SVS PB13-Ultra Subwoofer Listening Tests

• available output headroom and ability to track the dynamics of the signal
• distortion behavior
• overall frequency response shape and extension
• response in the time domain
• integration with the speakers reproducing the upper frequencies
• proper level matching between the speakers and subwoofer(s).

I also believe that most of these things can be quantified through objective measurements and correlated with subjective listening impressions with good results. If you get these basic areas covered then you are well on your way to being able to realize good bass at your listening chair. If there is a major difference in subjective sound between two different subwoofer systems being listened to, I would suspect there to be a large measurable difference in one of these areas as well. This is the reason why the subwoofer review will have both listening impressions with familiar material and a whole battery of measurements and tests conducted on the unit per the procedures outlined in our subwoofer testing procedure article.

Now that we have that out of the way let’s proceed…I put the PB13-Ultra into 15Hz mode with one port plugged and placed it in the front right corner of my home theater, firing it back into the wall at a distance of about 12” to give the ports room to breathe. I have determined that this is the best available placement and configuration for a single sub in my room and I felt that would be the best compromise of extension and output for the PB13-Ultra. I then ran Audyssey on the system to allow it to calibrate the SVS into the mix and address any large room acoustics interaction issues. I also used the built in DSP of the Sledge amp to help Audyssey counteract a 45Hz peak that is a product of my room acoustics at the listening position. Since this is all done digitally inside the amplifier this was a quick one minute affair with none of the guessing about whether the labeling on an analog knob is accurate that can occur. All of the listening was done with this configuration.

Blu-ray: Porcupine Tree - Anesthetize

I just finally picked this title up a few months ago after a friend lent me his copy and I was blown away. I had been a fan of the group for many years already, but this effort kicked them up a few more notches in my estimation. The production here is amazing. The bass guitar is full in the mix with each note easily distinguishable but a bottom end that is still hefty and anchoring. The performance by Gavin Harrison on the drum kit is gigantic and simply put his kit just sounds good. The toms and kick have significant attack and cut to be discernable through even the most complex of passages and yet there is still a lot of weight and tone kept to them. That is a difficult mix to pull off but it has been done well here. The very first song of the set is “Fear of a Blank Planet” and the drum beat is mixed really fat from the outset. The PB13-Ultra had no problems keeping up the bottom end and sounding great while doing so even after I kept continually turning up the volume. (This is one of those discs.) The kick drum just kept getting increasingly punchy as the volume was turned up and I could easily hear the different tones of each tom as Harrison ripped through many sickeningly smooth rolls and even the ghost strokes on the toms smattered throughout the performance. Each fundamental note of Colin Edwin’s superbly placed bass licks were well defined by the PB13-Ultra and clearly distinguished. Truth be told I intended to only check out a couple of tracks but ended up sitting there enjoying the whole performance.

CD: Nine Inch Nails – The Slip

I have been a long time fan of N.I.N. and Trent Reznor ever since I saw them in concert in 1996. Throughout their long career they have been known for using a lot of weird and off the wall electronically created or altered effects in their music, often these have substantial bass frequencies associated with them. This disc is no different. The SVS eagerly ate up whatever random bass heavy signals were sent its way and served them up with gusto. I played a couple of selected tracks from this album and ended with “Discipline” which has a massive kick drum throughout and a loud, buzzing and noisy bass line to go with it. Towards the end of the track there is a break to a lone kick drum stomp that is easy to detect hints of bloom or overload from lesser subs when cranked up. The PB13-Ultra I pushed pretty hard on this track and it never faltered at all. The final feature in this track that makes it interesting to test a subwoofer with is a sine wave type frequency sweep from about 18-30Hz that comes in under the beat. I could fully hear the start and stop of this sweep under the beat which only registers on subs with significant extension and the output needed to go with it.

Blu-ray: Hell Boy II – The Golden Army

This is a movie that has been in my collection for awhile now and the reason for that was my realization of what a monster surround and LFE mix it had while watching a rented copy. I actually enjoy the movie quite a bit as well. While it is no heavyweight dramatic or intellectual piece, it is entertaining, action packed and just plain weird, which I like. During the many fight scenes and action sequences that take place throughout there is gratuitous and bombastic usage of the LFE channel. But, it is not all explosions and gun shots here, there are many different textures and tones to the bass, with some sections being fairly subtle and very low in frequency and that is a big part of the appeal for me. The other element of the bass in this movie is the low frequency extension, which has much more content below 25Hz than the average blockbuster and is many times mixed in quite loudly. It is a real test of a subwoofers home theater pedigree. The big SVS sub got a heck of a workout on this, but it never complained, nor did it produce any bad noises. Instead it did a fine job of turning the whole room into a massage table. It also did well at reproducing the depth that this soundtrack had to offer, providing output almost down to the point where you start to lose the actual hearing of it and just start to get a weird pressure wave type of effect on the ears accompanied by a physical shaking. This happens somewhere below about 18Hz for me. There is a lot of this type of bass in Hellboy II and it takes ample of horsepower for a single subwoofer to pull that off, especially in my room. Most other subwoofers would not be able to produce this effect.