Look what was in the mail today.....

Whadyasay

I want to keep the TV centered between the two main speakers, period. Moving the mains to the inside would leave them only 4' apart...already tried it and didn't like how narrow everything sounded. The way I look at it (by the way....sorry to take this thread on a tangent), I have two solutions, other than mounting the sub in the ceiling corner (which I've already contemplated/planned out).

1. I can get one of these for all my components and TV:

http://www.standsandmounts.com/Includes/ProductImageGallery.asp?ProductID=3902&GalleryItem=1
allowing me to put the mains right on the outer edges of the rack whilst keeping my speakers about 6' apart and making just enough room in the right corner for the sub.

2. Get some 4" wide mumetal tape and wrap it around the driver's magnet....which will void the warranty on the sub.

So as you can tell....I'm looking forward to tomorrow's delivery with both eager anticipation and anxiety.

Ricardo

....(by the way....sorry to take this thread on a tangent), I have two solutions, other than mounting the sub in the ceiling corner (which I've already contemplated/planned out).

No problem...

jdhdiggs

Originally posted by Whadyasay
Get some 4" wide mumetal tape and wrap it around the driver's magnet....which will void the warranty on the sub.

I doubt that. If you let SVS know what you're doing, they might not void the whole warranty on you for this modification.

danger boy

Whadyasay

I like that you included your cat(s) in your room layout. ha ha ha.

Whadyasay

That's where they spend most of their time.:D

Whadyasay

sorry...screwed up...

Whadyasay

Look...Jennifer Lopez came by the other day when I made this room layout. Can you pick her out? I had her stand in one of the corners, and it really helped tame some of the bass peaks at around 40Hz.

Figure a BFD and a JLO, and you're all set.

Early B.

That is a monster driver though for a 400 or so dollar sub...

I hear it needs some internal bracing though...

Really? Where'd you hear that from? When I opened my PB12 I was expecting to see some internal bracing, but nada, zip, nunca. If the PB10 needs it, what about the PB12?

VR3

Cof from S&V...

He did test measurement with and without braces (except he used weights) and the subwoofer cleaned up considerably with bracing...

Early B.

Cof from S&V...

He did test measurement with and without braces (except he used weights) and the subwoofer cleaned up considerably with bracing...

Damn -- I figured my sub needed bracing. Must be a cost saving measure at that price point.

Whadyasay

How about a slab of granite on top for starters?

Ricardo

Ok folks; hooked up and moving the air in my basement; setting it up was a few minutes; started at the manual recommended settings of -5db at the AVR and gain control at 1/3 up; to take it to 78db in the sound meter I had to set the AVR output to 0db, and the gain between 11 and noon (or midnight..).

After that, I played some rap (my son likes that..) with some good low bass and played around with the phase with the help of my son,...we switched places between listening position and turning the phase knob, and none of us could notice any difference between 0 and 180 or anywhere in between.... it is somehow frustrating, becuse it leaves the feeling that it could sound bettter but you are not getting it......

Enough with settings....now to what some of you might be waiting for (specially Whadyasay who will go through this tomorrow...).

I think it is fair to start by saying that I come from a 45W Sony, and I've never auditioned any of the systems showcased here with 2 or 3 "serious" subs; I have heard impressing bass though, and what comes to my mind as REALLY impressive was Phil Collin's concert at Nationwide-Columbus last September..how much power do you need to move a whole Arena like that???

Oh, another piece of information that you might need; my setting uses half of my basement, so the total open space is around 20 x 24.

OK; obviously I have not done extensive testing/hearing, but with a couple of hours it's enough to say....

THIS BABY ROCKS!!!!!!!!!

The manual suggests some bassy movie scenes to test...have a few of those movies, and must say that a couple of scenes in BLADE really moved my couch; my wife was upstairs, and when the door explodes (scene 20), she came down to see what was going on..I played those 4 seconds like 20 times...and smiled each one of them (might have laughed a couple of them)

I watched a couple of other scenes in different movies, but then went directly to the one movie they don't mention and I knew would be awesome.....Master and Commander... awesome.... when those cannons fire, you cannot help it but go down to the floor (or deck) with the rest of the crew, waiting for that ball to come through the wall....

I then decided to put some music (not a CD fan; most of what I have are DVD concerts); decided for Erik Clapton live at Hyde Park, which in my opinion has really good sound in DTS; thought I would need to adjust down the gain, but oh no....it was just right; and sounds beautifully.

Well by now you sure know that today I am a happy man (and will continue to be happy if I don't hear one of those two subs systems...need to stay away from that...)..

By the way Whadyasay....sub box is 27 inches from TV box, and absolutely no problems.

Gonna go back down......won't get much sleep tonight...

danger boy

glad you are happy with your new SVS. Did you ever have any doubt? ha ha ha JK!

Enjoy.

ahem.... DO NOT PLAY U-571 ! depth charge scene :eek:

Ricardo

well Danger Boy......there was a moment when I had serious doubts.....

The first thing I did after calibration was to put some music from one of the cable channels..so eager to listen to my new baby...; I had my RTi8's as "large", and turned the sub on and off...guess what....I could not see the difference....and was really pissed off.......

But....it was at lower volume, and even though there was some nice bass on the music, I could have no clue of what kind of Hz. were playing....pretty dissapointing though; I guess it just shows why I picked my name...

Then as mentioned above the smiles came back to my face....

jdhdiggs

Originally posted by HTrookie
I had my RTi8's as "large", and turned the sub on and off...guess what....I could not see the difference....and was really pissed off.......

This may be your biggest problem. Set the 8's to small and try it out. Also, most people are not used to flat bass so it is underwhelming to them when they are used to big booms at 40Hz. This might be part of it as well.

Ricardo

I did change all my speakesr to small later, and xover at 80 Hz....

Thanks!!

Willow

Originally posted by Whadyasay
.

LOL the cat !!!:D

now that can seriously affect the sound in the room with all the fur it will absorb some of the bass

Whadyasay

They're checking out the new roommate who arrived just today....

Ricardo

Enjoy that....I am; last night I stayed in the basement and watched no less than 20 different movies in the scenes I knew there was serious bass...; at 3 am I went back to Master and Commander (my favorite so far with the new baby); cranked it up to -5 db, and my wife, who was sleeping (probably trying to sleep sounds better) in the second floor just had it; that was all for the night...I'm thinking...too bad you live in an apartment; you'll have to watch that power....

And in case you did not see above....placed 27 inches from the TV with no issues...

Willow

reminds me of my moms cats, they can't keep a carboard box longer than a day, they do more damage to it than brown does !

Whadyasay

The cat you see above fell into the box about an hour after taking that photo, after I had unpacked the sub. I heard this 'plunk' and turned to see the box rattling around.

Well......to begin with, the shielding issue. At first, I thought it was going to be a nightmare. As soon as I got within 3 feet of the TV, it looked like it was having an acid trip...or what people describe as an acid trip (I wouldn't know:p ). Thought to myself "That's it, I'm screwed with this...have to rearrange everything." But when I removed the sub and put it on the other side of the room, some of the color distortion stayed on the other side of the screen! Great!! My TV's F'ed now! But when I put my old sub back (which isn't shielded either), all the distortion settled and went away......hmmmmm....

What I ended up doing is putting the PB10 in the intended location, but 'toeing it in' like I had with my previous front-firing sub...and VOILA! No more color distortion. Maybe my TV had adjusted itself to the specific position of the other magnet or something. So...after all the worrying....all I had to do was put the sub in the same place and with the same orientation.:rolleyes:

Now...sound...first impression is that the bass is CLEAN. I'm noticing much less of the random peaks during musical passages...everything's much more even than the last two subs I had (HSU STF-2 and Earthquake Kompressor S-12), with less overhang and boominess. All bass notes seem to have the same weight up and down the scale, especially with an upright bass in acoustic jazz (which is most of what I listen to). Secondly...this thing gets LOW...I mean REAL LOW. That whole thing about clean, room-filling bass adding more presence to the music is spot-on.

In terms of tightness....I actually found my Earthquake Kompressor to be a bit tighter on some of the transients like kick drums...either due to the Kompressor's sealed design or I just have to mess around with the PB10's phase setting some more.

Tried a few movies...LOTR Fellowship, MIB, 5th Element Superbit.....all sounded very weighty, and again, the extra low extension made a considerable difference.

Overall, I'm impressed but not blown away...didn't really expect to be. I've got some more listening to do before I can make a true verdict. My current settings, in terms of with the AVR, are LFE output at 0 (all other speakers are at around +4), Outlaw ICBM set flat like before, PB10 level at around 11:00, and the phase at a little above zero.

My only quibble is that it came with a nice pen, but I didn't get a T-shirt.:(
That and the fact that the dual shipping box is huge and a bee'yotch to stowe away in my apartment. My place is about a packing peanut away from looking like a storage room.

EDIT: (a little later after watching parts of Finding Nemo) One word........Darla......!

OOF!:eek:

As a side note: It took me all of two hours to sell my former sub at a price I was comfortable with...so this whole transition has gone rather quickly & painlessly so far.

danger boy

here fishy, fishy!

Whadyasay

Update: Just hooked up a BFD, just to tame a few peaks at around 50 and 70 Hz, as well as boost at 40 a smidgen (can't do anything about the hike at 97hz until room treatment). Now everything is smooth and clean as virgin silk. Gonna give Master and Commander a whirl a little later on...once I know my neighbor has left for the night. While she's at church on Sunday, I'm gonna put on the real killer...Saving Private Ryan in DTS!

This is an excellent subwoofer, folks. What it does better than any sub I've owned is BLEND...you don't necessarily notice the bass (i.e. sticking out), but you know it's there because the whole song or soundtrack has better presence. I think all the cabinet/amp/port design that went into this thing paid off in some incredibly clean bass...and it has good transient attack too, because of its clean blending with the rest of the bass coming out of the mains. A good example is the Wynton Marsalis 'Time Volume I' SACD, which has numerous examples of upright bass going all over the scale, and everything has the right intensity and attack, without any unnatural boom or bloom. This one's a keeper.

Whadyasay

Just tested the opening cannon scene from Master And Commander. Here are the results:

VR3

Originally posted by Early B.
Damn -- I figured my sub needed bracing. Must be a cost saving measure at that price point.

Yeah, I believe it was 'delay time' or what...

Without bracing, it was very ugly...with heavy weights on the top and sides...it cleaned up...

A slab of granite on top would work, but you would still have the side problem..

Thats why I like Cylinders :cool:

phuz

Sorta off topic, but Whadyasay did you make those wooden ends for your LSiC?

Looks kinda good.

Whadyasay

Yes I did...out of regular thin shelving in cherry finish...just a little better presentation for the whole set..the plain black gloss was a bit too different looking from the mains for me. Plus..the wood accents on the speakers help break up the 'none-more-black' Darth Vader entertainment system look a little bit. Somewhere down the road I'd like to get a TV stand and audio rack with black poles and cherry shelves...if I can find the right dimensions (barely inches of leeway). The sides are held on by a silicon-like adhesive that will peel off without damaging the gloss finish underneath too much if done slowly. Somewhere down the road I'm going to cut/shape/stain some sides that will be pretty much identical to the ones on the 9's....but who has time with all this gear upgrading going on?

Oh, and the cat's not dead...she's just covering her eyes in fear.

Airplay355

damn man