2013 Subwoofer Roundup: 6 Subs For $500 Or Less

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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Personally I don't find flat measuring speakers hard and unnatural. Especially unnatural, think about that, there is an absurdity there. What you hear in reality is 'flat'. So if reality sounds unnatural to you... then this is the matrix!
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
Its odd because I know they replaced the FV12 but the new LV12R is not listed dander their products page.
It IS listed on their site and has been for months. It is the very first line item under the Products drop down. When it came out, it was an introductory price of $499 for quite a while and went up to the current price.
 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
1. It's 100dB @ 2 meters ground plane; in room may see a substantial boost beyond that.
2. While your ears aren't particularly sensitive at 20Hz, you will also feel that kind of output.
I agree there is a definite presence felt at 20 Hz at those output levels. And that the room might give you a boost, however if your speaker is running at the ragged edge at the bottom of its tuning point, chances are there will be a lot of distortion present. I know SVS usually does very well with distortion down to 20 Hz, but I have to wonder if that holds down to the PB1000 because that is asking a lot of a 10" driver.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
The old SVS PB-10 could get to 18hz decently, but it had a larger cabinet than the PB1000; No DSP though.
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
100 dB at 20 Hz isn't really that much. Let us refer to the equal loudness curve:
What this chart also tells us is that low distortion is more important than absolute output. At 32Hz, which is plainly audible, our hearing is what, ~40db less sensitive than at 64Hz, the 2nd harmonic.

That means, if I'm reading the chart correctly, that with 1% 2nd harmonic distortion at 32Hz, the 2nd harmonic is audible at about the same level as the fundamental.
 
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TheStalker

Banned
Personally I don't find flat measuring speakers hard and unnatural. Especially unnatural, think about that, there is an absurdity there. What you hear in reality is 'flat'. So if reality sounds unnatural to you... then this is the matrix!
What we hear in real life is not flat, as has been proven by your own chart. If I'm listening to a live clarinet player, I will hear him play accordingly to the audibility chart. Now a flat recording mic will record with a flat curve. If this flat curve is to be played back on a speaker system, the system's output has to follow your curves, otherwise you'll hear what the mic did and not what you would have live.
 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
What this chart also tells us is that low distortion is more important than absolute output. At 32Hz, which is plainly audible, our hearing is what, ~40db less sensitive than at 64Hz, the 2nd harmonic.

That means, if I'm reading the chart correctly, that with 1% 2nd harmonic distortion at 32Hz, the 2nd harmonic is audible at about the same level as the fundamental.
That is something I have tried to explain in other threads, but this point seems to get disregarded because, it was explained to me, second harmonic distortion is "barely audible" or benign. That might be true in certain frequency ranges, but not in deep bass. And thing about how much more audible third order distortion is at 32 Hz. I didn't realize how drastic it is until I read your post either, that is eye opening. I guess you would need a hell of a subwoofer system to get truly clean deep bass.
 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
What we hear in real life is not flat, as has been proven by your own chart. If I'm listening to a live clarinet player, I will hear him play accordingly to the audibility chart. Now a flat recording mic will record with a flat curve. If this flat curve is to be played back on a speaker system, the system's output has to follow your curves, otherwise you'll hear what the mic did and not what you would have live.
I don't mean to seem argumentative, but I am not quite following you here. Correct me if I am wrong, but if the mic is flat, and the speakers are flat (and there wasn't any processing on the recording), that is basically the same thing as hearing a live performance. That would be a perfect sound reproduction and indistinguishable from the real thing, assuming you had perfect speakers, perfect mic, and perfect recording. Your ears wouldn't know the difference. You don't have to make any changes in the response to suit your ears, because your ears already have that curve built in. I might be misreading you on this point.
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
I don't mean to seem argumentative, but I am not quite following you here. Correct me if I am wrong, but if the mic is flat, and the speakers are flat (and there wasn't any processing on the recording), that is basically the same thing as hearing a live performance. That would be a perfect sound reproduction and indistinguishable from the real thing, assuming you had perfect speakers, perfect mic, and perfect recording. Your ears wouldn't know the difference. You don't have to make any changes in the response to suit your ears, because your ears already have that curve built in. I might be misreading you on this point.
I've made live recordings of acoustic instruments in my own house, and you can almost always tell the recording from the live performance, because you are hearing the acoustics of the room twice. The only time I've been truly fooled is when one of our children played the flute while standing between my speakers, playing along with herself on a solo recording. With my eyes closed I really couldn't tell which was the recording and which was live. With the upright piano I can get really, really close to live, but the acoustics still give a recording away in the end. With my wife's rick drum kit a recording can sound awesome, but there's no question which one is live; the acoustics are just too prominent with a snare drum to fool me.
 
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TheStalker

Banned
I don't mean to seem argumentative, but I am not quite following you here. Correct me if I am wrong, but if the mic is flat, and the speakers are flat (and there wasn't any processing on the recording), that is basically the same thing as hearing a live performance. That would be a perfect sound reproduction and indistinguishable from the real thing, assuming you had perfect speakers, perfect mic, and perfect recording. Your ears wouldn't know the difference. You don't have to make any changes in the response to suit your ears, because your ears already have that curve built in. I might be misreading you on this point.
Because simply put, the microphone heard and recorded with a different curve than what your ears use. The closer the mic can record to the way we hear, the more realistic the sound reproduction would be. Binaural recordings even use an anatomically correct dummy head and place the mics in perfectly crafted ears, so all of the distances, etc. would be correct. If you record flat and playback flat, then you are listening to what the mic heard and not to what you would have heard. I hope I'm making sense.
 
N

NewHTbuyer

Audioholic
It IS listed on their site and has been for months. It is the very first line item under the Products drop down. When it came out, it was an introductory price of $499 for quite a while and went up to the current price.
I see it now under the drop down menu. But when you hit the picture of the sub and are actually on the product page, I still don't see it. At least I know how to find it in the future. Still, they should fix the product page too as Gene also had trouble finding it.
 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Because simply put, the microphone heard and recorded with a different curve than what your ears use. The closer the mic can record to the way we hear, the more realistic the sound reproduction would be. Binaural recordings even use an anatomically correct dummy head and place the mics in perfectly crafted ears, so all of the distances, etc. would be correct. If you record flat and playback flat, then you are listening to what the mic heard and not to what you would have heard. I hope I'm making sense.
The way I'm seeing your description is if you change the frequency response curve from flat to emulate human hearing at any point, the end result is the playback would be like a doubling of the non-linearity of human hearing, lol. That is the flowchart in my head anyway.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
I've made live recordings of acoustic instruments in my own house, and you can almost always tell the recording from the live performance, because you are hearing the acoustics of the room twice. The only time I've been truly fooled is when one of our children played the flute while standing between my speakers, playing along with herself on a solo recording. With my eyes closed I really couldn't tell which was the recording and which was live. With the upright piano I can get really, really close to live, but the acoustics still give a recording away in the end. With my wife's rick drum kit a recording can sound awesome, but there's no question which one is live; the acoustics are just too prominent with a snare drum to fool me.
Recording is an interesting subject. Especially when it comes to eliminating the room. That is an expensive undertaking that I wouldn't want to get into, but if you do that much recording it may be something to look into. I've had a few friends that were pretty fantastic at it when I worked at Guitar Center. I was always impressed that it seemed that their recording room (even the more modest ones) did not seem to bleed into the recording most of the time. Grated we aren't speaking of acoustic instruments so it isn't as crucial to have a "perfect" room, but I always found it interesting.

Also, I've been considering the sealed SVS for my "formal" dining room/tv room, but have reservations due to it's output capability. The size is what I'm interested in (no matter how much that annoys me).
 
T

TheStalker

Banned
The way I'm seeing your description is if you change the frequency response curve from flat to emulate human hearing at any point, the end result is the playback would be like a doubling of the non-linearity of human hearing, lol. That is the flowchart in my head anyway.
I hope no one sees this as argument, but if you're interested, I'd like to continue this discussion... I must still disagree with your reasoning. Here's an excerpt from Linkwitz that I hope you find interesting:

Electro-acoustic models

"H - Psycho-acoustic 3 kHz dip

Our perception of loudness is slightly different for sounds arriving frontally versus sounds arriving from random directions at our ears. The difference between equal-loudness-level contours in frontal free-fields and diffuse sound fields is documented, for example, in ISO Recommendation 454 and in E. Zwicker, H. Fastl, Psycho-acoustics, p. 205.
Diffuse field equalization of dummy-head recordings is discussed in J. Blauert, Spatial Hearing, pp. 363, and headphone diffuse field equalization by G. Theile in JAES, Vol. 34, No. 12.
Reference to a slight dip in the 1 to 3 kHz region for loudspeaker equalization is made in H. D. Harwood (BBC Research Department), Some factors in loudspeaker quality, Wireless World, May 1976, p.48.

Around 3 kHz our hearing is less sensitive to diffuse fields. Recording microphones, though, are usually flat in frequency response even under diffuse field conditions. When such recordings are played back over loudspeakers, there is more energy in the 3 kHz region than we would have perceived if present at the recording venue and a degree of unnaturalness is introduced.
This applies primarily to recordings of large orchestral pieces in concert halls where the microphones are much closer to the instruments than any listener. At most listening positions in the hall the sound field has strong diffuse components.
I use a dip of 4 dB (x1.gif, 2760NF) to equalize for this. The circuit consists of R, C and L in series, forming a frequency dependent ladder attenuator in conjunction with the 5.11k ohm source resistor. You may choose to make the notch filter selectable with a switch for different types of recordings.

I have found through my own head-related recordings of symphonic music that the dip adds greater realism, especially to large chorus and to soprano voice and allows for higher playback levels. "

I'm just not sure how to put it into simpler words, a microphone hears differently than a human ear. If we are to hear a recording as we would hear it live, then we need either the microphone to record with the same curve as our ears pick up, or the speakers must reproduce that same curve as an output. BBC has also done similar studies in psycho acoustics and concluded with the same results, the now famous BBC dip. They've spent over a million dollars (nearly five million in today's dollar) some forty years ago doing this research.

 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Thanks for elaborating, your argument was a bit more subtle than I expected. If I were to simplify up what you are saying, the direction which the sound is coming from has an impact on the frequency sensitivity curve on that we hear, but a microphone picks that up more evenly, or at least it is less affected by the direction the sound is coming from. So, to get a more accurate representation of the recording on our ears, that has to be compensated for. I didn't know about how the direction affected our own sensitivity to frequencies, and I think I get what you are saying now, and I find it to be a convincing argument. You learn something new everyday! Anyway, thanks for taking the time to explain it to me, you have brought up an interesting point which was new to me.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
This is exactly the reason why most flat measuring speakers sound hard and unnatural.
The fact is, some people prefer flat measuring speakers (+/-2dB), some prefer non-flat measuring speakers (+/-6dB). You may prefer +/-6dB to +/-10dB speakers, but many people prefer +/-1dB to +/-2dB.
 
zhimbo

zhimbo

Audioholic General
This is exactly the reason why most flat measuring speakers sound hard and unnatural.
While there are good reasons for a non-flat response, that graph is not one of them. If we're less sensitive to low frequencies, that's not just for listening to speakers, that's just how we are. Boosting frequencies we're less sensitive to leads to UNnatural sound, as we are naturally less sensitive. Your later post is very interesting, but mostly unrelated - it's the difference in sensitivity between "frontal free-fields and diffuse sound fields" that's important, not merely that we're differently sensitive to different frequencies.
 
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AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
I would take the PA-150 at $500. The PB1000 can give you 20 Hz bass, but not enough to make a difference. For both movies and music the PA-150 will be a more impressive sub, the bigtime mid bass dynamics are going to be far more practical than deep bass that can barely be heard.
Actually the PA-150 is $424 shipped from Acoustic Designs using the code TV15.
 
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scott911

Full Audioholic
What's interesting is that for the specs, that SVS non ported SB-1000 is TINY.

The article perhaps should have shown the subs in comparable size to show the differences, especially between teh two SVS units.

I had really wanted to try out the SB by trading in my ported SV in for it (my wife's kicked that big unit out of 'her' living room) but I apparently would have had to buy an "official" box to ship it back for more than $100! in order to benefit from SVS' trade in program...

That's some expensive card board they're using over there... :eek:
 
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