Subwoofer Comparison

[Willem]

The answer is always to have at least two subs, and use dsp room equalization.

 

[sonitus mirus]

The answer is always to have at least two subs, and use dsp room equalization.

A lot of rooms are fine with a single sub. Situations are not always the same to make such a statement.

 

[Willem]

A single sub can only be equalized properly for one listening location. Fine if that is enough.

 

[keenly]

Just FYI - Arendal 1961 entire product line including subs will go up 15% in a few days: https://arendalsound.com/1961-series-price-increase/

Are the subs an upgrade to my Rel T/I 9's?

 

[stren]

Are the subs an upgrade to my Rel T/I 9's?

Any good 12" sub would be an upgrade - arendal, svs, monolith, rythmik, jl audio etc etc. Plenty of choices in the spreadsheet

 

[DevinCortno]

We recently moved and have some new family additions, so the HT is going into quite a small, narrow room and volume levels are going to be drastically limited for several years now until the babies grow up. The 18" is so big I can't actually fit it on the front wall without offsetting the center to one side, and it's too tall to have the center sitting on top of it without mounting the TV bizarrely high on the wall.

The L12s are selling used local for a good price so it shouldn't be a big problem coming out ahead on the deal.

Checking the data-bass tests of Rythmiks against Rythmik's site, apparently 95dB is accurate. Rythmik says F18 is +7.5dB up at 20hz relative to the F12, FV25HP +17dB, FV18 +14dB... taking data-bass number's and subtracting Rythmik's relative performance claims you end up within 1-2 decibels of Brent's number... wow. Very impressive stuff. Can't wait to get the new subs.

as a follow up, I didn't listen to you guys. Bought the pair of Rythmiks, sold the Funk 18", and I'm consumed with regret. The Rythmiks are capable enough, sure, probably good enough for "normal" people and content over 20hz. But overall, not impressed with the performance... going from a perfect subwoofer to these, so many sacrifices are evident.

Mechanical noise is obvious even before the subs have hit their limit - sitting nearfield is not an option as you can hear either the paper cones or cabinet making "wheezing" sounds, then flapping when they're almost to their limit. They will extend below 20hz as expected but with minimal headroom, and they have an unpleasant habit of making awful mechanical noise any time <10hz content comes up, even with volume reduced quite a bit from my usual level. I find the low Q music setting quite odd sounding... maybe this is what an extremely damped subwoofer sounds like? I find it very artificial and choppy. Kick drums sound okay but bass guitar doesn't integrate to my mains as well as it did with the Funk.

This is one situation where blindly chasing after a multi-sub setup really didn't have the expected result. Yeah, sure, my bass response is more stable across seating positions... but it is also vastly inferior at all positions. So I'll probably be ordering a couple Harbottle 15s and building my own subs to get back to something more like what I had before.

 

[sweetchaos]

So you bought a pair of 12” subs, sold your 18” sub and now regret it?

 

[DevinCortno]

So you bought a pair of 12” subs, sold your 18” sub and now regret it?

Exactly

 

[sweetchaos]

Gotcha. Good to know.

I have a 15” single sub myself and can’t see myself downgrading to 12”, having experienced both. My friend has dual 12” and it doesn’t punch as much as mine, as he noted.

I personally think dual 12” should be a starting point for most people who don’t know the benefits of subs, but want to experience good bass. But they should consider dual 15” for a worthwhile improvement. And finally, consider dual 18” subs, just to shake the walls of your house and annoy your neighbours, and for bragging rights of course.

Yes, I advocate for dual sub approach whenever you have the space and resources.

 

[Sancus]

I would sort of expect 1 x 18" = 2 x 15" = 4 x 12" in terms of output. Very roughly of course. I don't love 1 sub for smoothness so I think the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.

 

[chingaling]

I was wondering what everyone's opinion is on the ported vs sealed boxes beside the obvious that the ported will always have a higher DB rating than its sealed sibling. I have always had sealed boxes from car stereos up to home theater and my current stereo setup. I'm going to be doing upgrading this year and just thought I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks. As of now my candidates are the SVS 3000 and the SVS ultra 13. I could definitely swing 2 of the 3000's or possibly 2 Ultras depending what I can find this stuff for used. The room size would be 3100 cubic feet and I really only listen to music. I looked at the spreadsheet and saw that those two units in the SVS line seemed to perform very well and weren't absurdly huge. The 16 is just to big.

 

[chingaling]

I can’t remember where but I believe I came across an article one time that said that it would take 3 SB SVS’s to equal the SPL of one PB SVS. Not sure if that was some BS or it was true.

 

[sweetchaos]

it would take 3 SB SVS’s to equal the SPL of one PB SVS.

My spreadsheet show you the numbers. Such statements are meaningless.

 

[witwald]

I was wondering what everyone's opinion is on the ported vs sealed boxes beside the obvious that the ported will always have a higher DB rating than its sealed sibling. I have always had sealed boxes from car stereos up to home theater and my current stereo setup. I'm going to be doing upgrading this year and just thought I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks.

For the same cut-off frequency, a sealed subwoofer has a better transient response than a ported subwoofer. This is by virtue of a sealed enclosure being a 2nd-order high-pass filter, while a ported enclosure will have a 4th-order high-pass filter response. Of course, many subwoofers add infrasonic filters, so the effective filter response order will increase. An infrasonic filter is more likely to be present on a ported subwoofer, as there will otherwise be very large cone excursions below the port resonance frequency that can be excited by very low frequency signal content. The more-gradual roll-off of a sealed subwoofer also tends to complement the room gain at low frequencies, so overall it can produce very good results in the room.

 

[chingaling]

My spreadsheet show you the numbers. Such statements are meaningless.

I know. I printed out the three pages with the SVS subs on it and highlighted them with a marker that’s how I came to the conclusion about the the SVS 3000 and SVS 13 Ultra. I like to know who prefers the ported or sealed and for what reasons.

 

[chingaling]

For the same cut-off frequency, a sealed subwoofer has a better transient response than a ported subwoofer. This is by virtue of a sealed enclosure being a 2nd-order high-pass filter, while a ported enclosure will have a 4th-order high-pass filter response. Of course, many subwoofers add infrasonic filters, so the effective filter response order will increase. An infrasonic filter is more likely to be present on a ported subwoofer, as there will otherwise be very large cone excursions below the port resonance frequency that can be excited by very low frequency signal content. The more gradual roll-off of a sealed subwoofer also tends to complement the room gain at low frequencies, so overall it can produce very good results in the room.

I personally have always favored the sealed versions over ported designs. They just always sounded better to me in any application over ported.

 

[Sancus]

I know. I printed out the three pages with the SVS subs on it and highlighted them with a marker that’s how I came to the conclusion about the the SVS 3000 and SVS 13 Ultra. I like to know who prefers the ported or sealed and for what reasons.

Well it depends on room size, placement, and which frequency is the bottleneck for your setup. You'll get 6dB for each extra sub if they're within 1/4 wavelength, which they usually will be at the bottom end unless the room is fairly large and they're in opposing corners or something. The ported subs are also much bigger, around double the volume for the SB-1000 vs PB for example.

I don't love smaller ported subs because they do often have high group delay and this may be audible under certain circumstances(although I admit the evidence for this is not that strong) but also because when you do hit their limits they are more likely to emit bad noises like port chuffing and mechanical sounds. But larger ported subs usually eliminate those problems. And that's a generalization as it also comes down to the specific sub. For example Arendal subs have very good group delay even in the ported models whereas SVS is fairly high even on their sealed models.

In general though the differences between ported vs sealed are edge case nitpicking. Having more than one sub, properly EQed with something like MSO, will get you 99% of the way to identical, good sound no matter which you have.

 

[AlexanderM]

What about a Sub with multiple drivers, say one active and 2 passive drivers, does that solve anything, would one sub then work?

Protege FDS Triple 12” Subwoofer – Multivoltage | Proficient

Protege FDS-12 is a free standing subwoofer series 12'. Offers compact design & premium performance for your media room or home theaters. Buy now!

proficientaudio.com

 

[Sancus]

What about a Sub with multiple drivers, say one active and 2 passive drivers, does that solve anything, would one sub then work?

Protege FDS Triple 12” Subwoofer – Multivoltage | Proficient

Protege FDS-12 is a free standing subwoofer series 12'. Offers compact design & premium performance for your media room or home theaters. Buy now!

proficientaudio.com

If the sub has separate inputs and signals for each driver, or built-in EQ, and the cabinet is very big so they are separated by at least 3 or 4 feet, it could work. Otherwise no.

The Genelec W371A is something like this.

 

[chingaling]

If the sub has separate inputs and signals for each driver, or built-in EQ, and the cabinet is very big so they are separated by at least 3 or 4 feet, it could work. Otherwise no.

The Genelec W371A is something like this.

So right now I have a Definitive Technology SuperCube I. Which Is an active 10" with two passive radiators. It's so old now It's hard to find info on it any more. https://www.crutchfield.com/S-FeKHKZ3viWU/p_735SCUBE1/Definitive-Technology-SuperCube-I.html
I've had this thing since 2009. It's taken a beating