Seeking to Upgrade Subwoofer from SVS SB2000

Hi, what I did recently I researched the top subs on the market and found my interest with the Rel. I contacted the Rel company and I sent Jacob the list of all my components and pictures and dimensions of my room from every angle. He got back to me promptly and suggested the best model from my specs and where to position the Rel S510 in the room. The service was excellent and quick. I bought the S510,was so impressed on how it upgraded my SQ that six days later I went out to buy a second one.With one, I was 80 % near the gates of heaven but with the second one I entered 100%.The coherence with everything together just took my system to another level. The Rels are a fantastic subwoofer company with lots of different models to suit one’s needs.

Your current subs should deliver plenty of bass.  Bass in a room is very dependent on sub placement.  In your room the most likely best placement is on the short 12' wall.  Place each sub up against the wall and 4' away from the front corners.  Give that a try.  Depending on where your main speakers are located in the room, you may have to play with Phase to deal with the time delay between the mains and subs.  Also make sure you don't have the two subs out of phase from one another, if they are they can be cancelling each other out.   Also don't cross your subs over too low.  My experience has been the crossover points typically need to be between 50 and 80 Hz.  Below 50 Hz, output can drop way off and above 80 Hz you can start audibly hearing where the subs are located, which is undesirable most times.

Recommend you take a look at Hsu subwoofers.

@deep_333 +1 The OP can buy two more SB-1000 subs and place them behind him as you suggest. This is the sub swarm concept. Spending $2K is a waste of money when the OP already has a capable pair of subs. A swarm of four or six subs will give smoother and more enveloping bass.

4 is better, of course... but, not many guys go the 4 sub route, if they’re relatively frazzled by the thought of even using a single subwoofer. I am assuming his speakers are set up on the 12 ft dimension and he’s sitting right in the widthwise center of the room, which would imply that he’s sitting right on top of a big ~47hz modal null and probably the ~63 hz modal null lengthwise...with some coupling going on to the heightwise nulls......which made him wonder where all the bass went.

Assuming that his mains woofers extend relatively low with some room gain (serve as ’lackluster subwoofers’ at the least... i.e. he has 2 proper subwoofers + 2 lackluster subwoofers for a total of 4), he could atleast cancel some of these problematic nulls by side wall placement (cancel out the widthwise null entirely). Depending on where the subs went behind his seat, he would cancel out a couple of lengthwise modes as well.

The whole cosmetic scenario (because that’s what everyone does on the forum pictures) of subs sitting on the front stage next to the mains didn’t do him any favors, it would seem. Last, but not the least, he does have full variable phase control on his SVS subs to faciliitate the removal of such modal nulls when placed in favorable locations.

Hopefully, at the end of this exercise, he realizes that subs are not just for "adding some bottom end", but, are very effective room treatment devices instead.

I agree that placement, integration and a properly treated room make all the difference in subwoofer impact. If you haven’t already, your best $ spent is on a Umik1 and downloading REW to get a baseline of what your room is doing, the in-room response of your speakers without subs, and then bump in your subs and integrate from there. As previously stated, you likely have a phase issue making the subs cancel out the speakers. That could be just at your listening position, but possibly across the whole room. Spend most of your attention here to get best results with whatever sub used.

All that being said, I recently went from using two SB2000 which were very well integrated over to a single GR Research sealed sub. I did lose the tiniest bit of stereo separation (higher crossover point and small listening room) but the sub is SO much more tactful punch, articulate and musical. The notes come through worlds better and the punch of a kick drum has snap to it instead of a thud, especially through heavy repeated hit passages like double bass metal drumming. Having now heard it, servo subs are so much more controlled and punchy that I can’t go back. Also having a PEQ built into the plate amp really helps control any room modes and integrate EASILY into your system. If you watch the used market, they do come up for a real bargain from time to time.

Just my $0.02.

-Lloyd