SVS PB-12 plus/2

[mikegh]

Hey guys,

My new pb-12 +2 arrived on Monday at work, man it's huge My hat is off to the guys at SVS, it is one very nicely made piece of equipment. I had to wait til yesterday (wednesday) for my band of brothers to come help me. My back doesn't have all it's parts anymore so 140 lbs is way beyond my carrying capacity.

We got it into place, did a quick calibration and popped in star wars AOTC at just about reference level. I don't think my friends have ever been exposed to the THX intro at that level before and neither have I, when the earth exploded it was really pretty cool, the flyover in the beginning had all our pants flapping and the pictures on the wall were moving around. After that we watched the pod race from the phantom menace, my pb-10 always did a good job with that chapter but the +2 really delivers the effects with authority. I've got U571 coming from netflix so I'm really looking forward to checking out the depth charge sequence.

Can't wait to properly calibrate and EQ it with the BFD hopefully this weekend.

Mike

[Sonnie]

Cool beans Mike!

Com'on man... I got two those in my room... threw one on each shoulder and walked right on in the room with them. Light as a feather man and easily balanced on the edge of the shoulder. uh huh... yeah... in my dreams maybe and even then I'd strain more than I knew I had.

That sub has got to be one of their best bang for the buck subs. I have really enjoyed mine. The wife has done some complaining though... a few days after I secretly installed them her comments were: "Ever since you did whatever you did the other day... I can here that booming all throughout the house.. there is no sense in you having it that loud. Have you all of the sudden become deaf?" My response: "Who... me?" I lied, "It's always been that way baby... you just now noticing that?"

[Rezon_8]

I have also just purchased an SVS PB12 Plus 2, this was a brand of sub that was not commonly available down here in Australia (unless you got one over the net). My mate had been doing the research on a new sub for about 12 months, and he really wanted the SVS but importing one had a major impact on the cost.

As soon as he found out there was to be a local distributor he rang me and we both went for a demo. What can I say, we were there for about 2 hours listening to our own collection of bass heavy DVDs. We were so impressed that we ordered 1 each. We had to wait a couple of months to get them here (due to a driver upgrade at SVS) but the wait was well worth it.

Once I got it home the first thing I played was Finding Nemo (Darla tapping on the fish tank). My 5yo daughter was getting ready for bed so the volume level was not set too high. The bass, to put it mildly, was startling. My daughter came into the room and said " dad, I heard thunder". She has now nicknamed the big black box "Daddy's Boom Box". Unfortunately that was all I had time to do, but at least it allowed me to make sure everything was connected properly.

My wife had a kid free day the following day and, while I was at work, she decided to watch War of The Worlds (ahh!! the joys of working from home). She rang me to let me know how the sub was going. This was a crucial moment as the Minister for Finance can be hard to impress. And impressed she was, she described the scene when the aliens first emerge from underground as "lifting the couch off the carpet" and one of the final scenes (where they bring down the Walker) as "a wall of sound washing over me". Interestingly, she also noted that it was virtually impossible to pinpoint where the bass was coming from.

I've had this sub for a few weeks now and it still manages to surprise me with the level of bass it can produce, even at reasonably quiet listening levels. I can honestly say I have never heard a sub with this level of control before. I have just purchased a BFD and am looking forward to spending some time to fine tune this beast.

[Tommy]

Under Sonnie's suggestion I also ordered this sub for my home theater which arrived a few weeks ago. The same as the above posted I'll have to say I was very surprised at the size and weight of it. My first thought was that they delivered the wrong thing to me. At 140 lbs me and the wife were humping it down the stair way.

We also first tried the Star Wars demo to test it. It was very impressive and was vibrating the house. The HT room is in the basement and you could feel it all the way up on the 2nd floor.

I cant even say we adjusted any of the settings with it yet, just plugged it into the receiver and played it and are thrilled with it. I'll wait till the room is done before I let Sonnie talk me into any of this equipment for adjusting everything.

However I am glad that I didnt let Sonnie talk me into two of them. From what I have tested so far I think my house would fall down if I put two of them in. I will however look into it for setting up the sound system for the plasma tv in my other room after my HT room is done.

Thank you SVS and welcome to the site.

[Malice]

Tommy wrote:

At 140 lbs me and the wife were humping it down the stair way.

Keep it clean please, children may read this........

[Tommy]

Opps I didnt even catch that, sorry its an infantry term...

[rcarlton]

I have one with the new drivers. Love it. Took some doing getting it dialed in. I used a blanket to move it around.

[Sonnie]

At 140 lbs me and the wife were humping it down the stair way.

Now I truly love my SVS subs... but this cuts the cake!

[Chrisbee]

A blanket is no use on the stairs anyway.

[rcarlton]

Chrisbee wrote:

A blanket is no use on the stairs anyway.

On carpeted stairs, with a helper, the sub is long enough to get it down the steps easily (according to a poster on the AVS forum). It would be a pull going up though.

I mainly mentioned the blanket in response to another posters use of a military term. It seemed somewhat appropriate at the time .

[Tommy]

Just wait till we start an equipment thread and I start discussing the rack I bought for the wife and the equipment room...

[Tom Vodhanel]

Hi all,

The plus/2 is a real monster of a subwoofer. When personal friends ask me which SVS they should be looking at...I almost always steer them toward the Plus line. No one can argue the Ultra models aren't the best...but based on price/performance...you generally get 90% of the "ultra" performance for about 60% of the price(although that ratio will be changing later this year)

Please don't hesitate to post any questions about the setup or calibration of your SVS here( or email me personally at tomv@svsound.com )

Tom V.
SVS

[JCD]

Tom Vodhanel wrote:

Please don't hesitate to post any questions about the setup or calibration of your SVS here( or email me personally at tomv@svsound.com )

Tom V.
SVS

And that, my friends, is why SVS is really one of the greatest firms out there. Oh, and they have great subs too..

I just wish I would have know about SVS before I bought my sub...

JCD

[Tom Vodhanel]

JCD,

I wouldn't fret too much...the pw2200 is one of the best *large OEM* subs avaliable in its price range. We have tested a couple of them and they always do well...particularly in the 30-80hz range. If you look in the pictures Sonnie just posted, I believe the subwoofer (on the ground) directly to the left of the 23" driver is a pw2200..

Tom V.
SVS

[mikegh]

Leave it to men to take a subwoofer conversation and turn it in another direction

Got the pb-12+2 calibrated and eq'd for the most part over the weekend, it's really fantastic. Even at lower volumes it has a lot more punch than my pb-10.

Mike

[Ron Stimpson]

As noted, the Plus/2 (as it's known in house) is a hard sub not to recommend, down under or any other **** place with lizards (I never want to live in a world without them, which is why I live in Colorado, at the moment ;^).

When you can "hump" the better part of 150 lbs and don't mind the swath of floorspace eaten up (of course the Plus/2 makes a dandy end-table) and can swallow the still considerable price tag, we're confident it's the world standard for the $1,300-ish price point.

There's a few caveats there for the sharp eye. Cylinders still sell like gangbusters partly because floor space and weight ARE frequent issues for buyers. Of course the "Plus" family is about to have a small addition that'll bring an aspect of that over the top price/performance ratio to a tiny form factor.

Great story there Rezon (which is really the reason I posted, the rest is well known), we really appreciate hearing stories like that when our new International Dealers get in on the act. We recently had the pleasure to host Peter from Deep Hz at our factory and we knew we'd chosen wisely. He's not going to rest till you have THE SVS product that suits your needs. If you had any idea how much work has gone into Peter merely being in a position to serve you an SVS you would pin medals on them over there.

Cheers,

Ron Stimpson
SVS

[Rezon_8]

Hi Ron & All
Below is a post I wrote on a local site about 2 weeks after recieving my Plus/2.

At last, the chance to sit down in an empty house for a couple of hours, remote in one hand, SPL meter in the other, bourbon within easy reach.

After consulting with the Minister for Finance and, new to her portfolio, Room Layout Guru, the SVS sub now sits in a corner, next to the couch, out of sight. Not that a sub of this size can ever be truly out of sight. But at least she can now pretend it's a coffee table, a very tall, very big coffee table.

First off I Set the gain/volume on sub to 3rd mark, Phase at zero and low pass filter disabled (amp controlling this at 60Hz) removed 1 port plug (1 still installed) and enabled 20Hz mode. Ran all level checks (75db) and adjusted as required. I then set the amp's LFE level at +2db to run the sub "hot" as I will be testing movies only. I watched each scene at the same volume level. (-20db on AVR-3806 vol.)

First movie, War Of The Worlds. I have watched this movie a couple of times with my old subby so I was reasonably familiar with it, or so I thought. The SVS revealed bass I had not heard before, not loud bass, just real low level backgroung stuff. When it came to the alien emerging from the ground, it realy did feel like my floor was moving. The most surprising part was the "death ray", as it swept through the crowd, it's hard to describe, but the image on the screen was given an aspect of solidity, you really felt it as it moved around.

So far so good.

Second movie, Blade, an oldy, but one I have watched many, many times. The vault scene, where they blow the door off (which is very loud and dynamic), was played by the SVS with a level of control that surprised me. This sub has so much power on tap it's scary.

Next I played a few scenes from a special edition DTS version of The Haunting. This movie has bass in a couple of parts that goes down to a genuine 22Hz (and lower). The SVS took this all in it's stride.

Impressions? I love this sub. It does everything I expected, and more. The most noticeable aspect of this sub is that you don't notice it. What I mean is, the bass is not localised, it just fills the room. This is something that my wife noticed and commented on. I must admit, for the size of my lounge, it's overkill. But having said that, I do intend to build a dedicated HT room (Gods of Banking willing). And I know that no matter how large it ends up being, the SVS will fill it with good clean, tight bass.

I take my hat off to all the guys (& girls?) at SVS. You have managed to produce something truly remarkable that not only performs beyond expectations, but also represents real bang per buck. keep up the good work, Thanks.

P.S.

The lizard in my picture is a Goanna, a local in most of the areas I go camping. That particular one was approx. 6ft in length. There were 3 of them wandering the campsite that day, and that was the small one. Just to give you an idea, it is standing on it's back legs next to a 4ft+ log table. Well, at least they are not venomous (unlike the snakes), although they can get quite aggressive.

[Sonnie]

Hey Rez...

I then set the amp's LFE level at +2db to run the sub "hot" as I will be testing movies only. I watched each scene at the same volume level. (-20db on AVR-3806 vol.)

I think I have my 3806 set at +5 on the sub out to get my BFD input level right, but I'm not positive, it may be +3. Anyway, my Plus/2 volume levels are set to the line before 12 o'clock... I guess about 11 o'clock. I turn my 3806 up to -15 for most movies and occasionally -10. I have two Plus/2's in a small very well sealed 1800 cubic feet. Can you imagine?

[Raezzy]

Gday all

Yet another Happy Aussie here

The PB12 Plus/2 is everything i expected and more.

You have to take the time to set it up properly to get the best out of it (something im still playing with).
I will write a small review on my initial subjective impressions/thoughts soon.
Thanks also to Ron & Tom, for allowing Peter to market your product here in the land down under.
For any Aussies that would like to know, Peter at Deep Hz is friendly, knowlegable and really pleasure to deal with.
Peter also let Rezon_8 and i take over his theatre for ~3 Hrs and basically do whatever we wanted.

I researched for 2 years, and waited over 12 months for SV to get international dealers.
I'm very glad i did.

Raezzy

[TJEli]

Sonnie wrote:

Hey Rez...



I think I have my 3806 set at +5 on the sub out to get my BFD input level right, but I'm not positive, it may be +3. Anyway, my Plus/2 volume levels are set to the line before 12 o'clock... I guess about 11 o'clock. I turn my 3806 up to -15 for most movies and occasionally -10. I have two Plus/2's in a small very well sealed 1800 cubic feet. Can you imagine?

Sonnie,

I am also running 2 of them (12.3 drivers) in my 3600 cu. ft. room and set someone else locally up here with duals in his 1500 cu. ft. room nearfield.

I love mine.

-Eli

[Sonnie]

Hi Eli and welcome to the Shack!

These are awesome subs.... I just rearranged mine for a little better response (one in rear and one in front now). I have to wonder if there is a better sub on the market for even 3-4 times the cost.