[Ron Stimpson]

Colin,

I've been working with/in wood for many years too (before I joined the Army I actually worked in a lumber yard believe it or not) and our latest generation of cabinets which we import are indeed shockingly good. They are still hand finished realwood, which means each is unique and can never be truly flawless, but you are not going to come closer even if you double or triple the price point from what I've seen of the industry.

And this is indeed the same Plus 12.3 woofer in our larger vented subs. It was actually developed to play both roles right from the start. It would perhaps have been easier to come up with specific designs for both applications but we like a challenge (and our material manager of course asks the staff to use common parts where it's possible).

When the project was started, not all of us thought it WAS possible, but when folks see the frequency response and performance of the SB12-Plus they will know no compromises were accepted. The woofer had to be a true "switch hitter" that could exceed the performance of our "old" Plus driver in the big, traditional vented alignments... and still be as good in a small sealed application as anything designed only for that purpose.

I spent a good bit of this last weekend with others hammering a pre-production SB12-Plus without mercy. Having been among those individuals that have panned small subs in the past, I can tell you that in a small to mid-sized room this newest SVS product will make "small" less of a compromise than I ever imagined. You will still be better off with a big vented sub on a sheer price/performance basis of course (size matters, still) but if your significant other wants a small sub, or your room isn't big enough to play rugby, then I can honestly say that finally there's at least one small sub that's affordable, great looking, and performs so well that you start to believe the proclamation that size is NOT "all that".

It's a head turner in virtually every regard: price, size, build quality and performance all at one time.

I know no one following us for a while now is surprised (even if we can say flat out that the product exceeds our goals in virtually all those aspects).

Ron
SVS