Official SVS Owners/Support Thread. - Page 279

That reminds me, I used to have a rule: Figure out what you need right now, and then buy the next model up. it worked for a while until I realized that what I REALLY wanted was the model two steps up!

Thanks for that descriptive review. Now I'll spend the rest of the afternoon with the mouse pointer above the "buy" button

I'll have to wait until the next credit card bill at least though.

So, the good news here is that there is nothing else above the Ultra ATM (SVS subs point of view).............:D:D:D

Oh c'mon Neutro.........just pull the trigger!!!!!

I applied this method when shopping for my last car. First you make a table, listing all contenders on top, and all specs that matter to you on the left. Now you assign points based on each car's features and specs. You compute the total for each car. The car that you should buy is the one which you are disappointed it didn't win (or the one for which you worked real hard to boost the overall score if you're that kind of guy).

I thought you wanted me to ditch my SB12 and get an Ultra

I need to go through the family's to-do list before I can spend more on my HT setup though! I'm also thinking about adding ceiling speakers in the kitchen for Zone 2, which to be honest would offer a better day-to-day value than a new sub. So I'm saving for that first. Then I'm pretty sure I'll try duals (SB12) before I upgrade to a Plus or Ultra. The only problem is that I only have one or maybe two potential positions for a 2nd sub so I hope they will sound good...

That is a great rule... you could also figure out what you need right now, and then buy 2 of 'em.

One step at at time.....

First you will have two SB12, then you can sell them and with the money collected, you will be closer to buy an Ultra.......it will take some time, but we will be there......LOL.

Nice thinking..............so, go ahead and buy two Ultras!

That's a very dangerous path you're treading on... See what it leads to...



(dual JTR Orbit Shifters)

Why not get it from the horse's mouth?  If you go onto their website there is a button to click that lets you ask that sort of question and get a reply from one of their techs... SVS, more than any other company I have experienced, will spend as much time with you, pre-sale, as you need and will give you unbiased advice to help you get the best for your room and system (ie they won't just push the most expensive solution at you).

Room dimensions and placement options dictated a small form sub, or else I would have no prob with Ultras.

I went with the PC12-Plus. I figure I will try it for 45 days and worst case exchange it. Otherwise, it will give me another upgrade to look forward to within the next year! And if SVS updates the 13's in that timeframe I will have the latest and greatest. Now im looking at a new anamorphic lens

See, I'm not the only one......

Totally agree with you on that! If the room is not that big and placement is limited, you will have to buy a small form sub. But, the cool thing is due to the fact that room is small means that you really don't need a "monster" there! So, I'm positive you are having a lot of fun with your setup.

Congrats!

Looking forward to hear your initial impressions on your new baby.

OK, I've had my new SB-12 for almost a week now and here are a few random thoughts & impressions. First, what I have...
1. A very TINY HT: 12 x 11
2. Onkyo 818
3. Ascend Acoustics Sierra 1's for the fronts and Polk OWM-3's for the surrounds.
So I received the SB-12 doubled-boxed which provided assurance that my new subwoofer would not be molested no matter how it was handled. After unpacking the SB-12 I would have to admit that it is built like a tank or, as one review put it, ''bomb-proof.'' I then connected it to my 818, ran Audyssey and then watched the first few scenes of ''Enemy At The Gates'' which I am quite familiar with. And....it sounded like crap!!! The sound was easily localized and it was booming and I mean booming. Come to discover I had Dynamic EQ on. Now with the Velodyne DEQ 10's, this was no problem. But with the SB-12 it was definitely over-kill. Turned the EQ off and ''Viola'' ...it sounded great! What do I mean? Well, I'm not very good at the technical jargon but lets just say that it was ''velvety smooth.'' In other words instead of a ''boom'' it was more like a ''thump.'' Another thing I noticed (and I don't know if I'm saying it right) but the upper frequency response of this sub blended well with the Sierra's giving even dialogue a more ''realistic'' sound to my ears. Bottom line for me is that this one sub out-performs my two Velo DEQ's. So much so, in fact, that I am seriously thinking about purchasing a second SB-12 (how in the world can I explain this one to my wife???). This leads me to some questions for you SVS owners....
1. Would a second sub be overkill? After all we are not talking about Carnegie Hall here!
2. Should I play it cheap and use the DEQ 10 as the second sub or spring for another SB-12?
3. (And I know I'm going to get my wrists slapped here), but without going into lengthy detail about my HT setup, the easiest / quickest way of getting that second subwoofer in place (meaning equal distant to the main listening area) is by putting the 818 over the subwoofer. I could build a rack to place over the SB-12 and then the 818 on top of that but my wood-working skills are not the best! My second option would be to place the 818 on the sub with some sort of isolation between them. Someone suggested cutting out a layer or two from one of those roll-up exercise mats. I was also thinking of the possibility of sorbothane isolation pads sold by Amazon. Any thoughts, ideas, recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

I would love to see wht Auditor55 has say about that setup!

OK. I am back. Today I picked up the Lord of the Rings Extended Version Blu-Ray set and started it off with disc 1.
I didn't even get throught the coming attractions and I could notice a big difference in the bass and LFE. I only had time to watch the first 10 minutes but it was definitely the source material that I was playing that had me less than impressed with my new addition (PC12-NSB).
I know that the LOTR has DTS 6.1 sound but shouldn't the other DVD's with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound good as well? Is it just how they mix & record the sound that determines the sound quality and not the format?
I was expecting Dolby Digital 5.1 to sound good but from my limited material it doesn't seem to be the case. I am going to try using the same passages with my Velodyne alone and then the SVS to get a true comparison of the capabilities of each sub but might even run them as dual subs if they sound good that way.

You could try it out for fun though I you may want to be wary of the 28hz rolloff of the Velodyne. Due to the phase reversal of ported subs at tuning freqency, you may find that the two subs cancel each other out around the tuning fequency of the ported DEQ10

Before I bought a second SB12 I tried running one with a Klipsch RW-12, but they canceled each other out.

Overkill is not at all bad thing, except for it costing you more money

Regarding the following comment:
"This leads me to some questions for you SVS owners.... Would a second sub be overkill? After all we are not talking about Carnegie Hall here!"

And my answer; hell no - I'm about to purchase a 4th SVS cylinder

It's tiny allright. But it's exactly the size of the zone that encloses my HT area. The room itself is 10x20. Larger than yours but I understand the situation pretty well.

It's "voila" if you want to be really spot on, add the accent on the a: "voilà".

I had similar experience with my SB12. I have a Pio AVR so no Dynamic EQ for me; although I saw on the official 818 thread that it's not unanimously loved. Anyway, welcome to the club of people with equipment good enough to distinguish crap from quality audio. With the SB12, recordings that sounded flat before come to life. Recordings with boosted bass that sounded ok before at low volume now sound bloated as hell. Sometimes the "Sound Retriever" option on my Pioneer (which is supposed to enhance compressed audio) indeed produces a better sound; but often it just produces overwhelmingly bloated booms, probably because it boosts already amplified mid-bass.

Of course you could always fiddle with the bass and treble settings or the EQ. This may be doable if you often sit down to listen to a whole album for example. But in 2012 this is increasingly rare and I'd never fiddle with that for a single song. If one song sounds good and the other not, the problem is probably not with the sub...

I'm in the exact same boat. Not to mention that it's not easy to hide a second sub in a 12x11 room. I'm pretty sure I'll buy a second SB12, but yet wonder so much about the SVS subs higher in their linepup

The added output from a second sub is not negligible, but cannot be used to justify the cost of a second identical sub. If more output is the goal, you'd better upgrade, and literally get more bang for the buck.

However, there is another benefit to a second sub, especially in small rooms. Small rooms have lots of intense room modes that cannot all be suppressed by EQing the sub, and produces lots of variations in bass intensity across the room. A second sub is supposed to greatly enhance bass distribution and flatness of the frequency response. According to Spanglo above and lots of frequent posters in this thread, the impact of running duals is major.

So no, not overkill, and it may in fact be very beneficial to your small room. If you have the money and the WAF, do it now. However if you're tight on money, you have to plan your move: either spend money on an upgrade or on additional subs. The two have their pros and cons.

This is not advisable at all. Audyssey XT32 will protect the lesser sub by limiting the content sent to the SB12, according to many posts. Even if it could mix them perfectly, the Velo won't be able to contribute as low as the SB12. If you use it to boost mid-bass, in comparison the lower bass will sound unbalanced / muffled (i.e. you won't have headroom where it counts). It's always recommended to run dual subs with identical equipment; or at least subs with comparable frequency responses.

The 818 lacks SubEQ HT so it cannot be used to set the distance for the two subs. However you can play with phase until you get the most output. If you have an SPL meter, you can do that scientifically. I think you're supposed to get +6dB when your subs are perfectly in phase. In your small room, I'm pretty sure that the phase adjustment will be enough to put the subs in phase. My point is, you're not restricted to that exact position for the sub.

If you insist on putting your AVR on the sub, indeed having a small table under which you can slide the SB12 would be the best solution. If you're not a handyman, you could probably grab a cheap but okay-looking coffee table for that purpose. If you don't find anything, yeah, just use some damping material like foam between the sub and AVR to prevent vibrations that would cause a rattle, scratch the finish and/or disconnect cables and break solder

I guess he would stare in awe as we all do when seeing a pair that big

I assume the DVD is of the same film. Curious situation; I don't think DTS 6.1 is that different from DD 5.1 except for the back channel. DTS MasterAudio is uncompressed and may provide a greater dynamic range though. Else, maybe your receiver don't use the same mode for DD 5.1 than for DTS 6.1? (i.e. additional processing for one source?). One possibility is that your AVR is set to adjust dynamic range dynamically (e.g. compresses the dynamic range so that you get great bass even at low volumes), which may be possible only on DTS MA and Dolby TrueHD and not on DD 5.1.

This is actually pretty frustrating -- not knowing which feature is actually enabled when watching a movie. Typically you see a bunch of tiny logos on the AVR. But it may dramatically change the experience. I myself have my AVR close to the floor and managed not to notice between half the movie that I was listening to Iron Man in Extended Stereo mode instead of full 7.1

 

Hi Neutro - I agree with pretty much everything you say in your long and considered reply. To shed a little more light on the OP's question, I too have a very small (British small!) room and I run two PC12-NSDs in it ATM. It is definitely not overkill and I am considering replacing those subs with not one but two Seaton Submersives with 2400 watts of power each. There's no such thing as overkill IMO - just limitless headroom.... I am not a bass-head BTW and run my bass at the settings Audyssey determines in my system - no added boost. But nothing beats headroom!

 

WRT to dual subs, you are right. I started with one sub but there was no way I could EQ out the problems in my room (which is slightly smaller than the OP's room and, to make matters worse, almost square. I added the second sub, not for greater output (in my small room the output from one PC12 is more than enough) but to smooth the overall response and this worked like a charm. So much so that I would always recommend two subs instead of one. The seat to seat variance is also way less if that is important for those with multiple seats - the bass is good all over the room, not just at one spot. So my recommendation is - go for two subs wherever possible and get much better quality of bass (plus a little more quantity too).

There you go, another day that will be spent with the mouse hovering over the "buy" button

Still!?!?!?!?

As Samwise Gamgee once told Froddo Baggins.................."What are you waiting for?"

Accumulation of wealth

Are those coffins?

He he if I ever get one of those, I want to be buried in it when I die.

Looks like an NHT Super Two speaker behind 'em.

YES there is. That's one of those little fables propagated around this forum.

About to order a 2nd sub, Should I match my existing pc ulta and put behind screen with other one or get a pb ultra and put in back corner of room?