Bass Goes Bigger: Revisiting AV Designs with the Ascendo 32-Inch Subwoofer

 Posted by Tan

After my last jaw-dropping encounter with AV Designs’ seismic subwoofer setup—where a 24-inch Ascendo woofer redefined what “low-end” meant (read it here) - I was invited back for a follow-up session. This time, things had gotten more serious. The 24-incher was replaced with the 32-inch Ascendo subwoofer that I alluded to in my last post.

Yes, 32 inches. And yes, when you thought bass could not have gone deeper and deeper, this hunk of a subwoofer made a big difference - and profoundly so.

The moment the system engaged, the large room was totally filled. There was an unmistakable sense of scale - the soundstage had grown further, with instruments and effects occupying a more expansive, three-dimensional space.

Bass dug even deeper into the floor, the sound effects from Hollywood blockbusters spreading out around, beneath and above, enveloping you fully. And yet, counterintuitively, everything felt more relaxed. I could not imagine myself saying this comparing with my previous experience with the 24 inch sub, but gone was the ever slightest hint of strain that I didn't even know was there until I experienced its big brother here. Bass line emerged with a natural ease that was almost uncanny, with each bass notes unfurled even more effortlessly.

Despite its sheer size, this sub wasn’t overbearing. What truly impressed me was how coherently the new sub integrated with the rest of the system. James Tan and the AV Designs team had clearly spent considerable effort tuning the setup. The balance remained impeccable. The integration of the 32-inch monster into the existing five-subwoofer array (including dual 21s and dual 18s) was executed with excellence. Each was meticulously integrated and calibrated to provide a bass response that’s linear, clean, and enveloping.

Music and movie sound tracks alike benefited. Music was provided with a rock solid foundation, the mid and highs were even smoother than before. Explosive scenes from action soundtracks hit with visceral impact but with none of the muddiness lesser systems suffer from.

AV Designs continues to chase the limits of what’s possible in the home setting, and this latest installation isn’t just about brute force. It’s about control, precision, and not least excitement. Absolutely an experience that should not be missed by any serious AV enthusiasts and audiophiles. 

Contact AV Designs 03-62411237 for enquiries and audition.

3Hz Bass Experience with Multiple Ascendo Subwoofers

Posted by Tan

Yes, you read that right—3Hz bass, not 30Hz or 300Hz. While 3Hz is inaudible to the human ear, its presence can be powerfully felt. Unfortunately, words alone can’t capture the sensation of 3Hz bass, so the next best thing is to let you see it in motion.

In the video clip below, a 24-inch Ascendo subwoofer took center stage, playing a track that plunged into sub-bass frequencies as low as 3Hz. Although the phone microphone may not have captured the deepest bass notes (recording instead their higher harmonic frequencies), the camera revealed the subwoofer driver working hard to deliver these astonishingly low frequencies. At certain moments, I could see the driver’s movement more clearly rather than just a blur, visually indicating how low the bass notes being played was.

Track title - "Critical Havocs - Infrasonic Death (under 3Hz)"

This was also the first time I literally felt “pants-flapping bass” from a home theater or HiFi system. Squatting down in front of the massive sub to film the driver, I was surprised to find my pant legs flapping in sync with the bass. What I had thought was just a figure of speech turned out to be entirely real!

AV Designs has pushed boundaries by installing five Ascendo subwoofers in their main home theater room. This setup featured two 21-inch subwoofers at the front, alongside two 18-inch subs and a massive 24-inch sub at the back. But why so many subs you ask? Wouldn't such overwhelming bass energy drown the space and render soundtracks or music unbearable and unlistenable?

The answer is "No". The goal of employing multiple subwoofers isn’t to add more and excessive bass, but to ensure a smooth and linear bass response. In typical listening rooms, bass peaks and troughs occur due to the physics of bass propagation. Strategically placing multiple subwoofers allows the system better ability and flexibility to cancel those peaks and fill in the troughs. Of course, I am putting this lightly, James Tan of AV Designs explains that achieving this linearity requires both expertise and significant effort to properly calibrate the system. 

This was an amazing experience for me. The system delivered outstanding performance not just for movie soundtracks but also for music.  The bass rumbled and was also impactful and fast, yet it exuded nuances and details that added immense depth to the listening experience when the recording called for. It’s evident that systems struggling with bass issues—such as boomy, muddy, or bloated bass—compromise not just the low-end but also the midrange and treble. In fact, it affects the entire listening enjoyment.

This demo highlighted how a clean, well-balanced bass foundation can transform audio quality. A precise bottom end opens up the sound, enhances dynamic expression, improves the music’s flow, and anchors the soundtrack and music, allowing it to truly flourish.

AV Designs was not stopping here in their quest for even greater bass. After this, the 24-inch subwoofer will be replaced by an even larger 32-inch Ascendo subwoofer. An even more amazing bass experience awaits.

The 32-inch Ascendo sub that will take up residence in AV Designs' main HT demo system next

Contact AV Designs 03-62411237 for enquiries and audition.

The Mighty Magico with the Equally Mighty JL Audio Subwoofers

Posted by Tan

 This home visit stands out as one of the most memorable in my experience at 3 different levels – the sheer size and quality of the system, the meticulous care and attention the owner, Mr. Soo, put into setting it up, especially in the bass region, and its final sonic performance.

When I first saw this system, the question that came to my mind, which would also be the question many audiophiles have, was whether full-range high-end loudspeakers like the Magico M6 need to be augmented with subwoofers, and whether they can integrate successfully, Furthermore, it was with not one but two subwoofers, both being the massive JL Audio G213.

The system owner, Mr. Soo, had done a tremendous job. Before I get into the subwoofer matter, let me first say that the sound performance of this system was beautiful, and I meant this quite literally. The sound was refined, from the first song on, I could detect no graininess anywhere at all. The highs were silky with a smidgen of sweetness, the midrange was pure, together they rendered female vocals rather intoxicating and seductive. Transparency was top notch, the sound was wide open with clarity and high definition details. The soundstage was well formed both in width and depth, aided by  the room size and skillful speaker positioning. There were lots of air and ambiance, likely enhanced by the subs. Image focus and definition were excellent, the kind that you can “look” at and pinpoint.

As a testament to the match between the CH Precision amplifier and the Magico M6 loudspeakers, the delivery was always well in control and well defined. There was a gentle touch and civility in the presentation throughout, letting the listeners enjoy a cultured and relaxing experience.

Now, about the subwoofers: The integration was so seamless that it was impossible for us to tell where the Magico ended and the JL Audio subs began, such was the seamless integration between the two. The subs were working for sure, providing a firm anchor on the bottom end, with good body on the sound and no thinness.

Bass boom is one of the if not the biggest bane for a HiFi system. It diminishes our system’s ability to deliver music enjoyment, limits the kind of music that can be played, and in the worst case makes some audiophiles give up the hobby altogether. Bass boom is difficult to treat, so some find peace with the situation by narrowing their music selection, playing music that won’t excite the room; some switch to smaller loudspeakers with less extended bass to avoid the frequency that causes the boom problem; some may just resign themselves to live with the boom issue; some even take boom as impactful and thunderous bass performance.

Still, many decide to take the problem head-on, taking the route of acoustic room treatment, or go the electronic way by resorting to DSP, or a combination of methods.  

Mr. Soo did face the bass boom issue with his listening space, so he devised his innovative approach to solve the problem, which he generously shared.

Here is where the subs come in. The first point is that the two big JL Audio subwoofers were not there to add more or to extend the bass from his Magico M6 loudspeakers. The Magico M6’s positioning was the best for every aspect of stereo performance already, so loudspeaker positioning could not be used to further address the boom issue. Mr. Soo’s method was to split away the frequency range that caused problem from the main speakers and used the subwoofers to recover it. An active crossover from JL Audio, the CR-1, was used for this, the crossover point was set at around the 40Hz region, with the high pass going to the power amp driving the main speakers, and the low pass going to the 2 active subwoofers.

Once that was done, he had all the freedom to deal with the offending frequency range via subwoofer positioning and tweaking the volume and the phase setting (the crossovers on the subs were not in the signal path, they were set to max). Using two subs, instead of one, allowed him the freedom to find the best position for each channel. Indeed, we saw that the final positions for the subs were not symmetrical. The subs’ phase and volume setting also ensured that they were integrated seamlessly by avoiding cancellation or addition of sound wave.

The 2 subs placed close to the left and right walls with different distance from the loudspeakers and listening position

Mr. Soo did not do all this with only his ears, he did a lot of measurement on REW of his subwoofer setting effort over many months.

This is the most extensive and innovative way of using subwoofers that I ever came across, and the owner’s effort paid off handsomely. The sound was full range with rock solid bass extension, the dreaded bass boom issue was totally banished, and the subwoofers just ‘disappeared’. Bravo to the owner for a job well done!

The Giant Subs

Subwoofer or subs which most audio enthusiast will called. Everyone who into home theater or Hifi will not need introduction to a sub. Is a boom box so to called it. I am going to focus on this sub in a home theater setup. I call this sub a monster that I have recently change to. This sub which is non other than the JL Audio F212 V2 dual drivers subwoofer. 

The subs as from the picture is quite a tall subwoofer standing at 81cm, is like half size floor stander speaker. It also weight 102 kg. This is good enough reason to called it a monster sub. Each of the driver is a 12 inches ultra long throw W7 drivers. The power is 3600 watts RMS for this beast. It have both balanced ((XLR/TRS Combo) and unbalanced connections.

From the front panels left to right , power switch, daro connection, room optimzation (demo, defeat, calibrate). 2 LED indicators (Master/Slave), level mode, master volume, lights dim, low pass filter, trim, phase and polarity. This features are handy for calibration.

This are some of the accessories included in the box. One pair of gloves, the calibration mic and 4 pieces of sliders. This is very useful tool. It is use to slide under the foot of the subwoofer to allow easier moving of the sub sliding on the floor. I cannot imagine carrying this 102kg moving about in the room. I will give an extra point to JL Audio on this small accessory which is a big help.

A picture for comparison a floor stander speaker to the subwoofer. One good thing about having a sub like this is saving some floor space. Is like having 2 subs stack up. Thinking back before I was having 2 large SVS subwoofers is really taking up lots of floor space. This is a positive point for me. 

Digital Automatic Room Optimization (D.A.R.O.) system as the name suggest is a build in auto calibration on the subwoofer. I will describe as similar to how a mic is connected to an AVR and run the auto calibration. Basically is the same but this is done specific for bass management. As this is setup for home theater purpose, after running the DARO will than run the auto calibration in the AVR as follow up to complete the setup.

This is the graph from REW on the bass response. Blue line is the before applying any EQ to it. The redline is with EQ to flatten it. This is pretty amazing given the fact that this is just 1 subwoofer vs previously of dual SVS ultra subwoofers. Now the movie experience is with "kick". The bass slam is pretty real right smack to the viewer. Totally enjoying it. 

Which channel is more important in Home Theater

 In a typical home theater setup, it will be ranging from 5.1 channel to 11.1 or even more. What does all this channel means ? Each channel is referring to one of the output from receiver or processor to the output to of a speaker. From picture we can see that each channel is also called with specific name. The Center, the stereo left / right, the rear left / right with 1 subwoofer. This is so called the 5.1 where the 5 channels are the center, stereo and rear. The point 1 mean is referring to the subwoofer. 

Taking this simple 5.1 setup, what do we want to pay more attention to ? Especially when you have limited funding or space, what will you go with first. The very first or most critical speaker is the center channel. It is quite obvious that center channel is the one producing speech or dialog in any movie. It will be impossible to watch any movie without dialog. This become apparent this is the critical channel. I will spend my budget as much as possible for the center giving the critical of it. Many a times people will also complaint about not able to hear what the dialog during a movie. So a good center channel will be even more important. 

Center channel is also usually a speaker is design to be place horizontally. This allow clearance of display to have the channel as closely as possible to screen. Having a center channel very close to the center of the screen is also crucial. You do not want to be looking at the screen and the dialog is coming from the bottom or the top or any where else. The sound should be coming from center of the screen. It will certainly be awkward if the sound is coming from other direction.

After center channel, which should be next on the list ? This is the tricky question. As we called our front channel channel as stereo right / left, the reason for this is sometimes it is use for stereo purpose like music. So now we need to take into consideration the stereo purpose of your home theater or simply this purely home theater only. The other consideration is also the front and center channel matching. In surround sound setup, the panning effect is very important. The coherent of the sound will be lost if the sound travelling from one speaker to the other is not right. So now I will say that given the importance of the sound continuity the front channel will be the second on the list.

The next obvious option is the boom box. How can any home theater be without the beast (subwoofer). We are not talking about just the size but any setup of home theater will be needing it to fill in the ambient. Probably will be even more important for some bass lovers. Although LFE or Low Frequency Effect might not be always there is in a movie but when the time comes for it to rock, it will be totally amazing how much ambient will change with the kick of bass. Of course we do want to have proper blend of the subwoofer with the rest of the 5 other speakers. So we need to take into consideration what is the capability of all the speakers to choose the right subwoofer. 

Last but not least will be our surround channels. Surround speakers is also known as filler to the ambient sound. There won't be surround sound without this speakers. Although this is kind of taking the back seat but for some with really big budget this is something that will be good to have to get the best speakers as well to enable the blend in. Remember we talk about panning effect, it will still play an important role as not to loose the sound travelling around the room during the movie. In typical home locally, surround speakers can't be too big as well with limited space. Usually it will be comprise. In ideal situation all speakers should be in the same model and range. 

In the current surround sound format of course now we have atmos or DTS X with in ceiling for the top surround. This is different from the older tech of height surround. This top surround will give the actual feeling of sound over head which can be really exciting of actually knowing a plane or helicopter flying over your head like in real environment. Not many people typical home locally has the luxury of over head speakers. There is so called atmos enabled speakers which is using the same concept of soundbar reflecting sound to create the effect. This will be more to nice to have rather than must have in surround sound given the limitation of homes. 

In summary the center channel play the most important role that will be top priority and the second will be a little more subjective if is either the front or subs dependent of the objective on the home theater setup. So it can be sub first or front channel first. Next step will be the surround which can be back surround or side surround or even both. This is more dependent on room size and the area of coverage. Finally the atmos which is more to nice to have. Hope this little tips helps for someone who is starting out the journey to get you going.

Bass Tuning! Bose Acoustimas Series Woofers

Dr Amar G Bose started his career as a Professor in MIT. Later he would start the Bose Corporation by licensing his amplification algorithm for American military use & the likes of NASA. It was much later that consumer products like the Bose 901 series speakers hit the market. The 901 series speakers was a polarizing product as people in general either loved or hated it. The Bose 901 series speakers does hold some scientific promise, but was the result reflective of those published scientific papers? That's what makes it so polarizing.

Many years later, Bose moved away from conventional box speaker products and started moving in to the Acoustimass series of satellite speaker with sub woofer combo. Still very based upon the earliest premise of Direct/Reflect Sound Technology, but also add to the premise that low frequencies, a.k.a. bass becomes omni-direction below 80Hz. This comes at a time when urban living became more dense, homes got smaller, but people still wanted good sound with room filling bass. And judging by the Accoustmass series sales numbers, it was a home run!

Now, I know many audiophiles have some kinda beef with Bose, due to the construction & materials used, and that smoothing, well rounded, limited bandwidth sound ani't what we call hifi either. However, to the other 98% of the world population, that didn't really matter at all, despite those high price tags which resulted in fat margins. Fast forward to recent years, Dr Amar G Bose wanted to cash out, hence sold Bose Corporation to Apple Inc. Apple already own Beats By Dr Dre. And now Apple have merged both entities to become Beats By Bose!

I started with a little history & background of Bose, because I am squarely in the 2% of the worlds audiophile population, yet I am one of the few who loves Bose products for what they are today, lifestyle. My household is just all Bose sound mostly, in the non audiophile areas. And lastly, I find the Acoustimass bass modules, or woofers just so useful to have around, especially the passive ones. they are easy to integrate in to any existing sound system, and with guarantee extra room filling bass. What else do you want? Me, I always find the Acoustimass modules bass to be a little flabby, and when playing loud, port chuff becomes very apparent, especially the older series 1 models. Which is what I have exactly in my home office/study area.

And here, I set about doing something about that port chuffing sound. This DIY work is rather easy, and I think every Bose Acoustimass woofer user should try it. Do you know you can tone down that flabby bass & port chuff sound by just stuffing the Bose Acoustimass woofer? Here's a step by step guide how to do it. 

Bose Acoustimass series I bass module.

Once turn around, you will find back panel access screws & speaker input & output connectors.

You'll need to unscrew all the screws on the back panel, including those holding the 4 feet.  Do not unscrew the speaker terminal screws.

The back panel open, revealing all the internals inside, you will notice there is already some poly fill inside. Those white fluffy pillow fill. Just look at the materials used by Bose, woodchip board, crappy looking Pasar Road drivers & cheap x-over parts. Nothing special, but industrial grade only.

A closer look at the cross-over, all stuck to the rear panel.

Add more polyfill or pillow fill, there are generally 3 types on window fill, you can have foam or feather, both sadly are no good for this application. Then you have polyfill of various density, which will work for this case. What I have is of rather high density polyfill.

After filling the accessible side of the box to about 70% including the original polyfill. I stop and work on closing back the rear panel, making sure all the wires are still connected and in contact. As it quite common for Bose Acoustimas bass modules to fray & delaminate around the edges & corners of the box, so I wrap my module corner & edges with black duct tape to keep it protected. Even if the Acoustimass bass modules are designed to lie down, they can be placed in various positions, those liitel red feet you see are actually rubber door stoppers available from your local hardware shop. 

The bass quality after stuffing of polyfill in to the Bose Acoustimas bass module is tighter, cleaner and certainly less bass port chuffing effect. The immediate feeling is that the upper bass has been toned down, with slightly less kick and an overall bass volume reduction. So in essence, you gain some and you lose some. but for me it certainly an easy mod that takes just 20 minutes or so and it work a joy. Here are some other Bose Acoustimas bass modules that have gone thru similar bass tuning process.

Bose Acoustimass series III, I use this to complement the main hifi rig in my man cave. I loev this passive sub because even though it's one box, there is actually 2 units of  6.5 inch drivers inside running in stereo configuration! 

Here is how the Bose Acoustimas series III looks inside, still 2 units 6.5 inch drivers inside working as stereo pair. The box chamber design is totally different, but you can still access the box via the back panel where the speaker connectors are located. With simplified construction, all you need to do is to uncrew 6 screws in back panel to be accessible to the chamber which I have circled in RED. You just need to stuff the polyfill in to the chamber(as circled in RED) by 30-50% for bass tuning, results depends on your preference & room acoustics interaction.

I not only use Bose in my home, but also inside my car too. I use this Bose Acoustimass Canon in my car boot to augment bass to the OEM system in my car. I also need a 2 channel amp to drive this too. Again my main issue here is port chuffing & car interior panel vibration.

There are 3 chambers inside the bass canon. You can stuff polyfill in to the center chamber as circled in RED by 50-70%. As I preferred tight bass in my car, I filled the middle chamber by up to 70%. The chamber is accesi8ble via the tuning ports with end caps on the long port side. You just need to unscrew all the screws around the tube diameter on the end cap. For my interior panel vibrations, I added sound dampening materials to them. With panel vibration gone and bass tuning to very tight less, I some times can sit in my car, after reaching the destination. just to finish the song, before getting out!  

Bose Acoustimass Canon for home theater use. No I don't have this, but one of my buddies used to have it in his HT den, back then in the 1990's. These Bose Acoustimass Canons were considered high end at the time! I remembered my friend demo-ing Top Gun movies in his Dolby Digital 5.1 HT system. They were pretty convincing back then. However, the Bose Acoustimass Canon is very rare now, and hard to find in the used market.

There you go, now you know my fetish for Bose Acoustimass bass module!

 

Bass Matters! Bass Management/Calibration

Its has been ages since anyone posted on bass management. Last week I have talk about doing auto calibration or calibration for your multi channel audio. This is something tedious and time consuming. I think to some can be mind boggling. It is how I started as well but I am lucky to be guided by some of the best sifu there is. Another lucky thing is many forum members willingness to share on their experience especially the mistake learn which helps a ton to me.

First thing I learn about management is the essential tool. The more common tool most members are using is the REW software with the Umik-1 mic. There are tons of better products out there but that is another topic. REW is a measurement tool of how the sound respond. The purpose of it, is to know what might be dip and peak of different frequency. Knowing that will tell us what we want to focus in getting it to the more ideal level. Looking at the graph I have posted is the respond of my dual subs to my room. You can see that is all the bumps and dip still even after much work was done in correcting it.  

REW or (Room EQ Wizard) is the software use for measuring audio. It can be downloaded from https://www.roomeqwizard.com/ as it is a freeware. This can be use as SPL meter to measure how loud the sound which is very useful when doing leveling on multichannel audio. Of course to use the software you need the hardware for the measurement. That is the umik-1 from the company (MiniDSP). Its a Hong Kong based company that produces hardware of various kind of audio management. Its sold for USD79 which can be bought here https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1

With this hardware and software is pretty much you can start doing the calibration work on your audio. This also applies for stereo or any number of channels. The limitation right now is the REW software ability to measure height speakers. Of course you can always rely on the software in your processor to do that as well. Some pictures here just to show some example of measurement I have done for my home theater setup. You can see the graph with multiple measurements for different channels. The other graph with just 1 line is the subwoofer measurement.

One additional tool which I have in place is the minidsp 2x4 HD. What it means 2x4 as it have 2 inputs and 4 outputs. This is use for subwoofers to manage the bass which will help on top of the processor calibration. The minidsp has more functions which can do tons in calibrating the LFE (Low Frequency Effect) or bass in your home theater setup. The beauty of this hardware, it works with the REW software. Practically the measurement done in REW can be imported into the minidsp to save some work on your calibration.

This is the result I have gotten so far for my dual SVS subs which consists of SB16 and PB16. Its a mix of sealed and ported subs in my setup which I think is best of both worlds. This is not quite popular I will say as integrating both subs can be a big challenge. Get it right and is very satisfying. Time to get back to more movies. Cheers......

HOT NEWS! Frank AB-2 Tower Sub

Now, this is one that we Malaysian audiophiles can be very proud of.

Our very own Frank Voon, of the Frank Power Bank and Frank Ultra Bank fame, is at it again. He sent me some photos and recordings of his latest innovation in action. And my, I almost got knocked off my chair seeing his latest creation. It is big and it is innovative. It is called the Frank AB-2 Tower Sub, but it is not like any other conventional subwoofers that we are used to see. 

Do you use a pair of small speakers that you absolutely love (LS3/5A, ProAc Tablette, AE1, and small classic Sonus Fabers come to mind), that you are not willing to give up for anything else? Do you want to keep your speakers as they are, not to get a bigger version of them, but you just want to coax deeper bass and bigger scale from their presentation? Then Frankie's latest creation is the answer.

The Frank AB-2 Tower Sub allows you to incorporate your small speakers into it and, wollah, now your favourite speakers have grown, retaining all that are good about them and you get the extension that you want at the same time.

Each side of the Frank AB-2 has 3 sections and weighs a hefty 95kg. The top and bottom sections are the bass bins, each consisting of a 9" scanspeak woofer (so there are 2 woofers per side). The middle section allows you to slot in your own small speakers. Each tower comes with multiple crossovers for the user to calibrate each section's response. What's more, a supertweeter is installed at the back of each tower for a greater ambiance portrayal. 

Didn't I say that this is an innovative product? 

From the technical drawing above, you can see how the small speakers are incorporated into the mid-section of the tower 

The Frank AB-2 is passive, so you need to supply your own power amp, Frankie told me that 50w per side would do very nicely. 

The Frank AB-2 Tower Sub in action in a few early adopters' rigs:

Thanks to Frankie for sharing the photos and videos. Hope I can arrange an onsite listening session asap when the pandemic concern is over.

The Frank AB-2 Tower Sub can be had in any colour you like, it is custom made to order, expect a lead time of 35 days to take deliver. More info is available on Frank Acoustic's website :  http://frankacoustics.blogspot.com/2012/07/washington-audio-customer-testimonial.html?m=1

Contact: Frank Voon 012-2981011

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!