General SUBwoofer Advice Thread

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by shotgunshane, Dec 31, 2019.

  1. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    I'd give some thought to a Rhythmik L12 as well. Mine sounds much more controlled (but can still shake the room) than the SVS I heard (it was in a showroom, so probably not set up well, but it was all rumble and no notes). A HSU was my second choice, with DIY as my third.
     
  2. LetMeBeFrank

    LetMeBeFrank Won't tell anyone my name is actually Francis

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    Was the SVS ported or sealed?

    I ordered the SB-1000 pro on Amazon, I figure with free returns, if I don't like it no biggie.
     
  3. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    It was one of the larger ported models. For the $5-600 range the two rough equivalents according to anecdote were the Rhythmik L12 and the SB-2000 so not apple's to apple's in my own anecdote. It was just surprising enough that I went L12.
     
  4. LetMeBeFrank

    LetMeBeFrank Won't tell anyone my name is actually Francis

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    I've had the SVS SB-1000 Pro in house since yesterday. It blends perfectly with my KEFs and the app makes it so easy to get it dialed in without leaving my seat.

    This thing digs deep and it's so musical. Granted, I'm coming from a 10 year old Sony sub that I paid $50 for, so I don't have a ton of experience to compare it to, but it pretty much disappears, whereas the Sony was glaringly bad. Mitch murder - someplace else is the song I used to really dial it in. This song vibrates the floor and walls of my entire house, so I ordered the isolation feet from SVS.

    Looking forward to trying some movies this weekend.
     
  5. jnak00

    jnak00 Friend

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    I'm thinking of getting that same sub. Currently have a Klipsch 12" that works OK, but it's quite large and I'm looking for something a bit smaller without sacrificing too much.
     
  6. LetMeBeFrank

    LetMeBeFrank Won't tell anyone my name is actually Francis

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    I was surprised how small this sub was, but it sounds huge!
     
  7. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I've had a SB-1000 Pro for 3 months now and echo LetMeBeFrank's opinions. I'm running it from the speaker taps, and the app makes this thing absolutely painless to set up and live with generally. I ran a sweep from 20-200Hz from REW and despite a couple narrow dips that are room dimension dependent, I decided to forgo any Roon-based DSP convolution for now. Using the onboard PEQ is enough to tailor the sound to specific albums/artists is painless, too. Save out some presets for different moods and go listen to some tunes! For a ~12" cube this thing is great for folks who don't need 18Hz @ 124dB and would rather have something easy to integrate with respectable extension and output.
     
  8. LetMeBeFrank

    LetMeBeFrank Won't tell anyone my name is actually Francis

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    I installed the SVS isolation feet today and they made a MASSIVE difference. I thought this sub was good before but now it is honestly astonishing. I really didn't expect the feet to make THAT big of a difference. Now it's tighter than a gnats ass stretched over a rain barrel.

    I am on a hardwood floor above a big open unfinished basement, so I imagine someone on the foundation would probably be fine without them. Before the sub was vibrating the whole main floor of my house along with the walls of the living room and kitchen, now I can juuuuust feel it in the floor of the living room and the walls are dead still.
     
  9. Qildail

    Qildail Friend

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    I've been going back and forth between the SB-1000 Pro and the Micro 3000 for the 2-channel. From what I'm reading here, it doesn't seem like I can make a wrong choice.
     
  10. Garns

    Garns Friend

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    Just interested to know how y'all dial in the delay on your subs (2-channel only).

    For me, it's like beat matching, to get in the right gross neighbourhood I just listen to a kick drum and turn the knob until the tick and the boom aren't obviously out of time. Then for the fine adjustment I just tweak until the attack transients sound snappy and the decay isn't truncated. But maybe there's a better way.
     
  11. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    By "delay" do you mean phase? If that's the case, one thing that's pretty eye opening (using the app w/ the newer SVS subs) is to fiddle with phase between songs. With certain music where the bass is relatively one-note, e.g., house music with high compression and getting pumped out of an 808), you can dial the phase to optimize for a specific frequency band in relation to your mains. But with other music (and assuming your mains drivers and the sub are set firing from the same distance from your listening seat), just setting the phase to 0, or 180 (if your mains x-over does any phase hijinks with reversed polarity) sounds more coherent.

    But to answer your question about "a better way" grab a UMIK-1 and REW and take a look at your impulse response and decay. Then determine whether you want to run convolution/time correction. IMHO, running convolution below 200Hz can turn shitty subs into a bass-goldmine as long as overall listening levels are under 95dB and you've got some modicum of decent sub placement to minimize room nodes.
     
  12. Garns

    Garns Friend

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    Thanks! Yes, I mean phase. On my Rythmik subs the knob is labelled "delay" and goes from 0ms to 6ms. I think it is implemented as an actual delay. Dialling it to about 0.5ms sounds clearer and tighter than just 0ms. That makes sense to me as the difference in the lengths of the two paths (main->ears and sub->ears) at the listening position is about 15cm (since subs are on the ground, mains are on stands) which = 0.45ms.

    I'm thinking of getting a measurement mic to see if the cutoff I set by ear is accurate. I guess to set the delay I can just run some tones while adjusting the delay knob and see where they maximally reinforce?
     
  13. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Phase and cutoff frequency (and slope!) are interdependent, especially in-room, and depending on room treatment. IME, you can get pretty far tuning by ear after setting the x-over frequency to a few Hz below your current speaker's -3dB down point. Expect 6-12dB of room gain in the bass, too, depending on sub/speaker placement. To get to a "broad-brush" x-over point, I use 20-200Hz sine sweeps, then listen to lots of varied music. Once you've found an acceptable x-over frequency, then turn the sub level all the way down, and bring it up a db, or whatever the smallest step is that you can discern until you just begin to notice the sub playing. Do this over several listening sessions, too. Then, once you've found an appropriate sub level, try tweaking the phase or delay to see if the sound gets any better or worse. Once you've found an acceptable phase degree/delay time, then revisit the x-over frequency, but only adjusting by a few Hz up or down. This is just the process that worked for me, and it's by no means perfect. I just found it pretty easy to do using the SVS iphone app over about a week or two of listening for an hour every evening.
     
  14. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    I have not upgraded to Pro but I have been running a pair of SB-1000, connected through RCA out to miniDSP SHD, tuned with Dirac Live. This is my second pair of SB-1000 and proper isolation makes huge difference. I have a door with 12 separate small glass panels in my living room and they were all vibrating independently until I installed the SVS isolation feet. Now I am using IsoAcoustics sub stands, I wanted to raise the subs a bit, and to quiet the room vibrations completely I had to put a thin sorbothane mat under the stands. Reducing vibrations is one thing, improvement in bass control is something else. Cannot compare those two options directly but for anyone using SVS subs, the SVS isolation feet is a no brainer, inexpensive upgrade.
     
  15. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Agreed on isolation. I use a sandwich of rubber and concrete under each sub topped of by sorbothane.
    BC1E9A5F-11CD-4370-AF86-1764CB5B8579.jpeg
    Still looking to make it a bit neater but works great.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2021
  16. Garns

    Garns Friend

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    Thanks! That sounds pretty similar to what I have been doing, though I don't have a non-manual way to do it on the Rythmiks (dual FM8). At least the knobs are stepped...

    Rather than using sweeps, I rendered some major and minor scales. I find it easier to hear the inconsistencies in volume level needed to set the cutoff/gain when there are discrete steps rather than a continuous sweep. And rather than sine waves I generated tones using 4-operator FM. I like FM for this because you always start from a sine wave, but can add harmonics in a very controlled way to get something that more closely approximates real-world bass and hopefully reduces the effect of any weird room interactions. It also allows you to add an attack transient (burst of higher harmonics) which you can use to make a first pass at phase as well.

    I looked at Bob Katz' method of dialling in subs as well, and seriously, WTF. Listen to 1/3 octave pink noise until you go a bit crazy and then double check with a piece of slightly dubious vocal jazz with barely any bass content. I feel like it's an approach that could only work if you are already a ninja mastering engineer.
     
  17. zonto

    zonto Friend

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    @wormcycle, did you find the SVS isolation feet or IsoAcoustics sub stands to provide better isolation? I've also looked into stuff like the Auralex Sub-DUde II. Any idea on how that type of solution would compare?
     
  18. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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  19. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    I could not compare them directly, I used SCS feet and IsoAcoustics but at different times. But in both cases it isa serious upgrade in terms of bass quality. I have not used Auralex Sub-DUde II but intuitively I would always prefer a stand over a platform because of smaller surface that is touching the floor. But that may be misguided, I do not really know.
    I think that I you want you subs at the floor level I would use SVS isolation feet by default. I wanted them higher that's the only reason I use IsoAcoustics.
     
  20. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Holy cow! That's a great idea! It's similar to a bass track CD (Bass Mekanik or something) I've got from my car audio days 30 years ago that has single tracks for each frequency from 20-85Hz, starts at 0dBFS, then warbles down and up 6dB for 10 seconds, then trails off. The other track I find useful is a burst track that (if I remember correctly...) has 10Hz spread bursts basically pass-filtered pink noise (i.e., 20-30Hz, 30-40Hz, etc.) that are played for like 1/2 second, repeating each spread (i think...) 5 times or 4 times, also 0dBFS. The CD had a big warning label on it to the effect of "caution, this CD contains full signal content!"
     

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