SVS Subwoofers, Popularity Justified?

Exactly. I was listening to Abbey Road and Here Comes The Sun has boosted bass to a crazy degree in comparison with the rest of the album. I'm not fiddling with the crossover frequency but rather the volume (amount of bass coming out of the sub). On that song, I have to lower it. I can bring it back up after.

 

I appreciate a HDMI stereo receiver a lot but at $500 MSRP, wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a 5.1 receiver and turn off the center and surround speakers?

 

Not touching the volume on mine...ever. If it is recorded with more/less/too much bass, I will listen to it that way. If you need to fiddle with the volume of your sub with every other album, you might as well get an equalizer and adjust for every album, not meaning to diss this way of listening, but it's just not my thing. If something was recorded really bad to my ears, I probably will only listen once, too bad, they should have tried harder .

 

You don't usually have to turn off any speakers, per-say.

The same 5.1 surround receiver will also do regular two channel stereo. You can use the bass management feature on the receiver to route the signal to the LFE channel, which is the sub out channel.

I do about the same thing.

I have a HT set up using a surround sound processor.

When I am not doing surround sound, I take a preamp out put from my Peachtree iNova integrated amp and run it into an unused channel on the surround sound processor.

By using the processor's bass management feature, I send everything form 40-Hz. and below out the sub, LFE channel and on to the sub.

 

Agreed. My sub is level matched to the mains with a house curve that I picked, slightly downward sloping, and able to create. If a recording has too little or too much bass I listen to it as is. I'm not into eq'ing every song. Most of the time they are spot on, sometimes they make me laugh at the amount of bass, sometimes I wonder why there is no bass.

It took me a while to get it set where it is, lots and lots of frequency sweeps and waterfall plots. Shifting the position, tweaking the phase dial, adjusting PEQ, shifting the mains, adjust the volume, move an absorber, LF cutoff, crossover points. There were infinite possibilities. With each small movement or adjustment there was a new measurement and waterfall plot, adjust something and repeat again. Wouldn't be surprised if I've run well over 100 frequency sweeps. I don't want to muck that up with constant fiddling, nor do I want to mark up the plate amp by adding markers to dials that would allow settings to easily go back to normal.

As I've mentioned earlier, the only thing I change is sometimes I might reduce the amount of feedback control on the servo for movies. Then tighten it back up for music. The feedback control has three settings, low/med/high. It's quick and easy to remove and add without messing with anything else.

 

Why not have a 1/3 octave full-frequency equalizer accessible via a remote control as well, so that you can custom-tweak each and every song to correct all of the recording/mixing/mastering engineering perceived problems? I mean why just the bass level? And the device(s) involved should be smart enough to remember your settings for each song so that the next time you play them they automatically set to the previously set EQ. So then you could sit back and just listen to each song without ever having to be worried about such things.

Wait, what?



Jeff

 

I agree, I want to listen to the mix that is presented, for the most part. I certainly have records that sound like the bass is mixed a little high, but that was a choice the artist and/or producer made (or the mastering engineer, in the case of reissues).

Plus, you can only control the volume of the lowest frequencies, which may not actually be the full range of bass that is mixed too high in the recording. It seem to me like it would be more useful to leave the subwoofer settings alone and, if desired, use tone controls to turn the bass down. I view the gain setting on the subwoofer as a system matching control, and I’d rather leave it dialed in once I feel like I have it dialed in.

Having said all that, I’m assuming the SVS controller app can save settings? That seems useful, as opposed to manually trying to restore the gain level to the right place.

 

This review mentions a hum / buzz audible from about seven feet away or so.
Anyone else experience this?

For me the process takes time- not only going through a variety of recordings over several months to make sure the sound works for everything- but also working through the break-in process as the subs develop their tone and their output volume reaches a plateau. After that- minor changes as needed and then the settings become more or less permanent.
I do like the idea that the apps make for discrete settings of for the values because I like to take notes along the way. Easier to record level "68" , phase "160 degrees" and crossover 55Hz than sketching the clock position of an analog control knob!

 

No. I have an older SB12-NSD and an SB2000 and neither hums or buzzes in the slightest. Maybe the reviewer has a faulty unit. He should probably discuss it with SVS and possibly get a replacement.

 

It would be interesting to hear what gain or volume setting everyone is using on back of their sub. I have mine set slightly past halfway on the dial. Where is yours set, 1/4 turn, 1/2 turn, 3/4 turn, full turn

 

Neither of my 12" SVS sealed subs make any kind of extraneous noise.

 

thanks for the info. how is the integration using the line level connections?

 

just out of curiosity anyone have any experience with martin logan dynamo subs?

 

I had a Martin Logan Dynamo for 2 weeks on a trial many years ago. The original version. It was good, especially for the $$, but I was looking for Home Theater only in a big room at the time and it didn't have enough "room shaking boom" for that purpose. I ended up getting the next model up in the line, the Grotto, which I've now re-purposed to my 2 channel and it's excellent in that role. I could imagine a pair or quad of dynamo's working well in a swarm type configuation.

 

I use that russ sound adapter from earlier in the thread. Works great.

 

I have a ported 12" SVS sub. NO hums, buzzes, chuffing or rattling. Just clean bass!

 

Neither do mine.

 

I use a surround receiver to power my surrounds and control levels including bass settings. My two channel preamp handles the mains. I find a great deal of flexibility in this set up.

 

Thanks, did you try the RCA connections first?

 

My Audio Note integrated doesn’t have a pre-out.

 

darn boutique audiophile stuff !

 

Fortunately, I have two RCA preamp outs on my GFP-750. One goes to my power amp, the other to my subwoofer. This is the setup SVS recommended for my particular system. I like it.

M. M.

 

Haha. Exactly.

 

You can use rca splitter, signal will be reduced by half

 

In almost every situation (where the output impedance of the source is very much lower than the load impedance that the split signal is feeding), the resulting voltage drop will be so low as to be negligible and inaudible, even though the resulting load impedance (not signal) is cut in half.

So no, the highlighted statement above is not correct.

Jeff