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Are SVS subs over-rated?

Trell

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Many (most?) of the US based subwoofer products are not available in Sweden, at least not at a reasonable cost after import. SVS was and still is available for good performance to price compared to the competition, as when I bought SB12 NSD many years ago and later when I upgraded to dual SB3000.

Now it’s getting better with newcomers like Arendal, as an example.
 

sfdoddsy

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I remember when SVS were founded. With the original tube subs.

At the time most subs were badly designed unless you spent the really big bucks on something like a top of the range Velodyne.

DIY sub builder were seen as underground weirdos.

SVS were pretty much the first DIY based outfit to go commercial and had significantly better performance than most of what was available for much less.

A while back there were bought out and are now as commercial as anyone else.

Plus there are many other ID companies using the same principles.

So they have lost their USP.

I've owned modern SVS subs and find them perfectly respectable, but not massively better than what is available elsewhere.

Rythmik are currently closest to what SVS used to be, IMHO.
 

Willem

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SVS sells good subs, and in the USA they are very competitively priced. In the EU, their prices are quite a bit higher, and increasingly so. Therefore, in the EU other brands may give you a better deal. In the Netherlands the KEF Kube series is very competitive at the somewhat budget end of the market (400-650 euros respectively for their 8, 10 and 12 inch models), but from reports I read here, their prices may be quite a bit higher in some other EU countries, which obviously changes the equation. For more powerful subs Arendal may well be the current price/performance champion in the EU.
 

phoenixdogfan

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If anyone want to know why I love SVS, consider this. I just bought a used SB 2000 which arrives tomorrow to go with my other SB 2000 which I've owned since 2016. I contacted the Ebay seller and he told me it was missing a grille, so I just called SVS. I talked to Jonothan and he told me if my seller can't find the grille since I was an existing customer, SVS would send me a replacement grille, no charge. I was expecting at least a $100 hit, but no SVS has me covered.

It's customer service like this that so clearly differentiates SVS. Imagine trying to call any number of other purveyors, and getting that kind of response. It feels good to be able to write something so good about one of our suppliers instead.

SVS is underrated, no doubt about it.
 

tw 2022

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If anyone want to know why I love SVS, consider this. I just bought a used SB 2000 which arrives tomorrow to go with my other SB 2000 which I've owned since 2016. I contacted the Ebay seller and he told me it was missing a grille, so I just called SVS. I talked to Jonothan and he told me if my seller can't find the grille since I was an existing customer, SVS would send me a replacement grille, no charge. I was expecting at least a $100 hit, but no SVS has me covered.

It's customer service like this that so clearly differentiates SVS. Imagine trying to call any number of other purveyors, and getting that kind of response. It feels good to be able to write something so good about one of our suppliers instead.

SVS is underrated, no doubt about it.
they just get it... the anti svs crowd doesn't....
 

Xenomorph

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As a former owner of an SVS PCi-12 and a PB-12 Ultra, as well as several other subs, 4 of which were Rel subwoofers (also my current sub), in my humble opinion...I find the SVS subwoofers powerful, but slow, inaccurate and with lots of overhang, making them unfit for music. Then again, the SVS's I owned are older models. Maybe that changed
 

tw 2022

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As a former owner of an SVS PCi-12 and a PB-12 Ultra, as well as several other subs, 4 of which were Rel subwoofers (also my current sub), in my humble opinion...I find the SVS subwoofers powerful, but slow, inaccurate and with lots of overhang, making them unfit for music. Then again, the SVS's I owned are older models. Maybe that changed
imo , the new "pro's " are plenty good for music.. you aren't the first person i've heard say the same about the older models though.. the pb1000 pro is my sub..
 

phoenixdogfan

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imo , the new "pro's " are plenty good for music.. you aren't the first person i've heard say the same about the older models though.. the pb1000 pro is my sub..
The speed or slowness is dictated by the "Q" of the sub. A Q of .707 will have the same transient characteristics on any sub, and any C+ student of filter theory can design a sub to have that.
 

ryanosaur

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Modern Subs have come a long way... Last 10 years roughly seem to be the sweet spot, maybe even less. The Outlaw X-13 was released in 2017, I think. It is a beast.

There was a point where the Servo technology was a game changer from older designs. Compare the newest designs against those and Rythmik no longer has a performance advantage by any commonly measured metric. This is nothing against Rythmik, just purely looking at the data. I will add, freely, that when last I looked, Rythmik had a slight edge in long term compression sweeps.

FWIW, I still recommend them, along with Monolith, SVS, Hsu.
 

Lsc

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Yeah that kind of stuff tends to go over well.... FWIW there have been a fair number of such failures, so they're not exempt from the issue....didn't put them out of business like it did Epik, eh?
Agreed and I believe my SB13 was out of warranty and they acted like it was still covered and just replaced it. Amazing!
 

ryanosaur

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If anyone want to know why I love SVS, consider this. I just bought a used SB 2000 which arrives tomorrow to go with my other SB 2000 which I've owned since 2016. I contacted the Ebay seller and he told me it was missing a grille, so I just called SVS. I talked to Jonothan and he told me if my seller can't find the grille since I was an existing customer, SVS would send me a replacement grille, no charge. I was expecting at least a $100 hit, but no SVS has me covered.

It's customer service like this that so clearly differentiates SVS. Imagine trying to call any number of other purveyors, and getting that kind of response. It feels good to be able to write something so good about one of our suppliers instead.

SVS is underrated, no doubt about it.
This is not an uncommon story from what I've heard and all comes back to their Bill of Rights and the cost you pay to get into their system. ;) Lets face it, there is a premium to their Price Point. 2-way shipping and upgrades don't happen for free. The good news is, they really do take care of their customers!!!
 

tw 2022

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The speed or slowness is dictated by the "Q" of the sub. A Q of .707 will have the same transient characteristics on any sub, and any C+ student of filter theory can design a sub to have that.
i assume you are saying that you agree with me?:)
 

tw 2022

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This is not an uncommon story from what I've heard and all comes back to their Bill of Rights and the cost you pay to get into their system. ;) Lets face it, there is a premium to their Price Point. 2-way shipping and upgrades don't happen for free. The good news is, they really do take care of their customers!!!
that's my biggest takeaway from my experience.. they give a poop .. there are other sub retailers that do as well it seems ..
 

Promit

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As a former owner of an SVS PCi-12 and a PB-12 Ultra, as well as several other subs, 4 of which were Rel subwoofers (also my current sub), in my humble opinion...I find the SVS subwoofers powerful, but slow, inaccurate and with lots of overhang, making them unfit for music. Then again, the SVS's I owned are older models. Maybe that changed
Subs are so extremely sensitive to room and placement issues that these types of issues are almost never the sub's fault, with any vaguely decent designed sub. People will either not fix these issues and then complain, or they'll buy a different sub and declare it's better when the placement is completely different.
 

Xenomorph

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Subs are so extremely sensitive to room and placement issues that these types of issues are almost never the sub's fault, with any vaguely decent designed sub. People will either not fix these issues and then complain, or they'll buy a different sub and declare it's better when the placement is completely different.
I am not sure how to respond to this. By replying on my comment you assume that the room/placement was never considered (fixed) and that my experiences (almost) cannot be the subs fault. Ergo, it was my fault.
Apparently, even after 25 years of experience, I don't know what I am doing
 

Head_Unit

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Looking at it from a slightly different perspective, most Speaker-first" companies which do not specialize in performance Subs, usually don't make great Subs.
YES. As a loudspeaker engineer, my comment about that is that speakers and subs are really different animals with different skill sets. They are different specialties. Also, once a subwoofer company gets popular, their sales volume will be higher than the subwoofer sales of a regular "speaker company." This becomes a big advantage for the subwoofer company because costs depend very very heavily on production quantity.

Also, dealers will tend to want to buy SPEAKERS from the speaker company. I worked for a $3BN autosound behemoth and it was tough to sell amplifiers let alone speakers and never mind subwoofers. Why? Because the dealers had limited lines of credit, which they would then use to buy RADIOS. They did not want to tie up their lines of credit buying other stuff because most of all they wanted RADIOS. In this way the subwoofer becomes rather an afterthought for most speaker companies, also because their engineering resources will be focused on the speakers and round and round and round and it comes out here...
 

Xenomorph

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Nor most of us, that's called "life" :D;)
Nah, I think it is mostly "Promits" idiotic comment. My 25 years of subwoofer experience relates to having both Ht and music interests, multiple brands, multiple models of these brands, multiple houses, multiple rooms within these houses, multiple subwoofer in-room placements and room treatments as well as electronic room correction. Simply put, those 2 svs subs did nice in qty, but not in quality of base, no matter ghe idiotic, simplistic comment from "promit"
 
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