Which SVS Sub For This Room

[blademaven]

Hello All,

New to the forum but have been looking at the site for a while. My setup is.

Sony SXRD 60"
Denon 2106
Denon 1920
Paradigm Monitor 7 Fronts
Paradigm CC370
Paradigm ADP170 Surrounds

Room size is 16' by 18' with 8' ceiling and an open doorway to another room. Front wall is basically glass (large box window) floors are hardwood if it matters.

Question is if the SVS Sub PB10 will handle this room or should I step up to the PB12 . Opinions welcome. 85% movies/tv some music and once ps3 comes out probably some gaming.

[bjornb17]

I never tried an SVS before so i cant comment on which one is good, but supposidly they'll recommend the correct one to you if you email them an inquire :)

[GMichael]

I never tried an SVS before so i cant comment on which one is good, but supposidly they'll recommend the correct one to you if you email them an inquire :)

Ditto,
Plus, welcome to AR.

[bjornb17]

oh yeah, welcome to the forum :D

[Woochifer]

Your room is marginally on the small side, so that 10" will probably be good enough. And if the 20 Hz bass extension that SVS quotes on the PB10 is accurate, then you already have more than enough bass for almost any situation you would run into with that room. A larger sub with kind of extension that the PB12 gives you might be overwhelming with the low end reinforcement that you'll get from those short room dimensions. And with the ported design and bass extension that goes down that low, the room is going to create a lot of bass reinforcement.

My room is about 13' x 18' and I use a 12" sealed sub that anecholically starts to roll off at 28 Hz, but with the room reinforcement, the in-room bass extension goes down to about 22 Hz. The advantage of a sealed sub in a smaller room is that it works better with the room's boundary reinforcement effect by rolling the low frequencies off at about the same rate that the room boundaries reinforce them.

The SVS subs are very well regarded, so you should definitely order it if you've done your research and found that it best meets your needs. But, if the SVS creates an overwhelming amount of bass that does not blend in well with the other speakers even after tweaking with the settings and repositioning the sub, I would suggest that you try out a sealed sub like the Acoustic Visions MRS-10 or the Rocket UFW-10.

The other major problem that a smaller room presents is the near certainty that you will have a lot of unevenness in the bass due to wave interactions that alternately boost and cancel out the sound at specific frequencies. This will make the bass sound overly boomy with some sounds and anemic with others. You need to find the location that gives you the most even sounding bass, but if you still have boomy peaks (which can be very problematic) you'll need to resort to room treatments and/or equalization. From my experience, adding a parametric equalizer to dial down the boomy peak frequencies made a huge improvement in how the bass sounded, and can be every bit as crucial to getting decent sounding bass as the model subwoofer that you choose.

[Bryan]

Check audiogon.com for either a used SVS or Rocket sub. Having owned both, the Rocket is more musical while the SVS is geared more toward HT. Check here for a UFW-12. http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?homesubw&1138988588 If you have something to power it with other than your primary receiver, a SVS CS series of sub could be right up your alley. This is assuming you do not mind a big cylinder in your room.

[Geoffcin]

Hello All,

Question is if the SVS Sub PB10 will handle this room or should I step up to the PB12 . Opinions welcome. 85% movies/tv some music and once ps3 comes out probably some gaming.

Since your heavy into movies then your going to be using your sub mostly for HT. Depending on your movie preferences is what should determine your choice. If your into action/sci-fi your going to want a sub that can produce serious SPL for the LF effects that these movies have.

With HT, I've never hear anyone complain that the sub was too big or powerful. (not counting the neighbors!)