SV Sound PB2-ISD Setup

Ron Stimpson of SV Subwoofers (SVS to their fans) made some pretty colorful claims about his subwoofer prior to our review. I recalled him using words such as “Hoochi MAMA …that’s bass!!” to describe our likely reaction to his product. While this may seem comical (OK, it was funny) it also shows the confidence and pride that SVS has in its products (just read through their website to find more, almost comical, marketing diatribes). One consistent claim made by SVS was that the louder you played their sub, the farther it would leave the competition behind.

We really liked the configurability of the PB2-ISD sub. For those who like to customize their sound, this SVS sub allows you to utilize a 1, 2 or 3 port configuration by way of dense foam inserts which can tune the sub to either 25Hz, 20Hz or even 16Hz depending upon the room and sub placement. A subsonic filter coordinates the electronics to match the desired tuning of the cabinet. Your listening preferences and mostly your room size will determine the settings you should select for the PB2-ISD sub. We ran the subwoofer with one port and the subsonic filter disengaged to allow the sub to reach to its lowest depths. In our medium-sized Reference System 3, this produced incredible low frequency response with no sign of bottoming out; however we never attempted to max out the capabilities of the system at this setting (which isn’t recommended). Adjusting the subwoofer to utilize 2 ports and a 20Hz setting on the subsonic filter seemed to be the best setting for cranking out ridiculous amounts of bass while not risking overdriving the unit. Even with subsonic filter and ports set to 20Hz, the sub was found to dip as low as 15Hz in our room.

Build Quality – SV Subwoofers PB2-ISD

The SVS PB2-ISD drivers are made at Destijl Engineering in Nevada and are by far one of the nicest subwoofer drivers I have ever seen in a boxed enclosure. From the peek we give you of the inside of the SVS sub, you’d expect to have a transparent plexiglas panel on the top allowing you to see into the unit. From the chrome finish to the car-audio style gold-braid cables, this sub spares no expense in the aesthetics of its components.

The 600W BASH amplifier employed in the PD2-ISD is manufactured by Indigo and sports a high-efficiency design that combines some of the characteristics of Class AB and Class D technology. The drivers are... well, they’re CHROMED! Okay, besides that, they employ similar vented pole piece cooling and are made with a cast aluminum basket and rigid Kevlar/pulp cone. The three ports are flared both inside and out, allowing for plenty of relief to help alleviate port chuffing, though you will undoubtedly hear it if you run this sub at high SPLs while in 16Hz tuning mode.

The bracing and “owens-corning” style dampening found within the unit was top notch, ensuring that the enclosure was as sufficiently neutralized as possible. The cabinet itself is extremely dense and thick and comes with an integrated base plate that ensures consistent source propagation of the sound and eliminates problems due to excessively high pile carpet and typical floor variances. Foam rubber feet are present on the bottom of the base, and though we dragged the sub around the carpet quite a bit, not one of the feet fell off or ever came loose.

The external enclosure sports a unique polyurethane cured black top coat which provides a rather rough (yet almost indestructible) surface that can withstand stains and scratches, not to mention fingerprints. It is indeed something you could set your drink on without worrying if you would mar the finish. This polymer coating is pretty much seamless and surrounds the entire enclosure – which SVS claims adds to the dampening and structural integrity of the cabinet. Our opinion is that we’d probably opt for the PB1-Plus which is nearly the same SVS sub (though with a little less power and only 1 driver) available with five choices of hard maple veneers – for only $200 more (the PB1-Plus includes an upgraded TC Sounds driver and a single parametric EQ which is a great thing to have as well).