native tune of the HSU (both ports open). It is almost always better to run in native tune, especially if you are really going to crank it. Simple as that.

Come back and tell us how it sounds. I'm sure everyone here would like to know what happens when you put an SVS PB12-NSD in a small dorm room

I don't think this is quite correct. I don't believe there is a native tuning point with the VTF subs except to what it is tuned at the moment. Multiple tuning points doesn't necessarily mean only one is the real tuning point, and the others are fake.

Also to the OP, I hope your dorm is permissive. My lil bro nearly got kicked out of his dormitory for his big old Sony boombox. A heavy duty home theater sub will be heard through out half the building, guaranteed, and the deeper the bass, the farther the sound will travel. I don't know what kind of dudes you have in your building, maybe its a non-stop party place, but if it isn't you may end up being quite a nuisance to many of your neighbors.

hey man this helps me big time! b/c when i run YPAO it tells me to set the gain on the sub to between 10 and 12 o clock and after YPAO it sets the sub to -10db every time! LOL and that's pretty much inaudible.

i remedied it by turning up the db level on my yamaha avr rather than the subs gain b/c i was already at 12 o clock

so i put it from -10 to +3db

should i have done it the other way as you said by tweaking the gain on the sub vs the avr?

and is that a real starting point to begin testing (b/t 10 and 12?) as it doesn't leave much room for increase if you're only turning it up via the sub gain and not the db level on the avr

thanks

also OP: i just got a vtf3.3 and it would DESTROY your dorm room ...so the svs will certainly also do the trick!

Well... I've definitely heard users and pro reviewers alike say that VTFs sound best (produce the lowest distortion with the highest output) when no ports are plugged.

It's not a question of a tune being real, or fake, it's which tune allows the sub to run with the most ports open, which minimizes port noise and minimizes the chances of damaging the sub because of amp settings/port plugging combinations. I believe that bottoming the driver is much less likely if both ports are open. Why do you think that HSU will void the warranty if you run a VTF model with a port plugged and the wrong setting on the plate amp?

Consider that the JTR Captivator originally was tuned to 15Hz (or you could specify 15 or 20 hz tuning with both ports open). I think mojomike has a Cap with 15 Hz native tune.

After a short while, Jeff Permanian changed the native tuning to 20 Hz with both ports open. Now, if you want 15 Hz tuning you have to plug a port. So, even a mighty performer like the Cap was ultimately changed so that you have to risk port noise by plugging one port if you want to use it in 15Hz tune.

Now, consider smaller, less expensive subs like the Outlaws and HSU models which also involve plugging a port. These subs are much more likely to be at a disadvantage with one port plugged, especially if the ports are only 3 inches instead of 4 inches.

If I am not mistaken, Rythmik does not use port plugging yet you can change the "tuning" down to 14Hz on some models.

Bottom line, there is no free lunch. You want Maximum Extension with one port plugged, you give up headroom and often, output at higher frequencies.