SB-1000 Sealed Subwoofer

I've never had a serious sub., so when I got this, I wasn't sure what to think of the sound, or how I wanted it to sound. I bought it to upsize the JBL LSR305 gen ii's on my computer desk.Well... that's what I bought the LAST sub for. 5" monitors tend to sound lean in bass, with holes down on the bottom, even. Not to mention when they really get pushed at frequencies below 100hz, the ports start mucking everything up... not so much with chuff, but definitely smearing. They start punching the wall in a way that hurts me.No replacement for real displacement. Gotta have big woofers pushing air to get big noises. So no matter how good the mids and treble are, they always sound lean. This is a 12" woofer. 12 is a bigger number than 5.For years I ran them in tandem with a Dayton FLUB-1000, 10" driver with bottom-firing port. It was always kinda boomy, uneven, and undistinct, but it did the job of adding low frequency content to offset the HF dominance of the speakers. Without it they sounded bright, and sometimes the Dayton would at least latch on in a way that somewhat made sense. No happy spot for it though. Either you set it up so you can barely hear it and nothing hits like it's supposed to, or you ALWAYS hear it, kinda doing its own thing. Very uncontrolled response. Not the best extension. When you get into electronic music and a synth line or 808 takes that extra dip down and the woofer stops moving, it is completely immersion breaking. When it was fully there, it sounded good...I almost wanna say I was a bit disappointed when I first set up the SB-1000. The Dayton was no more near as punchy or accurate, but it seemed to have a lot more energy and presence. So transitioning away I felt like I wasn't hearing the new SB-1000 like I should've been. I found myself turning it up too high, setting the crossover too high, setting the phase in a way that separated it from the speakers. It was to me just like the Dayton, but worse. Boomy and very inconsistent.The opposite ended up being true. Over the past few days of listening and dialing in, I've realized this sub is ALWAYS there, even when you think you don't notice. I just had to stop trying to turn it up to make it sound like I thought it should. Some of the music I was used to actually just didn't have that much bass. But man, it still sounds good with that sub. It just follows kick drums and bass guitars so closely you don't realize how much it's actually doing for the sound. The musicality of this thing is on another planet compared to those cheap subs. Once you dial it in (and dial yourself in) it is a completely different world of bass.What really cemented this was when I DID open it up with bass heavy music. I cranked my system volume all the way up and not only did several pictures nearly fall off of the wall, but in fact my entire body was vibrating. I could feel my eyes shake. It hit me so hard I broke out in sweat. My hurricane proof windows were trembling. And where the Dayton had holes, this was steady across frequencies, with none of that phantom bass dropouts on really low synths and bass notes. No, it digs all the way down into the tracks. And in my head it was a eureka moment. "This sub doesn't lack bass at all, it's just accurate to the music!"After that I went to more neutral music at moderate levels and it blended seamlessly back in with no boominess. You just kinda know it's there. Turn it up and the kicks punch your chest a little, while the bass guitar cradles the snare and guitars. The speakers themselves sound bigger. I also find that even though it sounds overall less prominent than the big flubby Dayton crapbox, it actually picks up a lot of slighter things that the Dayton either hid under blobs or completely missed. There are all sorts of songs where I didn't know the bass wasn't flat but in fact rolling around and/or having multiple 'hits' or 'stages' to it. "Detailed" has never been my word for bass, but for stuff with more going on in the lowest registers, it has opened me up to all kinds of new nuance in old favorites. And again, it does still hit WAY harder than the 10" ported Dayton, right when it's called to.It's accurate and controlled. Clean at all times. Mean when it's meant to be. Polite when it's asked to be. I love it! Pretty plain, but well-built. People say ported is better for movies and games, but I don't know. I did buy this for music and it excels at it, BUT, when I am gaming or watching movies, it rumbles plenty, without booming-out distractingly on the shorter sounds. It still sounds full and even when it's bringing the sound effect boom boom, without overpowering the room at high volumes. I think that's the difference. In this room, all a port would do for music, games, or movies, was make it harder to get the correct response and fullness out of it. I can't compare, but it seems like same boom boom, just more accurate. Not to mention the compact cab may open up placement opportunities in the smaller rooms this thing will demolish like it's another Tuesday.Perfect for this 10'x12' room with standard 8' ceiling. I put it under my desk right in the corner of the room. The granularity of the phase adjustment is nice, with it being so close to toed in speakers that I am also close to, it's not a perfect 0, 90, or 180 for ideal bonding. The sweet spot was closer to 45 degrees, but not exactly. On tick makes the difference. The knobs have at least 30 odd soft stops for easy tracking of adjustments. They're nice knobs. I feed my preamp to the sub's inputs and let its crossover cap my JBL's down at 80hz by letting the sub feed them. Any speakers you plug into the output will be capped at 80hz, which I think is reasonable, considering you wouldn't want to set this sub higher than that in most uses. I set the low-pass for the sub itself 2 clicks below 80hz because setting it right up to the speaker's limit still makes them clash a little. Being so close I can get away with running it that high and honestly that is about the range where the JBL's really drop off anyway. It works nicely. I find that not feeding stuff below 80hz does clean up their midrange. I never thought the clarity/width thing could be true crossing over subs with small speakers, but it is! They sound better at all frequencies!This thing has a lot more to give, too. I'm not even running it at 50% volume. A little below 12 o clock is an adrenaline rush with loud bass-heavy music.I love it. I think the sealed cab definitely gives an advantage to desk setups. You can put it close in a smaller room and not worry about nulls too much, as long as the volume and phase are right, it is almost too steady and musical. You forget about it until it's not there. I just kinda know when things I've heard a lot sound suspiciously better and remember to say "Thanks, SVS!"And that's why I say start here. I feel like this gives a better sense of how a sub is supposed to sound. What they should and should not be doing. I think reviewers who say this sub sounds weak or boomy probably haven't set it up right, used it in the wrong space, or simply thought it would do something a closed sub isn't supposed to do. This thing will do a very poor job of adding bass to your stuff. But if it is there, it will pick it up in a BIG way. When it's not, it will be subtle, but if you pay attention you still notice the significant difference across the entire range of sounds.

I've had subs before, but never one that enhanced the music or movies without drawing attention to itself. This sub just blends in, adding heft and power to music without a lot of drama. Its understated looks complement that style of performance. I got the sealed box rather than ported as I was more concerned with tighter bass for music than anything, although I like LFE in movies too. I did a lot of research and SVS is consistently rated very highly, especially in terms of value per dollar spent.I think I made the right choice. I don't even really have the settings fully dialed in (need to redo the receiver's Audyssey calibration at some point), but already this sub is just melting in to the rest of my system. I have a pair of Polk S55 speakers and the SVS SB-1000 matches with them very well. I had the Polk PSW505 and while that packed a wallop before it died, it wasn't suited to music as it just provided a big dumb slab of noise with no nuance at all. I also had a very old (circa 2002) Yamaha sub that is much more nimble for music, yet wasn't capable of digging really deep. Both subs just farted out bass through its port and again, drew attention to thenselves in the process instead of creating a seamless listening experience like this sub does. I'm pretty sold on sealed boxes if this sub's performance is any indication.The other thing about this sub and perhaps all sealed boxes - this is just a theory - potentially more neighbor friendliness. I believe that less bass is going to bother my neighbors with this sub because compared to my other subs, there is very little vibration if you place your hand on the floor or on nearby walls when compared to my 2 other ported subs. And also, I'm no longer hearing areas of exaggerated boomy bass if I walk to other areas of my condo, compared to the 2 subs I'd been using. I think that means there are less resonances, and more bass remaining within my condo. I'm not a sound engineer but it seems plausible. I do have the SVS special aftermarket feet which may help, but I already had those on my Polk sub also.Bottom line is, I feel that this sub is giving me what I wanted and more. This is a smaller sub, but can provide some good thump when the situation calls for it. My living room isn't that small either - about 12x20 with a really high ceiling as it's a loft style. If you have a small to medium system and/or room, and have about $500 to spend, I think you'll be good to go with this. If you like bass or it's more for movies or you have a larger space, you could look at the PB-1000 (Ported Box) or step up to the SB/PB-2000.

I have a modest home theater setup with a mid level Denon AVR and Polk ES speakers. This fills in the LFE and some of the missing bass punch from my speakers perfectly. My home theater is in basement and is quite large and open to large surrounding finished spaces (about 1,000 square feet of open space). We don't like it overly loud and rarely run the volume on the AVR past 55%. We just like a nice balanced sound with a wide sound stage across 3 movie recliners. Watching the last Elton John concert was breathtaking! Movies with pistol fire feels and sounds like being at the gun range - very punchy and jolting! Nice tight bass without the boomy feeling of a huge sub. Versatile for movies and music. I have this mounted dead center inside my entertainment center under the TV, practically hidden, which is the way the wife likes it. It sounds phenomenal in that location and suits my needs and expectations perfectly. I have it set at 50% volume fed from the AVR's LFE output. My crossovers are set at 60 Hz for mains and 80 Hz for center and surrounds. I let Audessy do the initial setup and a few tweaks later, voila, sound perfection. You can't go wrong with this subwoofer in terms of size, punch, and price. I bought it specifically for its size so I can tuck it out of sight under the TV. It is by far the smallest subwoofer in this class. The fact that it is sealed eliminates port noise but also makes the bass very tight and percussive. I'm an engineer and am pretty picky with the sound I am looking for. Nice subwoofer!