SVS SB16-Ultra Sealed Subwoofer Review

[Steve81]

I have a pair of SB SVS 16 (sealed enclosure) subs. They are great but for a lack of slam or punch or whatever you would call it. I just ordered an PB SVS 16 ultra (ported) to see if the ported one in partially sealed mode or fully ported might be able to run in the same room and add punch. Any ideas?

A few thoughts…

1. Have you measured your in-room FR to see if there are any big problems?

2. Moving one sub near field might be worth a try. It’s free, and easily reversed if nothing else.

3. If punch is what you desire, you’re probably looking for more mid / upper bass output, which isn’t exactly the PB16’s specialty.

 

[sosojerk]

Hello,
I have a SB 16 Ultra and here are my findings.
This sub is a monster, but.... You need a big room for it to shine.
I have tested in my living room (8m x 5m x 5m tall) and it is so powerful that sometimes I think it will demoslish my house.
So with that in mind, I moved it into a much smaller room (my caveman) and surprize... it does not have the slam from my living room, not even close.
So what I am trying to say is that the room structure is very imporant. The bigger the better.
Usually it is being sad the the size of the room walls should be bigger than the sound wavelength.
An in my living room it is...
Just my thoughts.

 

[Bill Shenefelt]

I started to order a third SVS 16 ultra in the ported design but re-thought things and went with a third SVS sealed 16 ultra instead. It was a real task for me alone to get into my house and in place though. I am still awaiting delivery of my Anthem AVM 90 which has 4 independant subwoofer outputs, all controlled and set by the Anthem "ARC" room correction system. I understand that mine is likely among the first group of AVM 90s just shipped to the US and is awaiting movement across the Canada to US border about 100 miles from me. (I ordered mine in November of 2020)! Relocating any of the 4 subs in the room is sort of out of the question for me at my age of nearly 79. There are not a lot of available locations for use as new positions to try anyway. The 18 inch ported sub should also help a lot with punch for theater. That sub is also good into the low 30 cps realm but cannot be run much below that since it's excursion capability is not like that of a movie subwoofer and the box frequency must be used for control below 28 cps. If fed without a low cut filter it would likely get blown out of the enclosure.

With good low frequency and high volume capability, "Master and Commander"makes you leave the room for some heavy rain gear.

 

[Bill Shenefelt]

A few thoughts…

1. Have you measured your in-room FR to see if there are any big problems?

2. Moving one sub near field might be worth a try. It’s free, and easily reversed if nothing else.

3. If punch is what you desire, you’re probably looking for more mid / upper bass output, which isn’t exactly the PB16’s specialty.

I located my first two SVS ultras near the front corners of the room and the third is at aboout 2/3 of the way to the rear wall along side of the three seats. The JBL 18 is a super punch generator in the 35 to 80 cps realm along with the 4, 15 inch JBL ported's also tuned to 28 cps

 

[Bill Shenefelt]

My livungroom is about 27 ft (7 1/2 meters) long by13 feet (3 1/4 meters)wide by 8 feet (2 2/3 meters) tall. Front subs are 3 ft(1 meter) in from each sidewall but against the front wall. The room is "beside" my dining room and kitchen which are connected to the theater(my living room) with a 6 foot wide archway on one sidewall adding almost another volume nearly as much as the living room. The big old JBL 18 sub is roughly centered against the end wall. Seating is about 2/3 of the way to the back wall from the front wall. I have several treated walls and some treating pannels on the ceiling with floor carpeted. Each front corner has a 1.5 by 1.5 by 8 ft tall "bass trap" between the front sub and the front corners of the room. Walls are drywall or paneling with no special acoustical construction, just 16 inch centered 2x4 studs. The room measurment ratios are not great for 60 cps especially. With the multiple subs it is not too bad at the seats though

 

[Pogre]

My livungroom is about 27 ft (7 1/2 meters) long by13 feet (3 1/4 meters)wide by 8 feet (2 2/3 meters) tall. Front subs are 3 ft(1 meter) in from each sidewall but against the front wall. The room is "beside" my dining room and kitchen which are connected to the theater(my living room) with a 6 foot wide archway on one sidewall adding almost another volume nearly as much as the living room. The big old JBL 18 sub is roughly centered against the end wall. Seating is about 2/3 of the way to the back wall from the front wall. I have several treated walls and some treating pannels on the ceiling with floor carpeted. Each front corner has a 1.5 by 1.5 by 8 ft tall "bass trap" between the front sub and the front corners of the room. Walls are drywall or paneling with no special acoustical construction, just 16 inch centered 2x4 studs. The room measurment ratios are not great for 60 cps especially. With the multiple subs it is not too bad at the seats though

I think what you need is to measure the frequency response to see what's going on, but right off the bat I'm gonna say I'd recommend ported subs for the space you have.

You have several treated walls and bass traps? So how did you determine that you needed them, and how did you determine which treatments to get and where to put them?

 

[Bill Shenefelt]

I think what you need is to measure the frequency response to see what's going on, but right off the bat I'm gonna say I'd recommend ported subs for the space you have.

You have several treated walls and bass traps? So how did you determine that you needed them, and how did you determine which treatments to get and where to put them

I added the corner bass traps to sort of lower the intensity of placing a SVS 16 ultra at each front corner. I placed two 2x4 ft ceiling sound panels up to cut ceiling reflection of midrange that could blur speech. I do have a third sealed SVS 16 ultra along the sidewall across from the archway in the other long wall and in line with my seats. The old 18 inch JBLsub is ported and so are my 4 big JBL monitors holding 15 inch woofers. The 5 ported JBLs are all tuned to 27 CPS and have great output up into the 300 cps plus range. Summing up the ported enclosure volumes it comes to about 28 cubic feet. The three SVS sealed subs are not ported since I only have so much space in my living room. I had started with two ported svs 13 cylinders and went to the newer sealed 16 ultras. SVS recommended that option over ported since I should not need to go to the higher efficiency ported gives. If I had gotten the ported ones they would not have meshed with the higher frequency porting of the JBL's anyway. The overall frequency response with a sweep is pretty decent from about 12 cps up. Having the room length twice the room width is sort of bad for the 60 cps realm but I cannot move the room walls. The svs in line with the seating at about the middle of the room length helps fill tant standing wave though. Having the multiple subs helps to smooth things out. I hope to get my Anthem 90 processor (which has 4 sub outputs all separately controlled by the processor) this coming month after waiting over a year for it. It will hopefully help blend the ported subs with the sealed subs

 

[Pogre]

I added the corner bass traps to sort of lower the intensity of placing a SVS 16 ultra at each front corner. I placed two 2x4 ft ceiling sound panels up to cut ceiling reflection of midrange that could blur speech.

But did you do any measuring or consult with an acoustician about which treatments to choose and where/how to place them? Putting up room treatments "doing it by ear" is not a great idea. Slapping them up around the room without the right data is a recipe for making things worse. It's really easy to over do it or attenuate the wrong frequencies. I would never attempt treatments without before and after measurements and good knowledge of how to apply them.