Mostly finished with 1st system

[Panhandler801]

24 x 34 room. 9ft ceilings.

70/30 Music / HT

Paradigm Studio 60s
Paradigm CC590
Paradigm AMS 100R Ceiling mount surrounds

Need to get a sub.

Looking at SVS...

PC Ultra
20-39 PC Plus
PB12 - Plus (Which should preform very close tot he 20-39 PC Plus)

OR...

A pair of the SB12-Plus

I'm leaning towards the pair of SBs.

Anybody else using a pair of them?

They'll outperform the 20-39 at 40hz and above, but below that they start rolling off.

At 20hz, two of them will put out 92.9db, compared to 99.7 on the 20-39.

What does that (7db loss) equate to in real life listening experience?

I imagine the PC 20-39 + and the Ultra would beat the two SB12+s in the HT realm, but what about music? Would the two SB12+s be better. I guess that might depend on what your two fronts are. Mine are new Paradigm Studio 60s. That being said, maybe having all that power in the mid to high "bass" range isn't terribly necessary, especially when you consider that it's coming at the expense (attributed by the positive feature of small cabinet size) of the deep down stuff at high volumes. I don't want too much volume in that high SB range / low Studio 60 range, you know?

I welcome everyone's thoughts.

I know most will say go with the Ultra and be done with it, but it's soo darn big (as is the 20-39), and I'm more music than HT.

PLUS I have two great spots for the pair of SBs. Will look real nice.

 

[j_garcia]

-7dB is HUGE - that is over a 100% difference in SPL. Your room is rather large and if it can't be closed off, I would personally go with the PC/PB-Plus.

 

[Panhandler801]

lil help?

SPL is what? Just volume, right?

Where are you getting 100% difference from? I'm lost.

 

[j_garcia]

SPL = Sound Pressure Level, or the amount of sound you hear measured in decibles. 3dB is a 50% drop in SPL, so -3dB would be a noticeable, measureable drop in sound. As a result -7dB would be quite a bit of a drop. At that frequency, you are basically looking at a little more than twice the output. The question is, are you looking for bottom end/infrasonic performance?

 

[crashkelly]

Panhandler801,

Not to try to throw a wrench in your plans or to confuse the situation, but please take a read through this post Decision Time.

I am not sure what your budget is for a, or a pair of, subwoofer(s), but I see that a SVS PC Ultra is in your list. If you are even thinking about that model/version, think more before pulling the trigger on a "lesser" one.

You never want to utter the phrase "Why oh why didn't I get the Ultra!", (to quote myself from the above thread )

Just my $0.02

Cheers
Michael

 

[jcPanny]

SVS subs

I have one of the SVS SB12-Plus subs in my HT and it was a good compromise of performance and asthetics for my application. As sugested, you will get significantly less output (-7dB) at 20 Hz (-10 dB is half the volume/SPL) with two of these vs. 1 of the larger box subs. Below 20 Hz is the bass you can feel vs. what you can hear.

Since you are considering the larger boxes, check out dual MFW-15 subs from AV123 for $1k in black or $1,200 with real wood veneer.

 

[Panhandler801]

Yikes. Two 15"s sounds like a lot.

I need to get my fronts hooked up (waiting on cables and plugs from BJC right now) and see how they sound in the room so that I can get a better feel for how my room is going to respond to noise in general.

Hooked my ceilings up and they sounded better than I thought they would, which is nice. So far I've only listened to FM radio because I don't have a CD player or any of my cables.

What's up with the 350 watt deal? Seems kind of low. I guess that's all part of the design though. Different sized ports, materials, construction, etc, huh?

 

[j_garcia]

Low bass response will be different than what your mains will produce. Low bass reacts to the room differently because of the wavelength of the frequencies. Having said that, your room is a better shape and size for good bass IMO.

My 15" is powered by a 350w amp and it rattles the whole house and gets down into the teens; yes, it is all in the design.

 

[zhimbo]

SPL = Sound Pressure Level, or the amount of sound you hear measured in decibles. 3dB is a 50% drop in SPL, so -3dB would be a noticeable, measureable drop in sound. As a result -7dB would be quite a bit of a drop. At that frequency, you are basically looking at a little more than twice the output. The question is, are you looking for bottom end/infrasonic performance?

Just to be pedantic, in reference to your previous post, that would be a more than 75% drop in SPL (50% drop for first 3, 50% drop for second three = 25% of original). I'm not sure what a >100% drop would be (more quiet than silence?).

 

[AVRat]

At a difference of -7dB, your only getting about 20% of the original SPL. I also like the dual MFW-15s option!

 

[Panhandler801]

MFW-15s... are they at all musical? Seem like pure HT subs to me, but I'm new to all of this.

I guess there's no such thing as too much, but I just have this fear of having bass all over the place and not even hearing the music. I guess this is all part of setting the system up right. At loud volumes my Studio 60s would still be able do their thing over the subs, right? I want to try to ensure that it's one continuous spectrem of frequencies.

I just imagine those dual SVS SBs being great for the tunes

What do the MFW-15s look like? They pretty nice? So far, everything in my set up is either black, silver, or clear glass, so I'd need to go with the black ones. They pretty sharp looking?

Looking at the pics online, it looks like some piece of polly with a whole in it for the speaker, is just drilled with what look like sheetrock screws into the cabinet.