Small Box Sub: SB12-Plus Woofer: Ships Early October 2006

Small Box Sub, 12" Plus Woofer -- Ships Early October 2006.

There's some good reasons we waited to introduce our first truly small sub. Chief among them? It's really difficult to make a really worthy small sub. Few on the market are both affordable and good (and there are plenty which are both very expensive, yet still not genuine subwoofers).

When the SB12-Plus was conceived, we resolved that no small sub from SVS would be anything but the best of its kind in this size and price class. Expect this new SVS to compare favorably to other small subs out there costing 2-3 times as much.

We think you'll be glad you waited for this. Finally, a really compact sub that's good enough to be called an "SVS". The SB12-Plus, comes in five attractive and practical finishes... and more features than you can shake a stick at.

Start with just the front of this new sub. While the basic black vinyl finish uses our standard chrome steel grill retainers, all other finishes use nothing at al!. Or so it seems. Notice the clean face on our signature oak, maple, piano gloss and new rosenut finishes? Hidden under the surface of these hand-worked cabinets are small "neo" magnets that hold fast to your grill simply by placing it there. A quick "thunk" (as the magnets engage) and it's on. Simple, elegant, and the sort of unexpected feature people have come to expect from SVS. The grill itself even has soft rubber grommets affixed to ensure quiet, resonance-free operation, even at high sound pressure levels.

Dig deeper and you'll see our exclusive Ohio-built Plus 12.3 long throw woofer, and a new 425 watt amp that's the new affordable mark on the wall. With parametric EQ (PEQ), room compensation control, full crossover (defeatable), variable phase, balanced inputs, anodized finish and detachable power cord, you might well wonder if we left out anything at all.

Certainly performance wasn't left out. While any "micro" subwoofer is inherently a bit of a compromise, from the standpoint of physics... this small subwoofer is so flat, so deep and so powerful you might even question why bigger subs exist. It keeps the legendarily neutral and balanced SVS sound with flat response rare in any sub of any size, or cost.

So, if you can "afford" one of our bigger subs... from the standpoint of the larger floor space requirement ... by all means, consider something of a similar price class, such as the PB12-Plus, or even one that's less expensive like the (large) new PB12-NSD.

If you need room rattling power, the ultimate depth, AND want a small footprint too? Then our exclusive space-saving Powered Cylinder subs should be on your short list to evaluate. Few brands will be honest about this point: "size matters" ... with subwoofers. Even if perfectly designed, no truly small sub like the SB12-Plus will compete with an equally well-designed large subwoofer (particularly if it's one of our super-efficient vented subwoofers such as those mentioned just above). Physics is an unforgiving master.

But as we know, small is, well, BIG in many audio fans' homes. Many have long clamored for an SVS sub that's small enough to slip by their "significant other", or be the perfect bass source for smaller venues like bedrooms or office audio systems. And frankly, even for long-time audio nuts like us at SVS, there's something undeniably cool about a diminutive sub, like this one, filling even mid-sized rooms with low bass that's accurate, deep, and with enough guts to keep you planted to your seat.

Get a big SVS sub if you find one that fits your lifestyle. But get the SB12-Plus if big bass has got to be small to make it into your audio system, and home. Big or small, box or cylinder, now we have you covered no matter what. Small isn't the compromise it once was, now that the SB12-Plus is here.

Features:
* SVS designed/built custom Plus 12.3 woofer
* Built-in 425 watt BASH (R) amp with PEQ
* CAD design, CNC cut, hand-built enclosure
* Front-firing sealed design, recessed driver
* Compliant floor mounts, low center of gravity
* Room compensation control for optimal response
* Assembled and tested in the Ohio SVS factory
* Extra heavy-duty detachable 8 foot power cord
* Five finishes with intricately rounded corners
* Magnetic grill retainers (premium finishes only)
* Industry leading response (+/- 3dB 22hz-150Hz)
* Size: Approx. 15” deep x 14" wide x 14 " high
* Weight: 40 pounds

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Sonnie



Cedar Creek Cinema

The Behemoth

Looks like a little beauty with an awesome feature set.

Sonnie, you have me drooling evey time you show the pix of the SVS's.
My biggest need is a good sub, but I have already exceeded my ht budget
by purchasing a certain hts member's NHT's. It sure is great to be able to view
the announcements of upcoming models.

akitaboy

I tell ya... the minute we took it out of the box at Wayne's, I wanted just wrap my arms around it and hug it. It's a beauty! I couldn't believe how tiny it is. Nice little sub. I'll leave the review to Wayne though.

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Sonnie



Cedar Creek Cinema

The Behemoth

Very nice. I look forward to Wayne's review.

I'm still thinkin' 10,000 cubic feet is conservative... you should measure that out and see for sure. I'm thinkin' 20,000+... that is a huge room and lot's of openings to other areas.

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Sonnie



Cedar Creek Cinema

The Behemoth

Can you hurry up with the review!

The UK is dribbling over this thing, where it's size will suit the average European room, in a way that the bigger boxes can't. Not so much the output, as the sheer size being the problem.

Russell

10,000 cu ft? Geez, I have a large lounge compared to the avergae UK home. It measures 21' x 17' x 8' 4", or 2,974 cu feet. Yours is nearly 3 times that volume!!! Have you got very high ceilings or are you pressurising the whole of your house!!!

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| Sony KL-50W2 | Denon 3805 + POA-T10 Biamp| Denon 2900 | Pioneer 575-S | B&Ws 604s3/602s3/LCR600s3 in 7.1 | SVS PB12-ISD | BFD | Pinnacle Showcenter |Sky+(250GB) | Cables Scorpion & Mark Grant|

Bob - "Malice" was my Quake 2 CTF name

So does anyone know when pre-orders start?

Pre orders? They're already taking orders.

Russell

I guess they are all technically pre-orders right now. There are a few photo samples (working) circulating world wide, but production won't start till first week of Oct. We're not known for missing ship dates once established though. The first new PB12-NSD subs shipped today.

This little monster is going to really stun people though. There's an oak unit about to go thru an appraisal at our UK location (Kent Home Cinema), a black unit is about to show up Down Under, a rosenut is kicking *** in Scandinavia, and the Piano Gloss Black (the sentimental favorite) has wound its way from Ohio, to Colorado, to Texas, back to Colorado, then Arizona and maybe we'll be shipping main production. If you aren't convinced these subs are tough and articulate peformers, at least you know they can survive lots of shipping trips ;^)

Ron
SVS

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RonS
SVSound

They've only got ONE!?!? I will be demoing the one AV Sales have on the 16th as they are having an open day for AVF members. I posted that I'd run a car down to Kent and it took about half an hour to fill it - This wee beasty is certainly causing some interest.

My personal interest lies in the PB-12/Plus2, but I'm intrigued by the possibility of two SB-12s as an alternative with greater room tuning possiblities. My room is 1620 cu ft, any thoughts?

Russell

Err? Well yes, actually.

Seriously, this is what I mean by the smaller size of European rooms. 18x11.5ft, 8ft (ish) ceiling. This is a decent size lounge in a 4 bedroom detached house that markets for about £330,000 ($600,000 US). By the time you get into the London suburbs, you can double that for a three bedroom semi. When you're in an island that would fit inside Texas 3 times over, has 60 million people AND 70% of them live in 30% of the area, land values are eye wateringly high. We dream of pairs of Ultra2s, but if we had them there would be nowhere to sit!

Now in this room, I've already shoe horned a BK Monolith (see Ilkkas test) which is s bit bigger than an SVS PB-10. It would probably vanish into the average US listening room, but picture it in a room my size. This room is our main living space, so positioning options are limited and some weight has to be given to WAF. It's therefore, behind the listening position.

The flip side to this problem is that it's not too hard to buy a sub that will pressurise the room quite nicely, deliver -3dB at 18Hz and 108dB peaks at the listening position. After much tuning, it integrates really well with the mains for music (which surprised me), but LFE effects can still seem to hit you from behind. Also, due to the smaller room dimensions, the main room modes are comparatively high, which means that any room tuning is very much localised to the listening position. Remember this is the main living room, so butt ugly bass tuning devices are a non starter.

With two smaller subs, I open up the options a bit. That the output will be ample, is a given. But I could position one in the current position and the other sort of diagonally opposite near the front of the room. I feel this would give a better in-room response for starters and a more even pressurisation during LFE effects. The SB-12 looses out in extension to the large box subs, but with two I feel some of this can be got back. Throw in the 12.3 Plus driver and I'm looking at some staggering bass quality with apparently limitless headroom in a far more discrete form factor.

Any further thoughts?

Russell