SVS 20-39 CS Plus-Thanks for all the Bass

[Tracy Rainwater]

Today marks a big move for me. I sold my old trusty SVS 20-39 CS Plus subwoofer.

I remember the old days of The Home Theater Spot. We were in part, a forum for SVS Subwoofers and where I first heard of the company. Those were the days before their sealed box subs. It was a time when SVS subs looked a bit like short, black, fuzzy water heaters but they packed a huge punch.

After the amp died in the Klipsch sub that I had at the time, I went looking for a replacement. The SVS CS was their non-powered line and it seemed like a good idea to have an external amp. So after doing some research on the forum, I bought a 20-39 CS Plus.

The 20-39 used a 12" driver in a 39" tall cylinder enclosure. The CS Plus model used a new updated driver that had increased extension and higher output over the original CS driver. It was a ported sub, three ports actually, that had a native tuning of 20Hz with all the ports open. If you blocked one of the ports with the included port plug, the tuning dropped to 16Hz with a bit less output. It was a very versatile design basically giving you the best of both a ported and sealed sub design, and the option to customize its performance to your taste.

As for an amp to drive the sub, I ran across an old 1980-ish, Carver M400 "Cube" amp. I first saw one of them when I was in high school at a local music shop. I had never seen anything so small capable of driving a huge pair of speakers so loudly, all without breaking a sweat. This two-channel amp delivers 200 watts per channel into 8 ohms and just under 400 watts per channel at 4 ohms. The true beauty of this amp besides its size and simple design was that it could be bridged mono and deliver just under 800 watts at 4 ohms. Yes, I had found my sub amp.

The SVS/Carver combo sat in the back corner of my main theater since the early 2000's, and never blinked at anything I threw at them. I really enjoyed that sub, and will always have great memories of it rattling the walls, ceiling, furniture, things upstairs......

So long old friend, thanks for all the Bass.

[Jerry Del Colliano]

On to bigger and better bass!!!

[Tracy Rainwater]

On to bigger and better bass!!!

The GoldenEar SuperSub X is certainly flatter in my room. I still have a bit of tweaking to do and I will post about it too.

[prerich]

The GoldenEar SuperSub X is certainly flatter in my room. I still have a bit of tweaking to do and I will post about it too.

What program are you using for your graphs and are you using any smoothing?

[Tracy Rainwater]

What program are you using for your graphs and are you using any smoothing?

This is a graph that's generated by my Anthem AVM-60 preamp.

It takes and shows the raw measurements, then you have the option to apply the filters that ARC suggests, or tweak them a bit.

It's flatter than my SVS, but not as much output on the lowest octave. However, I'm experiencing an odd occurrence. When I run ARC, it says my sub level is too high. When I turn the subs gain down and re-run, everything is fine. But, when I watch a movie, the bass is extremely lacking and I have to dial it back up again.

I'm going to see if I can get a measurement with it at its present volume.