SVS PB13 Ultra Review

[tonyvdb]

Thanks to The Home Theater Shack and SVSound I received my PB13 Ultra yesterday afternoon.

I will be posting a review and pictures about it in this thread SEE BELOW.

Day one, First Impressions:
Let me say that this is the most amazing sub I have ever seen and heard for home theater! The build quality and looks is no less than an A+. The size alone is just plain amazing.
During my initial testing of it I had the very structure of my house vibrating because of the db levels this PB13 puts out.

I borrowed an Audio control industrial Real Time Spectrum Analyzer SA-3051 from my church and hooked it up, the indication I got on it was that I still had readings below 20hz at 95db and the sub is not even calibrated properly yet








More info to come.

[drdoan]

Thaks for the update, Tony. Looking forward to your impressions as the days go by. Have fun, Dennis

[mike c]

Congrats Tony! it's a good upgrade, perhaps never to be matched again.

[Blaser]

Good news Tony! According to Ilkka's tests this is an excellent performer!
Congrats!

[a1161979]

SVS are really doing well at the moment and this Sub only proves this... Great performance, good price and compact package! Cant wait to see some more detailed information plus the all important subjective review as well as pictures

[jakewash]

I am still waiting for mine and reading this makes it even harder.

[tonyvdb]

Ok, here we go,

The delivery of the PD13 Ultra was quick (form Ontario to Alberta less than 3 days ground) The box is huge and weighs 160lbs



Getting this beast into my basement was not as difficult as I thought it would be as once I had it in my back entrance using a dolly I just used gravity and let it slide slowly down the stairs. The sub is packed really well with rigid 3" thick foam all the way around.



Once out of the box (had to turn the box on its side to do so) I took off the plastic wrap and hulled out my old A/D/S MS3u sub and placed it beside the Ultra, You can really see the size difference in this photo.



The fit and finish of the PB13 Ultra is really something to talk about. It looks amazing just sitting there and will most defiantly be a conversation piece in any room.
The back panel BASH amp is also well put together with every option you can imagine. Including:
Phase control
Gain adjustment
Subsonic filter (used when closing off one or more of the front ports to get a lower frequency response) with settings of 20hz, 15hz, 10hz, and sealed.
A Parametric EQ
Crossover setting with RCA High pass filter switch
Room compensation size (small medium and large)
And also comes with balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA inputs



Once the sub was in place it really becomes a part of the systems over all look and from the listening position does not look out of place.

[tonyvdb]

I decided to set the PB13 Ultra at the 15hz setting with one port plugged. I want the lower frequency's to be strong rather than have it with better output at higher SPL's although still not by any means "low" dbs as it still can reach well over 100dbs with that setting. I sent a test tone of 20hz to it from a test CD that I have and I literally had the entire house vibrating and that was only at a reasonable 90dbs.

I then played the opening section of video from the DVE DVD (I forgot to turn the volume down on the receiver and absolutely scared the pants off of me) The DB levels of my entire system was over 100 as I still had the SA-3051 turned on! The sub really brings the entire system together with a fullness that I have not heard before. The lows are astonishing

I can only imagine once this sub is tuned properly and has had some time to break in that it will really smooth out (I am a firm believer that a speaker needs time to break in before it preforms to its fullest).

[warren112]

Hi Tony,

I also just got a SVS PC 13 ultra as I liked the look of the upright cylinder and it somewhat disappears in my room behind the TV. I will try the 15 hertz setting with one port plugged. I am really enjoying the ambient LFE base effects but I probably have turned up the sub an extra 10 db. On the base frequency sweep test it rattled the pictures on my wall!

How do you recomend setting the phase? I haven't done this yet.

What are the speaker settings in your receiver? Audyssey has set mine to full.

What do you recommend & what do you do for setting up this sub. Should I get phone assistance from SVS?

I have the Radio Shack SPL & Avia dvd. Thanks for your help.

[tonyvdb]

warren112 wrote:

How do you recomend setting the phase? I haven't done this yet.

What are the speaker settings in your receiver? Audyssey has set mine to full.

What do you recommend & what do you do for setting up this sub. Should I get phone assistance from SVS?

I have the Radio Shack SPL & Avia dvd. Thanks for your help.

Hi Warren,

Unless you have more than one sub usually leaving the phase set to 0 is best in most cases.
Setting up this sub really depends on your knowledge of what the adjustments on the back do. if you leave everything at its recommended setting in the manual you still will have fairly good results. It depends on your room size and shape. Mine is 15x 35' with a 9ft ceiling.
Seeing as you have the Radio Shack SPL meter & Avia DVD you have most of the tools you need I myself have not used REW yet so I cant give advice on that but just for starters setting the receivers crossover is a must with this sub as it doesn't need any help from the mains. Usually setting the crossover at 80Hz is a good start.
I am still in the process of tuning it to my liking and this will be a few weeks before I have it the way I like.

[Mike P.]

Tony, just curious what you plugged the port with.

[mike c]

Mike P. wrote:

Tony, just curious what you plugged the port with.

each SVS Ultra includes three foam port bungs to retune the subwoofer to:
20hz = no bungs
15hz = 1 bung
10hz = 2 bungs
sealed = 3 bungs

[Mike P.]

Good to know that SVS is looking after things! I just noticed in the above pic of the sub that a bung is placed in the center port.

[warren112]

Hi Tony,

Both my front and center speakers have accurate tight base response. The center speaker has frequency response of +-2 dB from 53 Hz to 18khz. Why would I not want the full voice from a TV announcer to come entirely from the center speaker in full accurate fidelity, rathar than split between the center and the subwoofer. This is what the speaker was designed to do.

Likewise the front speakers have been my only speakers for the last 30 years and are capable of very accurate music reproduction. I always liked their acccurate base response.

Another factor is that if I turn up the subwoofer output to accentuate the LFE effects in a movie, it might unbalance the sound coming from the other speakers. I expect to do this for demonstration purposes or even for movies with explosions.

I tried the SVS PB 13 Ultra in 15 HZ mode and it sounds great, but I can't tell the difference so far from 20 Hz mode.

I also balanced the output from each of my 5 speakers using my receiver's tome generator and the Radio Shack SPL meter at the center of my listening position with the meter held vertical (pointing at the ceiling).

For accurate response from the subwoofer, do I use the internal tones, or is there a better method. The subwoofer is currently +8 dB more than the other speakers. If I set the speakers to 80 Hz, I will need to have the proper level between the subwoofer and the other speakers.

Keep me informed as to how you personally set up your system.

Thanks for your all your help.

[tonyvdb]

warren112 wrote:

Both my front and center speakers have accurate tight base response. The center speaker has frequency response of +-2 dB from 53 Hz to 18khz. Why would I not want the full voice from a TV announcer to come entirely from the center speaker in full accurate fidelity, rathar than split between the center and the subwoofer. This is what the speaker was designed to do.

Likewise the front speakers have been my only speakers for the last 30 years and are capable of very accurate music reproduction. I always liked their acccurate base response.

I understand your concerns, You have to remember that the crossover setting is not a shut off of the frequencies below that point but rather a roll off of them. So there will still be plenty of frequencies down to at least 60hz before its dies off. The human voice does not go below 100hz anyhow. So for listening to music in two channel direct mode the crossover is disabled anyhow as in most cases the sub is off for that setting.

Another factor is that if I turn up the subwoofer output to accentuate the LFE effects in a movie, it might unbalance the sound coming from the other speakers.

This should not be an issue as the PB13 is way more capable of doing the job than any full frequency speaker. and by having the bass going to both could actualy caus you more grief.

For accurate response from the subwoofer, do I use the internal tones, or is there a better method. The subwoofer is currently +8 dB more than the other speakers. If I set the speakers to 80 Hz, I will need to have the proper level between the subwoofer and the other speakers.

Ideally a test tone sweep is best as you can hear the sweep pass through the 80hz area and you will be able to tell if you have to much or to little. DVE has this sweep on the DVD I dont remember if Avia has it.
REW is ideal for this as it not only has this feature but shows you on a graph what you have.

[shokhead]

tonyvdb wrote:

I understand your concerns, You have to remember that the crossover setting is not a shut off of the frequencies below that point but rather a roll off of them. So there will still be plenty of frequencies down to at least 60hz before its dies off. The human voice does not go below 100hz anyhow. So for listening to music in two channel direct mode the crossover is disabled anyhow as in most cases the sub is off for that setting.



This should not be an issue as the PB13 is way more capable of doing the job than any full frequency speaker. and by having the bass going to both could actualy caus you more grief.



Ideally a test tone sweep is best as you can hear the sweep pass through the 80hz area and you will be able to tell if you have to much or to little. DVE has this sweep on the DVD I dont remember if Avia has it.
REW is ideal for this as it not only has this feature but shows you on a graph what you have.

Yep. I thought my x over at 60 was good util i got a setup disc,Avia. Then i heard it drop of the end of a table and reset it to 80. Nice and smooth.

[tonyvdb]

Just to add a few things to my above review, I played some music on my system last night mostly jazz and The PB13 really does a nice job with music. I was pleasantly surprised by this as given the size I was not sure how well it would do but it sounded really smooth with nice tight bass but not too much.
I don't know how SVS managed this but after re eq-ing my system to blend nicely with the sub my entire system sounds even better, the mains were very well complimented by this sub and I cant imagine how I ever did without it.
The PB13 Ultra is very musical and will make any system sound far better.

[mike c]

metal grill, cloth grill, no grill