The Solid Path, SVS SoundPath Subwoofer Isolation System

I remember my first HT set up in the early 90's with early Dolby surround sound, minus the sub woofer! There was no sub woofer output from the Nakamichi AV1 receiver, one of the top choice of the day. Almost 30 years later, it's quite unfathomable how one can set up an AV system without any sub woofers. And the trend today is to go for either a single 15 inch sub woofer or dual 12 inches, hence the Dolby Atmos 5.2.4 moniker that my system is specified. 

While having more sub woofers has it's advantages such as more even room loading, less hot spots, and more linear LFE response are just the few mentioned. However there are also more problems associated with multi sub configuration. Room boom is there, uneven bass response due to acoustic cancelations and more shaking & rattling of the ceiling. That last part is where I suffered until recently when the SVS SoundPath Isolation footers came along. See pictorial guide below for full story:

I got 2 sets of 4 pcs since my pair of SVS PB-2000 only required 4 feet each in a box.

 

Included in the box are the 4 isolation rubber feet, and 3 screw sets clearly marked M4, M6 & SVS screws. I used the SVS screw pack since I am using the feet set to go under my SVS PB-2000 sub woofers. Also included in the package is a feel good, quality printed instruction card. 

My SVS PB-2000 sitting very close to the floor with it's original supplied feet. The SoundPath isolation feet lifts the sub woofer by at least an inch from the ground, resulting in less surface bounce of the sub sonic kind.   

A quick comparo between the original supplied feet(bottom 2) which is small and tip toe hard rubber material only. The SoundPath isolation feet(top 2) has a metal base, connecting between the actual wooden surface and the soft, thick rubber material that interface with the floor. 

Installation of the Sound Path isolation feet is rather easy, you turn the sub woofer on it's belly, manually un-screw the original feet from each corner of the sub woofer, then re-install the isolation feet in it's original screw hole with the supplied screw set in the bag labelled as SVS. The whole affair taking no more than 10 minutes each PB-2000 sub woofer. 

Upon installation, the sub woofers are put back to where the belong and the quick sound check follows. By comparison, bass in now cleaner, more well defined and less boomy. The impact of explosion scenes is now more felt, but surprisingly my ceiling rattle has been drastically reduced. With the isolation feet installed, I felt the need to recalibrate my Denon Audyssey setting all over again. With the channel levels re-matched and  recalibration, I got a more focused and well defined dialogue, and much more effective main channels too.

Sometimes it's strange how doing improvement to the bass tend to result in better performance in other areas as well, as in a stereo system! Hard to explain but true. And these SVS SoundPath isolation feet are worth every penny of it's asking price. It's well made and bring a whole lot of overall sound improvement to my HT game! Highly recommended for any sub woofer of any brand. If you've got an SVS sub woofer, it's a totally no brainer upgrade!

The Results, My Home Theater

Continuing from my last posting about my HT room project. I have allocated a room measuring 17ft x 13ft x 11ft(W x L x H). My projection screen mounted on the 17ft wall which leaves me the 13ft total projection length. The final outcome is that 11ft projection length(measured from tip of lens) was used as projection length for the Optoma UHD 50 projector to project 120 inch screen size(measured diagionaly as in TVs)  

The 120 inch XY screen dominates the 17ft wide wall. Also noted is a pair of SVS PB-2000 sub woofers, flanked by a pair of Bose 901 MK VI series main speakers partnered with a single Bose 201 MK III as center channel.

Form the next picture below, you can see that my sofa is backed up against the back wall still measuring 17ft wide, but with space taken up entry door on the left, and equipment rack & disc library on the right. Overall, this is a SIM 4K picture quality & Dolby Atmos 5.2.4 sound specification based system. And if you look carefully, you won't see much cabling, as most are either imbedded in wall or in ceiling. All the cabling was laid when I planned my HT room project during my home renovation in 2018.

 

You can also see that the Optoma UHD 50 projector is mounted right above the sweet spot of the sofa! Flanking the projector is a pair of Bose 101 surround speakers. If you look carefully on the right, next to my equipment rack, is the Bose Acoustimas 5 passive sub woofer, which is set to high pass at 80Hz as part of the rear surround system. 

My equipment rack from top: Denon AVR X-4400 H receiver for Dolby Atmos & DTS-X processiong & powering center channel & 2 pairs Dolby Atmos ceiling speakers which are Bose Model 25, Oppo UDP-203 4K disc player with the Oppo BDP-95 Full HD player with Cinivia free. Further below is the Cambridge Audio A120 4 channel power amp, powering front main speakers & surround sound duties. Further below is the Weiduke AC 8.8 power conditioner which powers the whole stack of equipment as seen and my dual HDD toaster for my 4K movie collections. 

On the right side corner of the back wall, is a compartmentalized area, mainly for library of disc collection. I also installed a dedicated MCB box in my HT room. If the book shelves looked familiar, is because they are from Ikea!

I also did some acoustic diffuser works on the ceiling to break up sound waves, coupled to heavy drape curtains on both sides of the side wall upon the first reflection points of the Bose 901 MK VI main speakers. The ceiling acoustic diffuser also works as the mood light & 2 pairs Dolby Atmos ceiling speaker mounts, if you look carefully.  

Overall for the money I spent, at about MYR25,000 on all equipment count, I feel satisfied with the intangible return on entertainment values, especially these days of MCO where the cinemas are closed. The 120 inch screen give big picture cinema feel when just sitting about 13ft away. When viewing Full HD movies, the picture is bright, vivid tonal pallet and very punchy, if some what veering slightly bluish(like most Sony or Samsung TVs factory calibration). Upon having sifu Michael Wong(contacted via FB) coming over to help calibrate my projector, the picture quality improved in terms of field of depth layering of majestic scenes from movies. Since the Optoma UHD 50 is a SIM 4K(i.e. non native or up sampling to 4K), the picture quality in 4K post calibration took a turn for darker and being a budget projector, the blackness(or greyish black) weakness is laid bare and exposed for all to see too clearly. Movies like Batman's The Dark Night should be avoided in 4K mode, due to the projector limitations. Bottom line is if you're expecting JVC level of 4K reproduction here, you'll be sorely disappointed. However if you are like me, where my majority of movies are on Full HD, with only the occasional 4K viewing diet, then this projector will get the job done very well.

The sound is an area I am more than happy with. I run the Denon Audyssey Auto  Calibration with the supplied OEM mike and already gor very decent results. I then further fine tune the channel levels, the high pass frequencies for speaker and low pass for LFE, and timing compensation with EQ off. It was just some tuning from disc to disc over time and until a point, I never need to fine tune the Dolby Atmos settings again, until I changed something that is.

The sound is with effective in surround panning, & the Atmos ceiling speakers are especially effective when watching raining or thunderstorm or aircraft scenes, especially is movies like Top Gun & Mid Way, just to recall the 2 movies that impressed me. The dual SVS sub configuration gives thundering bass and full on explosion impacts, to the point that is room and plaster ceiling shaking! I love using Bose speakers all round for HT because they are really good value at used prices and they can really go loud without popping their drivers! They are also very warm sounding for music concerts, and especially enjoyable when playing those Vienna Philharmonic New Years Concerts! 

I have made some improvements along the way since system installation over a year ago, and I'll get to those later. What do you think? Kindly feedback on comments section with thanks if any opinion or questions............

Audio & Visual, My Home Theater Set Up

All this while I have only talked about my hifi. Now it's time to switch to my AV adventure. I started building my AV system at the end of 2018 and it has gone thru a few small but worthy upgrades since. I will start with an equipment roll call, which are based on items currently in used. Drum roll please! 

Starting with the most basic 4K compatible, 120 inch XY screen. Here is a China made screen that offers great bang for buck.

The XY screen features rigid aluminum frame with instructions for DIY mounting if required. I got the dealer to wall mount it for me. It has nice 80mm side frame finished in black velvet like material to frame in the projected picture.

The Optoma UHD 50 projector was chosen for it's ability to throw the biggest picture size at a reasonably short distance. In this case, it must achieve 120 inch screen size at a projection distance of just 11 feet or so. It's also cheap considering it's entry level status, but still comes with Sim 4K, i.e. up sampled 4K, non native. Picture quality is good with vivid, punchy colours and offers great contrast. Only let down is the greyish black quality, as expected from an entry level projector. Still if one doesn't compare, one will not notice. I tried to upgrade to a JVC projector, but the projection length doesn't fit my space constraint. 

Source is by default the Oppo UDP 203 4K disc player. I am glad I got this as Oppo announced they are stopping production of BD players. Very nice picture quality in up sampled 4K mode and certainly reliable too. 

As a 2nd option source in the system, I included an old Oppo UDP 95 Full HD BDP. This dinosaur BD player come from the Cinivia free period in time. I still get very decent picture quality from this player.

The back end of the Denon X-4400 H is certainly busy with lots of configuration options. I choose to set up a 5.2.4 Dolby Atmos surround system, which means 5 chanels including center, 2 sub woofers and 4 Atmos ceiling effect speakers.

When it comes to AV Receivers, my choice is always a toss between Marantz or Denon range. I chose Denon X-4400 H at the time due it's punchy sound quality. Due to the Denon's tendency to overheat when the whole 5.2.4 system is powered by it, I have decided to hook up a power amp to compliment the Denon. Hence when planning a HT system, make sure the AVR has some kind of a configurable pre-out, for the flexibility of  expanding to pre-power set up. The whole Denon X series AVRs have a tendency to overheat, from the X-1500 H to the X-4500 H, and now X-2600 H series onwards.

Little is known about this Cambridge Audio A120 4 channel power amp, except that it was a 1990's product. It pumps out a healthy 120 Watts per channel and doesn't seem to run very hot which is good.
 

I use this Cambridge Audio A120 amp for front & rear surround channel duties, taking the load off the main Denon AVR certainly helps in the sound quality and reliability of completing the whole movie. The Denon on it's own tends to overheat and trip in the middle of an average 90 minute movie! 

I managed to fulfill another childhood dream when I scored the used Bose 901 MK VI series speakers in piano gloss black. As a hifi speaker, this Bose will not meet my audiophile requirements anymore, no matter how much it inspired me during my much younger days. However as a HT main speaker. it's a great step up coming from my previous BOSE 301 MK II. The sound is lush, less direct and offers a more enveloping front effect to movie soundtracks. It also great for my occasional concert watch too! 

For my center speaker duty, I go for a single Bose 201 MK III series speaker. Tonally, it complements the Bose 901s and it's small size makes it easy to place below the screen, yet that 6 inch mid driver means I can set the center x-over point to 90 Hz for the full male vocal effect!

I use the Bose 101 series for wall mounted rear surround & Model 25 series for Atmos ceiling effect speakers. Both the Bose 101 & Model 23 series are just slightly different variations of the same speaker design. The 101 being for home in/out door use and Model 25 for pro/commercial use. The 101 has a built in passive high pass inside, while the Model 25 has a 16 ohm transformer inside, both of which I had by passed, sending audio signal direct to speaker driver, making whatever differences inside a non factor. These are great surround & Atmos speakers due to their easy wall/ceiling mounting brackets.
 

I am a self confessed bass freak and nothing can change that, so having multiple sub woofers in my HT set up can only satisfy me. This Bose Acoustimas 5 series sub woofer is used to augment the Bose 101 as part of rear surround solution. The built in x-over in the Acoustimas helps to protect the rear surround channel from being over loaded in the loudest soundtracks, yet also allows me to set my rear surround to 80 Hz high pass, for that full range surround effect! By the way it doesn't count as a sub woofer in my system, even though it is one by any physical means.

When it comes to sub woofers, the SVS PB 2000 is my main squeeze. I started with a single one, as a 5.1.2 Dobly Atmos system, but as I moved to 5.2.4, it just made sense to add another SVS PB 2000 as the single one was feeling somewhat lonely. Adding the extra sub woofer allowed to bass management response to be more linear, projects more even bass spread around the room and less clipping in high octane explosion movie scenes.

If there ever was a best value trophy component in my HT system in terms of functionality, this Weiduka AC 8.8 power conditioner takes it! These days LED lighting source rules and my HT room is filled with all kinds of soft glowing LED lights. LED lights however come with very noisy switching power supply. I starting having high pitched dee.....eeeeee sound when my HT was switched on together with the LED mood lights when I didn't want to watch movies in the dark. I then fitted this Weiduka device in, powering all my source, AVR & power amp, and poof! The dee.....eeeee high pitch noise was gone........... And that's no psycho acoustic effect either! I also power my HT system with a variety of power cords from Lapp, Gotham & Furutech.  

All low level audio signals are routed via Monster THX 400 RCA for HT, 2 pairs were used to connect between the Denon AVR & the Cambridge Audio power amp. love those rubberized soft touch, yet grippy RCA plugs for easy handling, especially once installed behind my HT equipment rack. 

 

And lastly speaker cables are all generic use budgetary roll. 3 rolls of 30 meters was used to complete my HT project.

 

I initially had 12 meters of pro grade HDMI cable installed between my source/AVR to beam visual signal to my projector. At point of planning & wiring the project room, 4K compliant cables were few & far in between. While most of my disc collections are Full HD BD, the few 4K source that I had were problematic. The picture would blink every now & then with 4K source. I check on the web indicated I needed this optical HDMI cable. And so I bought this 15 meter roll from FIBBR during one of my trips to Guangzhou back in 2019. 

As you can see, virtually all my chosen components for the HT system are either entry level, or well used items. I also don't want to spend too much $$$ on cables or accessories. Next, I will show the whole completed she bang in my HT room, measuring 17ft x 13ft x 9ft(W x L x H).