Great review, @hardisj . Any noteworthy hiss? I have a pair of SB-2000 notPro, and both emit an audible "shhhhhhhhhhhh..." at a listening distance of ~8'. SVS support told me it is normal, but I can hear it clearly during quiet passages and between songs, which causes me to listen to music without subs most of the time.
That noise seems to vary based on where the dial on the low pass filter crossover frequency is set on the SVS SB series. If you set it all the way at the bottom at 50hz, there's very little noise. I'm not sure what the cause of that noise is, it seems pretty loud when the LPF is set all the way to the highest setting.
That said there's no such thing as a subwoofer with no noise floor. Even high end active speakers Genelec The Ones or Kii speakers have much higher noise floors than a $200 pair of passive speakers, because of the fact the active amplification is run at 100% gain and there's no crossover network to filter out the noise. I've owned high end subs like JL Fathom F113s or Velodyne DD+12s. They all have some audible passive electronic noise coming out of the drivers. This is simply the price you pay for built-in active amplification.
If you can't stand any noise, get a passive subwoofer like the old Revel Ultima subs and hook them up to pre-amp/amp separates of your choice.
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