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SV Subwoofers

 

 

Phase. Think of bass waves as conflicting or enhancing each other, depending on the timing of their arrival at your listening location (either together, or not). Since some of your room’s bass might come from main, center and/or surround speakers, as well as your sub, getting these bass waves to arrive in a complementary, enhancing fashion is the difficult job of the phase knob. Essentially, this control varies the timing of the bass waves coming from the sub. The effect of bass cancellation will vary by volume and frequency in your room, and no one setting is likely to ever be “perfect”. One technique to optimize phase is to find a nice “bassy” loop (such as the menu of “Godzilla”) measuring its bass response at various SPL peaks. As the loop runs, vary the phase knob. Where you see the most response on a given bass passage is the phase setting providing the least bass cancellation in your room (for the frequencies of the demo loop you chose). Adjusting phase is mostly a concern in dual sub configurations or systems with “Large” mains.

Line In/Out. Use one of the sub’s “Line In” jacks to connect the subwoofer to the output jack of your receiver/processor. Feeding one input is enough. If you are using a conventional amp and/or a stereo setup you can use the “Line Out” jacks to send sound (filtered of deep bass information) back to your system amp. A simple RCA to RCA cable is all you need for either type configuration.

Auto On. Your sub allows an “Auto On” mode… or can be on all the time. With the switch in the “Auto” position your subwoofer will “sense” that a DVD or CD etc. has begun and switch on immediately (the “hard power switch” mentioned below must be on, naturally). A few minutes after a movie ends, the auto-on light turns red, switching the sub off. When running (and sensing a signal) the auto-on LED will be green. Sometimes, with very low listening levels, your subwoofer might not get enough of a bass signal from your surround sound processor to “trip” the auto-on circuit. Should you find this to be the case you may leave this switch “On”, or turn the receiver’s subwoofer output up, and the sub down.

Crossover Enable Switch. If you allow your DD/DTS surround-sound receiver or processor to manage bass frequencies (recommended), this switch should be set to “Disabled”. This eliminates the effects of the “Crossover Frequency” knob and allows your sub to reproduce just what it’s fed from the receiver. If you use the sub in a two channel (stereo only) configuration, then “Enable” the crossover and adjust the knob to best blend the sub into the low frequency output of your speakers.

High level inputs/outputs. Not commonly used today, but binding posts are there in case you don’t have low-level inputs/outputs on your receiver/processor.

Power. This heavy duty two-position switch next to the power cord will cut the power to your sub amp. Flip this switch to off before you move the sub or change inputs or outputs.

A/C Connection. Plug your sub into a dedicated A/C outlet. “Convenience” outlets of typical receivers often don’t provide the needed current. Avoid them.

Fuse. User replaceable, contact SVS if you have trouble finding one. The fuse can be accessed by a small door immediately below the power cord fitting.