Klipsch RSW-15 vs SVS SB-16

[wstrickland1]

R 115 SW, RSW 15 . I have both. The R 115 hits considerably harder and imo is better for Home Theater. It just goes deeper with more output. For music though I can hear the cabinet of the R 115 (mine at least) and there are no such colorations with the RSW. That being said my P312W smokes both of them

 

At the end of the day there's not much of a reason to debate it too hard though as the RSW 15 hasn't been made for quite a while.

[Youthman]

Hey Billy, that's great insight!  I've heard nothing but great things about the R-115SW...I guess in my brain I just assumed it couldn't have as much output as the RSW-15. 

[Zen Traveler]

33 minutes ago, wstrickland1 said:

At the end of the day there's not much of a reason to debate it too hard though as the RSW 15 hasn't been made for quite a while.

Of course there is. I am extremely happy with my subs and am curious what I'm going to do when one of them breaks. That said, I appreciate your impressions and if I am going to hear the cabinet resonate during music that is going to put the R-115SW out of contention and it appears I am going to have to spend more than 500 bucks to gain the same performance in a single sub and I really don't want to part with much more. 

[Youthman]

It looks like I might be requesting a pair of R-115SW to review in the near future.

[Zen Traveler]

2 minutes ago, Youthman said:

It looks like I might be requesting a pair of R-115SW to review in the near future.

Me too.  

[Budman]

me three

[wstrickland1]

I also

[wstrickland1]

10 minutes ago, Zen Traveler said:

Of course there is. I am extremely happy with my subs and am curious what I'm going to do when one of them breaks. That said, I appreciate your impressions and if I am going to hear the cabinet resonate during music that is going to put the R-115SW out of contention and it appears I am going to have to spend more than 500 bucks to gain the same performance in a single sub and I really don't want to part with much more. 

Well on that regard yes. I just meant you can't go out and buy a RSW. You might look elsewhere if music's your primary thing. 

[garyrc]

On 4/25/2018 at 8:36 AM, Youthman said:

I believe so.  I always thought the RSW-15's were considered a sealed sub but am now finding out from others that it's technically considered a ported sub because of the radiator even though it doesn't have a "hole" or a "port".

 

I think that's what Klipsch says!  I think they say "bass reflex via passive radiator."  Notice the think is bolded.  I can't find the manual.

 

AYK, The train wreck doesn't necessarily reveal what the sub would do at frequencies not emphasized in the recording of the wreck, or with music.

 

I like the RSW 15 now that I've set both the true crossover and the LPF for LFE at 80 Hz.

 

Of course, the room and the placement can make a huge difference, but I think what you did was valid for comparing those two subs, in your set-up, on that particular train wreck.

 

Here is a sweep of the RSW 15 with an 80 Hz crossover, in a room with a peak centered at about 44 Hz; not flat, but  moves the couch with 5 people on it.  Sounds great with music, too.  To quote J. Gordon Holt, "Down with flat!"

 

[wvu80]

On 4/26/2018 at 9:46 PM, garyrc said:

I like the RSW 15 now that I've set both the true crossover and the LPF for LFE at 80 Hz.

This is an old post but I found this statement ^^^ interesting.

 

First of all you had to go out of the box with your thinking to set the LPF for LFE at 80.  Kudos.  The 120 Hz is such an automatic number we don't even debate it, we simply recommend it.

 

Which leads me to ask about your analysis as to WHY the sub sounds better that way.  I wonder if it's because the sub is trying to play one signal, and the LFE is trying to play another signal simultaneously?  Your thoughts?

[oldtimer]

I always thought 80 was the standard? 

[CECAA850]

53 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

I always thought 80 was the standard? 

Correct.  That's the THX standard.

[garyrc]

3 hours ago, wvu80 said:

This is an old post but I found this statement ^^^ interesting.

 

First of all you had to go out of the box with your thinking to set the LPF for LFE at 80.  Kudos.  The 120 Hz is such an automatic number we don't even debate it, we simply recommend it.

 

Which leads me to ask about your analysis as to WHY the sub sounds better that way.  I wonder if it's because the sub is trying to play one signal, and the LFE is trying to play another signal simultaneously?  Your thoughts?

 

3 hours ago, oldtimer said:

I always thought 80 was the standard? 

 

2 hours ago, CECAA850 said:

Correct.  That's the THX standard.

 

@oldtimer , @CECAA850 ,

Taking the last two posts first, the standard for the true crossover to the sub is 80Hz, but the standard for the Low Pass Filter for Low Frequency Effects (LPF for LFE -- not music) that is urged in many pre/pro and AVR manuals, is 120 Hz.  The two separate channels -- bass management bass and the independent LFE, are mixed together in pre-pros (AVPs) and also in AVRs, then sent to the subwoofer.  

 

@wvu80

Several experts have advocated using 80 Hz even for the LFE, for additional clarity and more headroom in the sub amp and the transducer itself, with very little loss of LFE.  Part of this is because some of the re-mixes of movies for home theater are often over-plump between 80 and 120Hz.  I tried it, and I liked it.  I attribute the improvement to the clarity/headroom phenomenon mentioned above, plus the frequencies below 80 Hz not being interfered with as much by LFE above 80 (I don't know if modulation distortion comes into the picture here).

 

Some comments on this by Keith Barnes, as well as Dressler, Seaton, and Fitzmaurice can be found at

"Audyssey FAQ Linked Here"

 

Including this part, excerpted from the article linked above:

 

However, Roger Dressler (formerly of Dolby Labs and the guy who helped them develop many of their technologies, including bass management) and Mark Seaton (founder and owner of Seaton Sound, makers of the legendary Submersive subwoofers) have both recently put forward an alternative view. Mark explains it like this in this post:

"I personally tend to set the low pass on the LFE channel at 80Hz in most systems by preference. I think many forget that the difference between a 120Hz low pass and an 80Hz low pass is nothing more than a shelving filter. If the low pass is 4th order, the 80Hz filter is about 7dB lower at 100Hz and about 4dB at 80Hz. A 100Hz low pass setting would have about 1/2 that difference. The adjustment has more effect on shaping the LFE track's response than it does on cutting off content. If you're running the subs with a rising response on the low end which blends with the main speakers, experimenting with 80, 100 vs. 120Hz is basically a means to taper the top end of the LFE channel. Setting this lower than 120Hz is not hacking off content any more than setting your sub a few dB hot would destroy a soundtrack."

What this means in effect is that you do NOT lose the content between 80Hz and 120Hz if you set the LPF of LFE to 80Hz - you simply alter the way it is presented, because the filter is not a brickwall but a shelving filter. Setting it to 80Hz simply allows you to 'shape' the LFE track's response.

Roger goes on to elaborate more in a separate post (my bolding below):

"Back when DTS was making their name with Jurassic Park and Apollo 13 on 35mm film, the LFE bandwidth was 80 Hz. The Dolby Digital codec has a bandlimited LFE channel, and it has a brickwall filter at 120 Hz as a means to protect the LFE channel from higher frequencies (which can still be present even with a 4th-order LPF at 80 Hz). It seems that when films moved from optical to digital delivery, the LFE bandwidth crept up to 120 Hz or maybe even higher (the PCM LFE channel has no inherent response limitation). I suppose it helps less than magnificent subwoofers in "regular" cinemas provide more whomp. But I find that LFE in the 100-120 Hz region is just a lot of boominess that unfortunately too often clouds the deeper bass in the bottom 2 octaves. Setting the LFE filter to 80 Hz does a dandy job of dealing with that boominess IMHO.

In addition, I have found that 5.1 music recordings are not well disciplined in their use of LFE, leading to muddiness that is even more annoying. Again, the 80 Hz LFE filter setting really helps the bass knit together more cohesively." Background information also in this post of Roger's.

Further comment from Roger Dressler explains the thinking behind a setting of 80Hz as opposed to the more usually recommended 120Hz:

"I was recently noticing that my well tuned room sounded great on 2-ch programs but occasionally had excessive/plump bass on some 5.1 music discs. Turns out many music discs do not have well filtered LFE tracks--easily seen using REW's spectrum analyzer. It also turned out that my SSP did not filter the LFE at 120 Hz or the like.

I did some experiments comparing SACD/DVD-A music recordings with the LFE unfiltered, or filtered at 120 or 80 Hz, and compared the results with the 2-ch mixes on those discs. It was pretty obvious that the mixers were listening with a monitor system using an LFE sub filtered at 80 Hz. The match was obviously right, whereas at 120 Hz it was not even close, and not very pleasant. They filtered the LFE sound in the room rather than the signal feeding the recorder.

I did a similar survey of movie soundtracks, and REW showed all were well filtered near 120 Hz at max. Some DTS movies were rolled off lower, like 90 Hz. In listening to these movies with 80 and 120 Hz LFE filters, it was possible in direct A/B to sometimes hear a difference only with the 120 Hz LFE tracks, but using either the 80 or 120 Hz filters sounded great and sounded correct. The impression was that the 80 Hz setting yielded "deeper, tighter" bass than the 120 Hz, and this has been a major reported difference between Dolby and DTS soundtracks since the days of laser discs. Interestingly, DTS HDMA does not employ the 90 Hz filter, so that "advantage" is now gone, even for the core lossy DTS track.

I have my SSP's LFE set for 80 Hz all the time (F/W updated!). It makes a huge benefit for 5.1 music, and a small benefit for movies, so it all sounds great now."

I should emphasise that the generally accepted setting for the LPF of LFE is 120Hz. However, this is one of those 'preference' issues which members may want to experiment with and come to their own conclusions. I have tried it myself and found that I can definitely hear (or feel) a difference between 80Hz and 120Hz for the LPF. 120Hz gives more slam and I feel the gunshots etc more in my chest. But Roger is right - it also adds a touch of boom too. 80Hz gives a little less slam but overall it's tighter. We're talking small, but noticeable differences. It also seems to be movie-dependent - I guess some mixers add more to the LFE channel than others, or more above 80Hz anyway.

Update:  Bill Fitzmaurice added this relevant comment when posting in another thread:

Also, with respect to LFE track material being directionally locatable, the LFE track is brickwall filtered at 120Hz, so regular program material harmonics that can be directionally locatable even with an 80Hz low pass of the other channels aren't present. If you have the ability to set the normal program low pass frequency and LFE channel low pass frequencies independently the difference that would probably be heard between 80 and 120Hz with the regular program probably would not be heard with the LFE track.

Further Reading:

• The misunderstood 0.1/LFE channel