Another brief PB-10 review

Ian J

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My PB-10 arrived in the worst possible week as I am trying to tie up loads of loose ends before the financial world shuts down for a while but natural curiosity wouldn't allow me to just leave it boxed up until the new year.

I really didn't have much time to spare this morning so I unboxed the beast, placed it in a suitable space, connected it up and spent a couple of minutes with an SPL meter and the test tones.

Without being setup properly, sited in it's optimum position or even allowed to bed down, I started to put it through it's paces with heavy bass lines from a few music CD's that I reserve for sub demo's plus extracts from a couple of dts demo discs that I have.

Suffice it to say that this sub already produces the kind of deep, controlled, distortion free bass that has hitherto been unheard of at anywhere near this price point. The bake off at the end of Drumline is an excellent sub tester as whilst it doesn't plum the depths that a depth charge or tap on a fishtank might, it does sort out the men from the boys in the snap and timing department. The PB-10 passed with flying colours.

I only tested the depth briefly and certainly the sonic gun in Minority Report had the depth and power that I have come to expect - Nemo, Master & Commander, The Haunting et al will have to wait a while though as I need to do some work.

I will play my current favourite music DVD by The Cat Empire later tonight to see how it handles the double bass in the band and run it in a little more before trying out the usual suspects at reference level and comparing it to my 20-39 PC PLus.

In the meantime I have taken a pic of the two subs side by side.
 

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Nice one Ian. Look forward to hearing more, it seems that everyone needs to have one of these baby's.

P.S. That tinsel makes the SVS look almost invisible too!!
 
Ian

Any chance of an update? Your PB-10 must be well runin by now! :hiya:
 
Timh said:
Any chance of an update? Your PB-10 must be well runin by now!

Unfortunately I have been away over Christmas but I will give it a good blasting over the weekend and will report back.
 
Ian J said:
Unfortunately I have been away over Christmas but I will give it a good blasting over the weekend and will report back.
Thanks... I look forward to your views :)
 
Having disconnected my PC Plus I have been using the PB-10 as my sole subwoofer and have been running it in for a week with a mixed diet of films plus music in the form of my new bass heavy Cat Empire album which I have been playing every night.

I have taken advantage of the family out shopping to turn the wick up and put the PB-10 through it's paces to see what it can do and the results were simply startling. Using my 20-39 PC Plus as a reference point even though it cost twice as much I was astounded to hear the way that the PB-10 handled everything that I threw at it so well. The sub took everything in its stride, with deep, tight, distortion free bass including such demo classics as The Haunting, Minority Report and Finding Nemo. The bugbear of many "budget" subs is the wallowy bass produced but the PB-10 handled the transients superbly and stopped on a sixpence with no overhang whatsoever. Having heard quite a few subwoofers of varying pedigrees I have to admit that this one offers incredible performance irrespective of price and if it were available through retail outlets at £1,000 it would sell like hot cakes as it outperforms my old REL Storm significantly on films in every respect except flexibility of setup options.

I just can't believe how good this machine is and at £350 this subwoofer is a no brainer. The only caveat is that the sub is not small but for those who put pure, unadulterated performance above all else, look no further.
 
Timh said:
I look forward to your views :)

My geography isn't that good but if Altair-4 is anywhere near the West Midlands you are more than welcome to come round for a listen.
 
I haven't upgraded at all as the PC Plus will remain on duty as my main sub. I got the PB-10 just to see whether it was possible to get something as good as the Secrets of Home Theater review said it was, for such a comparatively small amount of money.
 
Ian J said:
My geography isn't that good but if Altair-4 is anywhere near the West Midlands you are more than welcome to come round for a listen.
Thanks for the offer Ian but the west midlands is a litlle to far from Altair-4 :)

You sound really impressed..I guess you might be off loading it cheaply in the near future ;)
 
Ian

Do you know how much clearance the port needs to breath freely?

I would be placing the subwoofer close to a cabinet and the subwoofer would have approx only 10cm clearance from grill.
 
The PB-10 is front ported so that isn't a problem
 
Ian J said:
The PB-10 is front ported so that isn't a problem
Ian i think he means in front of the sub :)
 
Ian J said:
The PB-10 is front ported so that isn't a problem
The port will be facing the cabinet but with only 10cm clearance.
 
Placing anything close to the ports and driver of a subwoofer (or speaker) will modify the behaviour of the unit. A baffle effect takes place which might easily ruin the flatness of frequency response. Not to mention muffling the output. The baffle effect might even artifically extend the effective length of the reflex port. Thus changing the optimum reflex tuning of the subwoofer or speaker.

When in doubt let a sub or speaker breathe as freely as possible. I'd say 4" sounds too close for comfort given the size of the PB10-ISD port and all the hard work that went into optimising the reflex tuning.

But you can always try it and see what happens.

Nimby

I should have mentioned that just placing my SVS cylinder beside my left side 753F lifted the bass from that speaker by 10dB! Now that's quite a baffle effect especially for a cylinder! The sub wasn't even turned on! :blush:
 
Thanks Nimby, I will have to experiment :)
Thats when I get round to ordering one :(
 
If my novice eyes are correct, according to the picture on the SVS site, the PB10 only has a single, low level connector. Is that correct? If so, can someone tell me if it would be possible to connect this sub up to both my DSP-E800 AV processor AND my 2-channel amp?

I was looking at an XLS200 which can support both low level (from the E800) and high level (from the 2-channel amp) simulatenously - presumably switching between the 2 dependent on something or other. Having read the positive comments here, I'd be quite interested in the PB10, if it can connect to both amps since I wont be using the E800 for music (and if I can afford it...)

Speaking of which, are these things likely to come up on the classified ads as you lot move up to bigger SVSs, or are they keepers?
 
The PB-10 was designed purely for LFe connection to an AV amp and cannot be connected at high level.

Regarding your question of whether the PB-10 is likely to come up in the classifieds, I would guess that as they have only been available for a month they are unlikely to be available on the second hand market just yet.
 
Thanks Ian. I think I'll stick with an XLS for now and upgrade to an SVS after I upgrade to a decent integrated AV amp.

Early signs of upgraditis, ahoy! :eek:

If any of you SVS owners have upgraded from an XLS200, please head over to the Classifieds thread where I'm posting a Wanted ad :D
 
I know you have the bin as your main sub, but I'd be interested to know with hindsight, which of the two you'd have bought if you started again?
 
Good, clear picture by the way.

It's about time we had a climpse of Chez Ian.:)
 
The cylinder has the edge in outright SPL and ultimate depth but the laws of diminishing returns has set in at a much lower price level now. The PB-10 is a phenomenal performer at £350-£375 and whilst the 20-39 PC Plus is better, that increase in performance is only apparent the louder it is played.

If I had my time again I would probably go for a pair of PB-10 subs in theory but in practice I would have difficulty fitting them both in my room so would go for the more expensive cylinder.

Surely you must get to the Midlands sometimes so you can hear for yourself.
 
Ian

Can you hear any difference in the sound quality between the two?

Can you even tell them apart on sound quality alone?

Nimby
 
In all honesty I can't but I would rather have a second opinion and perhaps will have to ask the Servo 15 owner Orbital to come round and have a listen as he only lives a couple of miles away
 
Hi, Ian
I'm buying a new speaker set, the Canton Karat M series. I was looking to their sub's the AS200 and AS300. A lot of people recommend me to listen/buy the velodyne SPL800mk2 or the MJ Reference1 mk2.
I've been reading all these impressive post about the SVS's, so how would you compare the PB10 to them?
Vasco
 

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