# New forum member - SVS intrigued



## Samas (Mar 3, 2009)

I just wanted to start off by thanking all the forum members and moderators for creating an informative/invitive environment for new members. I have a few questions about SVS speakers, and it seems like I have stumbled onto the right place. For the purpose of this post please consider my speaker knowledge average and feel free to correct any assumptions I might have made.

Several weeks ago I started reading everything I could lay my internet hands on about speakers in preparation for my first big audio purchase. I already have a Denon 2309ci that I purchased last month with a super deal. Now I just need speakers :yay2:. I would include a link to the receiver for everyone, but as a new member I am not yet allowed to post links (in fact, this little tidbit cost me my first post. I'm having to retype this bad boy!).

Initially, I was completely sold on Paradigm. In fact I was about to purchase a pair of Monitor 7's v.6 when I discovered SVS while researching subs. The more and more I read about SVS the more I started questioning my Paradigm logic. Here is my current plan:

With a budget somewhere between 1500-2000, I plan on starting with a pair of MBS-01's and a SB-12 plus. Later this year I will eventually be able to add a pair of MTS-01's with the MCS center. Is this a solid plan? Will the SB-12 plus equally compliment these other fine speakers, or should I value a larger sub more?

I'm also slightly concerned about my receiver. Since it is rated at 100 watts/channel, will it be enough to satisfy these SVS speakers (sensitivity ratings range from 84-87). The paradigms generally had high ratings in this area, and I felt confident in my receiver then. Now I'm not so sure if my AVR can handle these seemingly power hunger speakers. On this particular denon model there is no pre-amp out :thumbsdown:.

I am of course open to all suggestions. If someone else prefers another brand with a valid reason I would like to hear your opinion. Last night I read about some towers called Rocker 850's that seemed pretty decent.

Thanks all for your help,

-seth


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## drdoan (Aug 30, 2006)

Hi Seth, welcome. I would concur with your assessment of the SVSound speakers. I have had Paradigm towers and subs over the years and liked them. However, when I latched on to the SVSound products, I became a great fan. I only have the smaller SB speakers, but, love them, especially for movies. I own the PB12-Plus/2 sub and believe that is more to my liking than the Paradigm Servo-15 I had before. I think you will be happy with the SVSound speakers. Have fun. Dennis


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Hello Seth, Welcome to the Shack!

SVS is defiantly a great choice particularly for the sub If you can up your budget the PB13 Ultra is the way to go and you would find no competition for that price (I have one and am very happy with it).
SVS makes good speakers and anyone who has bought them has had nothing but good to say about them. 

Regarding your receiver choice, not having pre outs is a big downfall because your receiver is a good one but being able to ad an amp to power the mains is always a good idea. 
Onkyo is still offering the best bang for the buck but it really depends on how much you can spend. I personally would not go into anything less than a TX SR706


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## Mike P. (Apr 6, 2007)

Hi Seth, welcome to the Shack!


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## jmmdm2 (Mar 3, 2009)

Hi Seth,

I'm also new to this site, I believe this is my third post. I was about to start looking around for information regarding acoustic treatments but I stopped by the SVS forum for a moment. Your thread got my attention.

I just purchased two MTS-01 Towers and a MBS-01 Center. I won't make you read further... They are more than I could have hoped for, the reviews circulating on the net are dead on.

A little story and some details...

I have been looking for a 7.1 system to fill my Home Theater Room. I read reviews, did some research and started to purchase equipment. I'm the worst impulse buyer when I have cash in my hand and I walked into a electronics retailer to listen to some Klipsch towers with matching center/surrounds. The sub was firing and the surrounds were filling the area with TrueHD effects but something was "off" and I had to know what it was. I eventually asked the sales rep if I could check the polarity on the towers... they had them hooked up out of phase. I don't know if it was intentional to create a wider stage or they really made a mistake. I selected analog pure direct, tuned a powerful local FM station and rewired the speaker. It sounded so much better, I purchased the system.

Thirty days later, I returned the entire system. There was something missing from the sound and I didn't shop around the first time. I went out and listened to some Def Techs, higher level Klipsch, Martin Logan and some Vienna Acoustics. After the Mozart Grands by Vienna, I knew I had to return the Klipsch system.

The previous system ran me $1800.00 for a 5.1 set up. I really didn't want to spend $1500.00 per Mozart Grand so I searched around and found SVS. I've read just about every review out there regarding SVSound. I figured they offer a 45 day in home trial so what could go wrong. I sent an email to SVS explaining my efforts with the Klipsch system and I got a reply from Ron Stimpson. He addressed all of my questions and gave me some great advice. Everything seemed right about this purchase, a product made in the USA, one of the owners answering my email and great reviews everywhere.

The speakers arrived yesterday (even in the awful snow storm) and as soon as I fired them up, I knew these would never leave my house. The Klipsch towers managed to get the image in the center if I towed them in just right but if I moved right or left of the sweet spot, the image jumped to the speaker I was closest to. The image was rather flat as well. 

The SVS towers don't emit the sound, it's just there. You can't associate the sound with the speakers. Like I told Ron, the speakers dissolve into the room. I can move out of the sweet spot and the image is still centered. There is now depth to the image as well and my room is in no way complete. There's nothing but a couch to absorb sound, the walls and ceiling are bare drywall and the floor is concrete. The sound is going to improve dramatically once I deaden the room.

My wife and I are huge fans of Billy Joel. We've seen quite a few of his concerts, the best of which was at TD Banknorth (Boston) Garden. The sound system there was far superior to other arenas. Joel opened with Angry Young Man and the intensity of the piano coupled with the fast, tight bass was an experience I'll never forget. Last night I listened to the Live At Carnegie Hall recording of Angry Young Man. I had to run upstairs to ask my Wife to listen to the opening but she was already coming down. We both agreed that it sounded like we were at the concert, I can't put it into words! Just amazing!

That was a lot to read but the SVSound speakers have got me talking/writing. :yay::T:jump:


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## Samas (Mar 3, 2009)

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Jason - your journey to SVS sounds exactly like mine. I to am an impulsive buyer, and my first thoughts were also along the lines of a klipsch system. Your experience with SVS is definitely hyping me up. If you don't mind me asking, what are you driving those speakers with? Were you concerned about a 4 ohm impedance & 87 dB sensitivity tower requiring plenty of power? Many of the Paradigm/Klipsch models I look at seem to require far less power. 

Like I mentioned earlier, I consider myself a novice audiophile. I may be blowing this power issue way out of proportion. I'm just trying to determine if I should return this receiver. I have about 14 days left to do so.

I was also curious about people that use two subwoofers in tandem. I'm guessing here, but I imagine you would want to adjust one sub to handle all the lower frequencies, while the second sub handles the higher ones. This should really smooth out the bass response correct? Are there AVR's that handle this, or would someone need a sub equalizer?


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Having two subs is a good way to go and yes it will smooth out the over all bass response. Most receivers only have one sub out but you simply use a "Y" splitter and your good to go. 
Receivers that have some sort of room correction like Yamaha's YAPO or Audyssey will do for most people.


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## jmmdm2 (Mar 3, 2009)

Samas said:


> Your experience with SVS is definitely hyping me up. If you don't mind me asking, what are you driving those speakers with? Were you concerned about a 4 ohm impedance & 87 dB sensitivity tower requiring plenty of power?


I'm happy to give you all the info I have :bigsmile:

The source is a Sony STR-DA5400ES which will support 4 ohms on the mains. The Sony puts out 120 watts/channel. The spec sheet from SVS states that the MTS-01's are 6 ohms.

Now I'm not 100% confident in my choice of receiver. I searched the internet for reviews and ended up at CNET. The Sony 5300ES was the editors choice at the time I started searching and then the 5400ES came out so I grabbed it based on the CNET review as well as customer reviews. Now I see all the Denon, Yamaha, and Onkyo receivers use by most HT members and I'm second guessing my choice (but that's another thread).

Please let me know if you'd like any other information about the Towers or Center, even with the Sony receiver they sound amazing. I'm glad I didn't buy the Vienna Acoustics!


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## Ed Mullen (Jul 28, 2006)

Hi guys:

We've been working with Seth in Sales and he asked us to pop in over here to share some thoughts on senstivitity and impedance. 

The MBS-01 nominal impedance is 8 ohms, and the MCS-01 and MTS-01 are closer to 4 ohms nominal because they have a second woofer in parallel with a tapered/cascaded crossover. 

While all the M-series can be driven with any decent AVR, the tower and center channel are indeed harder to drive for the typical AVR due to their lower impedance. Most AVRs simply can't deliver a lot of current into the lower impedance loads like a beefy external amp can. With that said, the electrical phase response from all three speakers is quite benign, and this also affects how "easy" the speaker is to drive.

The sensitivity of our M-series speakers is lower, but the spec is real and supportable (unlike some exaggerated values from other OEMs). We have a lower sensitivity because our crossover designs completely compensate for baffle rise and the stepped baffle response, and this always comes at the expensive of sensitivity. The upside is a very neutral and balanced upper bass region without bloom/bloat. 

The M-series speakers do like a quality external amp which can easily drive 4 ohm loads, and they perform really nicely with Rotel, ATI, Adcom, Outlaw, B&K, Parasound, NAD and other similar high quality amps. 

This reviewer of the MBS-01 also shares the same opinion about quality amps bringing out the best of the M-series. Although I will caution you his statement about the sensitivity is not correct; it cannot be determined or gleaned from the FR - they are two separate things. Our senstivity rating for the MBS-01 is 83.4 dB with a 2.83V input @ 1M in full-space. Nevertheless, he surely loves the speakers. :^) 


http://www.lsound.no/eng/?side=arkiv&group=691&art=11396&language_iso=eng


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## Samas (Mar 3, 2009)

I would just like to take a second and thank the great support staff at SVSound. I am completely floored with their no nonsense answers and courteous attitude. To Ed Mullen and Jack Gilvey, thank you again for all your help. 

I will be calling very soon to order my new speakers ! :jump:


-seth


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## jmmdm2 (Mar 3, 2009)

I'm quite pleased to hear you'll be purchasing from SVSound, Seth. 

I just read the review that Ed provided... Great review but can I really feed 600 watts to the MTS-01's?
It's always better to overdrive a speaker with good clean power rather than underpower, correct? This is from my days in car audio when I was sending 750 watts to my MB Quart Q's with 9 inch Morel mid-woofers on the same channel. Talk about headroom without distortion!

Now I don't 'NEED' 600 watts and I haven't been in HT long enough to know what amps would provide 600 watts. I'd assume 200-300 watts per MTS-01 would be more than adequate but if 600 is where it's at, then that's where I want to be.

I want the guys at SVS to know your speakers caused me to redesign the front of my HT and I'm thrilled about that. I had a false wall type set-up where the built in cabinet allowed access to the rear of all the equipment. Very plain and just huge. Took up so much space. I set up the MTS-01's with the center speaker al in open air rather than in the cabinet and I got this image in my head that was created by the lines of the speakers. I'll be working on this tomorrow.


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## Ed Mullen (Jul 28, 2006)

Remember, doubling the amp power only results in a 3 dB increase in volume, so seemingly huge increases in power don't result in a correspondingly huge increase in SPL. 

Our Euro dealer Jan at L-Sound routinely drives the MTS-01 with the Rotel RB-1572 (500 WPC @ 4 ohms), with no problems whatsover. I drive my M-series with 300 watt (4 ohms) monoblocks. I would say the sweet spot is anwhere from 200-400 watts, but even something like the Outlaw 7125 has much more real world power than any AVR, conservatively rated at 125 WPC @ 8 ohms and 190 WPC @ 4 ohms.


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## jmmdm2 (Mar 3, 2009)

I was just looking at the Rotel amps online and I found a dealer 18 miles away from my location. I'm a bit confused about the ratings of the amps. I'm still in car audio mode.

Just for reference, I looked at the Rotel RMB-1575. It's rated at 500 watts (@4ohms) x 5 so my question is... is the amp sending 500 watts to each of the 5 channels or are the 5 channels sharing the 500 watts. :scratch:


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## Samas (Mar 3, 2009)

I'm pretty sure that is 500 watts per channel


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## Ed Mullen (Jul 28, 2006)

jmmdm2 said:


> I was just looking at the Rotel amps online and I found a dealer 18 miles away from my location. I'm a bit confused about the ratings of the amps. I'm still in car audio mode.
> 
> Just for reference, I looked at the Rotel RMB-1575. It's rated at 500 watts (@4ohms) x 5 so my question is... is the amp sending 500 watts to each of the 5 channels or are the 5 channels sharing the 500 watts. :scratch:



500 WPC (4 ohms), all channels driven. There is a limit to how much power the AC line can deliver, so a 20A dedicated circuit is recommended for an amp of this power rating. Some amps (like the Outlaw 7 channel 300WPC amp) come with dual extension cords and should be connected to separate circuits for the same reason - the AC line becomes the limiting factor.


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## Samas (Mar 3, 2009)

Now things are starting to get hardcore. Try explaining to your wife that your new speakers require a dedicated circuit and she may have some concerns. :hissyfit:

I'm still excited though :boxer:


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## jmmdm2 (Mar 3, 2009)

I didn't mean to hi-jack your thread, Seth :bigsmile:

Just a "while we're here thing" 

What do you plan to use with your new SVS speakers? I'm searching right now and finding the Rotel amps at a good online price isn't working so well. Every site is local sales only. I really don't want to drive to my local shop and get pressured while I'm just looking.

I will say I'm pretty excited to be working on this set-up at the same time you are, I feel like I can get more information and end up with a better outcome with your help.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seth, just read you last response.

I have two dedicated circuits to the HT already, one for lighting and another for the A/V rack. I have no trouble running a third since my HT is in the basement and I can run a new line to the box very easily. I assume a 20amp cicuit is going to require lower gauge than 14/2 wire... I can see it now, "is that your hot tub power supply?" no, that's for the amplifier! :jump:


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## Samas (Mar 3, 2009)

Yeah Jason, it is nice to meet someone working towards the same end. I'm going to drive my speakers for the time being with my new Onkyo TXSR 806b (I returned my Denon 2309ci - restocking fees are not my friend).

I figure that AVR will be more than enough until I purchase my MTS pair and MCS later this year. Jack over at SVSound also sold me on going with a PB12-NDS. He said this was an excellent start for now, and down the road I can consider adding a second sub for more bass depth.

On a side note, I am digging all these emoticons. Trying to figure out which one I'm going to use with this post now.

:mooooh:


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## ironglen (Mar 4, 2009)

Hey Samas,

I'm new here too, but these guys really know their sound equipment AND use. Jack at SVS replied to my question I sent last night first thing this morning, very courteous and helpful. I love projects (too much) but I'm going to take them up on their current backorder discount on a pb-10 for the time being (anyone interested check it out). I could see myself building a more powerful sub later, but we're likely to move after I finish school anyways and I'd want to fit it to the new room.

I too have an Onkyo 806 on its way, pretty sure we'll both be impressed:jump:


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