2013 Subwoofer Roundup: 6 Subs For $500 Or Less

[theJman]

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.

The SB1000 is indeed a very small subwoofer. For a size comparison check out the review I did on the PB and SB a few months back.

 

[Jeff R.]

I am not sure if any of you have ever had you hearing checked by an audiologist. I have working in Manufacturing environments for years and we do annual hearing tests for all employees in which you respond to test tones at a range of frequencies over the normal human ears sensitivty. They chart it out for you and you get your results.....so a long story short is I get to see all the variation between our employees and it is staggering to see how much everyone is different. This is what truly is determining your daily perception of the world. So I do not know that a flat response is always a good thing. In my opinion we could almost do a hearing test on somebody and then lay it over what a speaker does and then you could almost reasonably predict who may prefer one speaker over another based on their hearing curve......maybe like perscription speakers.

 

[jcl]

Our perception of loudness is slightly different for sounds arriving frontally versus sounds arriving from random directions at our ears.

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 don't discount our perception of diffuse vs. non-diffuse sound is different, but I do wonder about the conclusion of addressing this by tailoring speaker response. Perhaps I'm not understanding the concept clearly.

Linkwitz states it primarily applies to orchestral pieces in concert halls (I wonder if this is assuming an ambient/distant miking technique). So music recorded using close miking techniques then wouldn't have this imbalance. Then wouldn't it sound altered/unnatural when played back on speakers that have had their response tuned in this way?

Further, microphones come in many different pickup patterns (Omindirectional, Cardiod, Hypercardiod, etc) that control the directionality of the sound they pickup. In addition there are different miking techniques (x/y and m/s for instance) that are used to control the amount of diffuse sound in a recording. Then music recorded with these techniques would have less diffuse sound, and thus would sound altered/unnatural when played back on speakers with such a tuned response?

 

[TheStalker]

I don't discount our perception of diffuse vs. non-diffuse sound is different, but I do wonder about the conclusion of addressing this by tailoring speaker response. Perhaps I'm not understanding the concept clearly.

Linkwitz states it primarily applies to orchestral pieces in concert halls (I wonder if this is assuming an ambient/distant miking technique). So music recorded using close miking techniques then wouldn't have this imbalance. Then wouldn't it sound altered/unnatural when played back on speakers that have had their response tuned in this way?

Further, microphones come in many different pickup patterns (Omindirectional, Cardiod, Hypercardiod, etc) that control the directionality of the sound they pickup. In addition there are different miking techniques (x/y and m/s for instance) that are used to control the amount of diffuse sound in a recording. Then music recorded with these techniques would have less diffuse sound, and thus would sound altered/unnatural when played back on speakers with such a tuned response?

Certainly that's all very true. But nevertheless, a speaker should have a dip between 1kHz-5kHz in order to sound more natural and how an average human ear hears. The reason why orchestral music was chosen as an example is because we can actually listen to it live and compare. We cannot do the same with electronic music, etc.

If you take a look at huge companies like B&W, their anechoic measurements are almost identical to the equal loudness chart, just not as severe with the dips and peaks. Now B&W owns two anechoic chambers and they use computer software to build crossovers, so for them, designing a flat SPL would be a piece of cake. But they don't...

 

[TheStalker]

I am not sure if any of you have ever had you hearing checked by an audiologist. I have working in Manufacturing environments for years and we do annual hearing tests for all employees in which you respond to test tones at a range of frequencies over the normal human ears sensitivty. They chart it out for you and you get your results.....so a long story short is I get to see all the variation between our employees and it is staggering to see how much everyone is different. This is what truly is determining your daily perception of the world. So I do not know that a flat response is always a good thing. In my opinion we could almost do a hearing test on somebody and then lay it over what a speaker does and then you could almost reasonably predict who may prefer one speaker over another based on their hearing curve......maybe like perscription speakers.

As funny as that sounds, you probably hit the nail right on the head. Everyone can check their equal loudness with this test: Equal loudness contours and audiometry - Test your own hearing

Then you can seek out anechoic measurements for speakers with a similar curve and audition them. It's very likely that at that point you would find a very natural, balanced loudspeaker.

 

[Pyrrho]

I am not sure if any of you have ever had you hearing checked by an audiologist. I have working in Manufacturing environments for years and we do annual hearing tests for all employees in which you respond to test tones at a range of frequencies over the normal human ears sensitivty. They chart it out for you and you get your results.....so a long story short is I get to see all the variation between our employees and it is staggering to see how much everyone is different. This is what truly is determining your daily perception of the world. So I do not know that a flat response is always a good thing. In my opinion we could almost do a hearing test on somebody and then lay it over what a speaker does and then you could almost reasonably predict who may prefer one speaker over another based on their hearing curve......maybe like perscription speakers.

The problem with what you are saying is that when one listens to live music that is not amplified, like an acoustic piano, one's particular hearing curve affects how it sounds. But however it sounds to one, that is the natural sound. If you had a speaker that was designed to compensate for whatever deviations from "normal" your particular hearing was, then a recording of a piano would not sound like a real piano, because some of the frequencies would be boosted, and some cut, which is not the case when one listens to an actual piano. To make it sound like a piano sounds to you, it must have a fairly flat frequency response. Any artificial boosting or cutting of any audible frequencies involved will only make it sound less natural.

Of course, this is assuming that one is listening at the same level "live" as with the recording; otherwise, one must deal with another nonlinearity of human hearing, which is that as the volume decreases, the bass and treble subjectively appear to diminish more than the midrange (which is why so many old stereos have "loudness compensation" controls, so that one can compensate for this aspect of human hearing when one chooses to listen at less than concert levels).

 

[TheStalker]

But according to Linkwitz, BBC, and others, the truth is the opposite of what you describe. It's not an easy concept to grasp. A flat recording would actually sound incorrect. And I fully agree with their studies by simply listening to different speakers and seeing what type of curve I find the most natural. And so far I've preferred speakers with the classic BBC dip over flat measuring speakers like Revel.

 

[Jeff R.]

I was thinking in a more generalized approach for example if you have poor hearing in the upper frequency levels then an speaker that accentuates the high frequnecy better may sound better to you since it will help balance the overall sound perception. As the same could be utilzed as you look at the different peaks and valleys in one persons hearing. It may help simlify or shorten the process of finding the right speaker. By eliminting a high percentage off speakers available that do not accentuate an area that would compliment one's person hearing deficiency.

 

[TheStalker]

That works too, but maybe is too extreme. However, if you build a speaker to have a curve similar to the average ear, the speakers should tonally appeal to a lot of people out there.

 

[Pyrrho]

I am not sure if any of you have ever had you hearing checked by an audiologist. I have working in Manufacturing environments for years and we do annual hearing tests for all employees in which you respond to test tones at a range of frequencies over the normal human ears sensitivty. They chart it out for you and you get your results.....so a long story short is I get to see all the variation between our employees and it is staggering to see how much everyone is different. This is what truly is determining your daily perception of the world. So I do not know that a flat response is always a good thing. In my opinion we could almost do a hearing test on somebody and then lay it over what a speaker does and then you could almost reasonably predict who may prefer one speaker over another based on their hearing curve......maybe like perscription speakers.

The problem with what you are saying is that when one listens to live music that is not amplified, like an acoustic piano, one's particular hearing curve affects how it sounds. But however it sounds to one, that is the natural sound. If you had a speaker that was designed to compensate for whatever deviations from "normal" your particular hearing was, then a recording of a piano would not sound like a real piano, because some of the frequencies would be boosted, and some cut, which is not the case when one listens to an actual piano. To make it sound like a piano sounds to you, it must have a fairly flat frequency response. Any artificial boosting or cutting of any audible frequencies involved will only make it sound less natural.

Of course, this is assuming that one is listening at the same level "live" as with the recording; otherwise, one must deal with another nonlinearity of human hearing, which is that as the volume decreases, the bass and treble subjectively appear to diminish more than the midrange (which is why so many old stereos have "loudness compensation" controls, so that one can compensate for this aspect of human hearing when one chooses to listen at less than concert levels).

But according to Linkwitz, BBC, and others, the truth is the opposite of what you describe. It's not an easy concept to grasp. A flat recording would actually sound incorrect. And I fully agree with their studies by simply listening to different speakers and seeing what type of curve I find the most natural. And so far I've preferred speakers with the classic BBC dip over flat measuring speakers like Revel.

If you are referring to what is mentioned in post 35:

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.

That is not the opposite of what I am saying. That is saying that the direction of the sound matters for the frequency response one hears, which is often misrepresented in a recording due to microphones not having the same issues. That has nothing to do with the fact that a live piano does not have its frequency response altered for each listener, which is what the effect would be of trying to compensate for the frequency response anomalies of particular people.

When listening to a piano live, there is no compensation for whatever anomalies there are in one's hearing. Therefore, trying to do such compensation with one's speaker will make things sound less natural.

Now, with the direction issues mentioned in post 35, that could be dealt with with different microphones or different microphone technics, or with simply altering the frequency response of the master tape with an equalizer. Notice, this is the same for everyone, not something customized for each individual person.

Any attempt at customization for an individual will make the resulting sound more different from the way it would sound naturally to the person. In the case of hearing aids, that is the point; the natural sound is undesired, and so it is altered to be less natural on purpose.

 

[Pyrrho]

I was thinking in a more generalized approach for example if you have poor hearing in the upper frequency levels then an speaker that accentuates the high frequnecy better may sound better to you since it will help balance the overall sound perception. As the same could be utilzed as you look at the different peaks and valleys in one persons hearing. It may help simlify or shorten the process of finding the right speaker. By eliminting a high percentage off speakers available that do not accentuate an area that would compliment one's person hearing deficiency.

The thing is, when you listen to a piano live, the pianist does not play the high notes louder for some people than others; it is played however it is played, and so the person with poor high frequency hearing will hear the high notes less well than someone with better high frequency hearing. That is how a piano sounds natural to the person. Any attempt at adding treble will make it sound less natural. Whether someone wants a less natural sound or not is another matter, but adding to what would be naturally present is, by definition, unnatural.

 

[TheStalker]

If you are referring to what is mentioned in post 35:




That is not the opposite of what I am saying. That is saying that the direction of the sound matters for the frequency response one hears, which is often misrepresented in a recording due to microphones not having the same issues. That has nothing to do with the fact that a live piano does not have its frequency response altered for each listener, which is what the effect would be of trying to compensate for the frequency response anomalies of particular people.

When listening to a piano live, there is no compensation for whatever anomalies there are in one's hearing. Therefore, trying to do such compensation with one's speaker will make things sound less natural.

Now, with the direction issues mentioned in post 35, that could be dealt with with different microphones or different microphone technics, or with simply altering the frequency response of the master tape with an equalizer. Notice, this is the same for everyone, not something customized for each individual person.

Any attempt at customization for an individual will make the resulting sound more different from the way it would sound naturally to the person. In the case of hearing aids, that is the point; the natural sound is undesired, and so it is altered to be less natural on purpose.

I'm sorry, but I disagree. If you could record with your ears (which have a specific curve), then yes, the system should be flat and the output will be identical to a live listening session. As soon as a live event is recorded with a mic, it will no longer sound the same on a flat system in comparison to what one would have heard live, UNLESS the system is EQd in some way. The recording techniques and microphones are what they are and they record flat, so not much can be changed there. The diffuse sound fields is exactly which causes the equal loudness chart to be so curvy, because that's how we hear these different frequencies. And again they have to be EQd somewhere in the system if the live event was recorded flat, which it most certainly was. So why not at the speaker? Or with an electronic notch filter as Linkwitz proposes? But recording flat and listening flat is certainly wrong. At least according to Linkwitz and BBC.

 

[Pyrrho]

I'm sorry, but I disagree. If you could record with your ears (which have a specific curve), then yes, the system should be flat and the output will be identical to a live listening session. As soon as a live event is recorded with a mic, it will no longer sound the same on a flat system in comparison to what one would have heard live, UNLESS the system is EQd in some way. The recording techniques and microphones are what they are and they record flat, so not much can be changed there. The diffuse sound fields is exactly which causes the equal loudness chart to be so curvy, because that's how we hear these different frequencies. And again they have to be EQd somewhere in the system if the live event was recorded flat, which it most certainly was. So why not at the speaker? Or with an electronic notch filter as Linkwitz proposes? But recording flat and listening flat is certainly wrong. At least according to Linkwitz and BBC.

You are missing the point. To sound natural, the equalization cannot be customized for the individual; this is because live sounds are not customized for the individual. I did not disagree with the idea that sound that EVERYONE hears is affected by direction, but that is an issue for everyone, and so whatever solution is found to that issue, is THE EXACT SAME THING for everyone. Customizing the sound differently for every individual will NECESSARILY make it sound unnatural, as real sounds are not customized to compensate for the peculiarities of an individual's hearing.


In other words, there are two separate and distinct issues:

1. All human hearing is affected by the direction of the sound. However, microphones do not have these exact same directional characteristics, and consequently care must be taken to make a recorded sound seem natural. Since that is an issue affecting everyone, the way to deal with this will be the same for everyone.
2. Each individual has different hearing ability. However, this is the way each individual naturally perceives the world. Therefore, any attempt at changing the sound to compensate for this personal aspect of an individual's hearing will make the sound less natural.

These, being separate and distinct issues, means that they are to be dealt with separately. Comments about one of these issues does not entail anything about the other issue, as they are completely different issues.

I have not stated in this thread that one should not be concerned about 1; I was saying something about 2. Trying to fix the frequency response of a person's ears is what a hearing aid is all about, and that is about trying to make things sound different from what the person naturally hears. That has nothing to do with 1. But that is exactly what 2 is about.

 

[TheStalker]

Quick question. Do you guys think that SVS PB-1000 outperforms the older PB10-NSD?

 

[nogaro]

I'm sorry, but I disagree. If you could record with your ears (which have a specific curve), then yes, the system should be flat and the output will be identical to a live listening session. As soon as a live event is recorded with a mic, it will no longer sound the same on a flat system in comparison to what one would have heard live, UNLESS the system is EQd in some way. The recording techniques and microphones are what they are and they record flat, so not much can be changed there. The diffuse sound fields is exactly which causes the equal loudness chart to be so curvy, because that's how we hear these different frequencies. And again they have to be EQd somewhere in the system if the live event was recorded flat, which it most certainly was. So why not at the speaker? Or with an electronic notch filter as Linkwitz proposes? But recording flat and listening flat is certainly wrong. At least according to Linkwitz and BBC.

In reference to the part I italicized and put in bold above. Yes, the output as measured by a flat mic will be identical to to what is heard by human ears at a live listening session. However, you're not hearing it with a flat mic being fed directly to your brain in the listening room. If you're listening, like most of us do, then listening to something recorded with the "hearing curve" will get further curved.

 

[NewHTbuyer]

Quick question. Do you guys think that SVS PB-1000 outperforms the older PB10-NSD?

I asked them that once and was told it was similar. I own the PB10 and a friend briefly brought over a PB1000. The new one is smaller and definitely lighter, FWIW. We never did head to head to compare. I would speculate the driver and enclosure were sturdier on the older but the new Sledge amps with DSP are better on the PB1000. Maybe if you contact them and press a little they will give you some measurements?

 

[Ed Mullen]

The PB-1000 outperforms all previous versions of the PB10-ISD/NSD, save for the last variant with the 3.5" port and 400W Sledge amp. Those two are pretty close overall.

 

[William Main]

YSS10 Compact Studio Subwoofer

The Yorkville YSS10 sub woofer is also a capable contender in the under $500 range.

 

[shadyJ]

-3 dB down at 50 Hz, that Yorkville is just tuned too high.

 

[afterlife2]

Looks like this guy has only one PB1000(Review at SVS) sub and it seems to fill his room:

I have had the pb-1000 for a couple months now, and I have only good things to say. First of all, I have this sub in a VERY large room (4300 cubic feet). I am running the sub with the newer B & W M1 satellites and have my crossover set to 100hz. The whole system is running on a Pioneer 1222k. Anyway, my max listening level on blu-rays is about -19db. I am hesitant to go any louder because my receiver has a higher wpc output than my sats are rated for, so I don't want to over extend the speakers. Regardless, in my opinion, it's pretty loud at that volume. Let's just say that the pb-1000 blends with these satellites beautifully and digs very deep considering my very large room. I have not heard any distortion or port chuff coming from the sub at the volume I have been listening at. I feel that I could definitely listen cleanly at higher volumes with the sub, but again, I don't want to over-drive my sats.