SVS Pc 2000 Pro Review

Most subwoofers on the market are square boxes, with one or two woofers facing outward and with an open or closed enclosure. Occasionally you will also find one with a driver that is aimed at the floor. The PC-2000 Pro, however, is something completely different. It presents itself as a large, anonymous cylinder, just over 86 cm high. That seems like a lot, but because the footprint has a diameter of 42 cm, the visual impact is not too bad. Apart from the acoustic benefits of this shape, the PC-2000 Pro is all about that (relatively) inconspicuous profile. You can put this SVS in places where a classic sub might not fit, also because you can use it in an open or closed mode. This makes the PC-2000 Pro perhaps an attractive option for music lovers who want to take the step to 2.1.

The promise of SVS is that the special shape does not affect performance. The PC-2000 Pro, which retails for $1,099, includes a 12-inch long-throw woofer that promises to dive down to 16 Hz and is rated at 550 watts (1,500 watts peak). That all sounds very promising, but does the subwoofer live up to it? Does it have the LFE performance needed to make a movie night throbbing while also having the subtlety to back up a set of good stereo speakers when you want to listen to music?

The PC-2000 Pro is part of the new 2000 Pro series from SVS. As is often the case with the American brand, this family consists of three members: a version with an open housing (PB-2000 Pro), a closed model (SB-2000 Pro), and then this sub with a barrel shape. The idea is that if you are looking for a certain performance at a certain price point, there is always a model that fits your setup. The performance level of the 2000 Pro family earned SVS another EISA Award for Best Subwoofer this summer.

SVS is indeed much more than a subwoofer builder – see also the earlier review of the SVS Ultra bookshelf speakers – but it is with this category that the company established its image. Very well known are the excellent top models, such as the ultimate (and also gigantic) SB-4000 and the SB-3000, but we also reviewed a smaller budget model, the SB-1000 (more reviews here ). The 2000 Pro range is clearly in a higher category and features of those larger SVS subs. We think the DSP control via an app is an important plus. But equally important is that the 2000 Pro subwoofers still have a ‘normal’ size. They are subwoofers that deliver good performance but are not the subwoofer equivalent of an American pickup.

Well isolated

The PC-2000 Pro arrives in a rather large box that reads ‘two-man job’ in large. Since previous tests of SVS subwoofers ended up dragging quite a few kilograms, we were already mentally prepared for a weightlifting session. Strangely enough, and despite the warnings, this time it was really not too bad. You have to be careful when you take the device out of the box, but otherwise, it was easy to move. It does help if you have longer arms.

What is immediately striking is how anonymous the PC-2000 Pro is. It really is a cylinder, almost completely encased in a dark loudspeaker fabric. Our test model had a glossy black finish. Very nice and it gives some class to this device, but of course, it also catches some dust. Even in a partially darkened home cinema, the device will blend completely into the background, we suspect.

We think the provided legs are positive. It may seem like a detail, but with a subwoofer, good acoustic decoupling is crucial on some surfaces. Those two-piece SoundPath feet mean fewer vibrations are transferred to the floor, reducing the chance of noise and complaints from neighbors. In our test room, we have a wooden plank floor, and those feet are a really good idea there. They’re also important for another reason: the PC-2000 Pro’s design requires it to hover an inch off the ground, as it has a 12-inch woofer that points downwards and makes a really big move.

As an experiment, we briefly placed the SVS on a deep-pile mat that we have in the test room to dampen the room a bit. The difference was immediately noticeable – much muffled, much drier – which of course makes perfect sense. We also found it impressive how inert the housing remained, even with the racing scene of ‘Ready Player One, which we often use as a benchmark for Atmos performance. There are heavy bass effects in that frenetic clip, for example when King Kong appears on stage, but even at a very high volume level, we couldn’t really feel any disturbing vibrations from the PC-2000 Pro cabinet.

Open or Closed

Despite its round shape, the PC-2000 Pro has a back. Here you will find the necessary connections in the form of a stereo cinch. You use the right one if you only want to display the LFE channel in a surround mix, both if you want to connect the subwoofer to a stereo amplifier without a dedicated sub-out. Because two subwoofers are not at all overkill – a broadly grinning emoticon fits here – but a smart move for stereo reproduction, there is also a cinch pair as an output. This way you can daisy-chain PC-2000 Pro with a second sub.

Via an ingenious button system supplemented by a series of LEDs, you can also set things like volume, phase, and crossover point here. That is pretty easy, but you can also do all this via an app. That works a lot more pleasantly – and you get a lot of options.

At the back, we also find a bass port, connected to a long bass reflex tube that runs internally thanks to a kink almost all the way to the top of the subwoofer. Out of the box, the PC-2000 Pro is an open sub, but you can also close the port completely. In the app, you choose ‘sealed’. That costs you a little bit at the bottom of the bass reproduction but can make the reproduction tighter. It partly depends on the room characteristics and where you place the device. Close to a corner, we would still try with the gate closed, maybe that contains more.

Great app control

The extensive DSP control via an app is the secret weapon of SVS as far as we are concerned. It is available on many of their subwoofers, including the PC-2000 Pro. While some rivals focus on a total solution via a room measurement, SVS prefers to give you extensive control via this app and to leave any room correction to your AV receiver or smart amplifier.

The SVS app gives you many options but remains simple to use. On our Huawei P30 Pro, the app itself detected the subwoofer (via Bluetooth LE), and the connection was established in a few seconds. That connection also remains active so that you don’t always have to wait until your smartphone can communicate with your subwoofer. Another detail, but if you are busy setting up your listening room and listening critically, it is nice if you can quickly adjust something and do not have to wait a few seconds every time. A human being is an impatient animal, right?

The main screen of the SVS app takes you straight to the essentials: volume control. You can also load a preset, a custom viewing profile for movies, music, or the standard SVS preset. It is also possible to set your own preset.

If you dive a little deeper into the SVS app, you can set everything you can think of. Things like the low-pass filter point and phase are fairly standard, but the parametric equalizer and room gain compensation in particular are useful things that a fine-tuner can use a lot. In our experience, RGC is also very useful in a smaller room. Of course, the added value of these two functions is slightly more limited if you work with a room correction system, but when you adjust a subwoofer for a stereo system, you don’t always have that. Smart stereo amplifiers such as the NAD M3 3 or Arcam SA-30 have something like Dirac on board, but the majority of ‘pure’ amplifiers do not.

Multitest

We had a long visit with the PC-2000 Pro, which allowed us to try it out in a number of setups. We have used the SVS for the longest time with our fixed surround setup consisting of a Denon AVR-X6300H and a 5.1.4 set based on DALI Rubicon and Altec. The front channels are provided by two Rubicon LCRs, wall speakers that are ‘hi-fi’ but are best supported by a subwoofer. According to THX standards, it is best to choose a crossover point at 80 Hz, but with these speakers, it is smarter to aim a little higher. That is quickly set via the receiver (including room measurement via Audyssey), but it is nice to set it a little higher on the receiver and then fine-tune it while listening via the SVS app.

The scene from ‘Ready Player One is a good indicator of the performance of a subwoofer. There’s so much going on in terms of sound effects in a few minutes of the film, it’s actually unbelievable. There are heavy effects with a lot of impacts, such as cars and trains crashing or a T-Rex attacking the racers, but also many subtle things, such as the squeak of train brakes and gold coins that are collected by gamers as they jingle. The Audyssey measurement has ensured good integration so that the PC-2000 Pro has a strong but not overwhelming presence. You also immediately hear the difference when you switch between the presets ‘film’ and ‘music’, it is not subtle but effective. In movie mode, the ultra-low gets a little more body and is also more smeared out, which is fine with an action movie like this. You can also push the PC-2000 Pro very far;

Is it as good as the more classic 2000 Pro models? Hard to say as we haven’t heard one next to the other, but we’ve always been impressed by the closed SVS subs that are as powerful as they are tight. Our feeling also says that the PC-2000 Pro is slightly more subtle, which is a plus for some movies (and music). In “1917,” Sam Mendes’ World War I masterpiece seemingly shot in one giant take, the SVS provides just enough support to the menacing soundtrack as the two main characters crawl through no-man’s lands. It is of course partly in the integration, but at the same time, this cylindrical subwoofer also shows the added value of a slightly more expensive sub at such a time. Should we also say: somehow we got the impression that the PC-2000 Pro fills the room with bass in a more even way. Perhaps that’s down to the down-firing woofer, but as we moved around the room the bass experience remained consistent.

We also listened to music in 2.1 via the Denon, using an Oppo UDP-203 as a Roon Ready source. Melanie De Biasio’s ‘Gold Junkies’ for example, with its nervous bass drum that the SVS delivers perfectly and tight in music mode. With the track before that, ‘Your Freedom is the End of Me’, we found that the subwoofer could still be located in the room despite a sufficiently low crossover point – in the end, it turned out to be due to the placement, with the bass port aimed at a cabinet and thus created resonance. Just to say: you also have to park this flexible subwoofer in the correct place in the room. Apart from that small placement problem, we found that the PC-2000 Pro really offers added value when listening to music.

image credit: SVS

We also connected the PC-2000 Pro to a Devialet Expert 220 Pro with a set of KEF R3s. These are upright speakers that produce quite a bit of low themselves, but cannot serve the ultimate in bass detail. Supplemented with the SVS cylinder that was absolutely the case, and with Max Richters’ beautiful ‘On the Day of Daylight’ we immediately realized why a subwoofer can really make sense in a stereo setup. The strings are the star players in this sad work, but you only get the full impact if you also get those ultra-low tones. With this setup, we have searched a bit longer for the ideal place to place the sub. In our opinion, the ideal point was close to and behind the speakers at the front, but then you actually need a bit more space than we have available in our test room.

Conclusion

The PC-2000 Pro is not suitable for everyone due to its shape and concept, but perhaps for more situations than first appears. It offers more flexibility than a classic subwoofer in terms of placement, especially if you mute the bass port. At the same time, it does offer all the plus points you would expect from an SVS subwoofer, such as the extremely useful DSP control and the clean bass performance.

The PC-2000 Pro may look unconventional, but in its way, it is certainly not inferior to the more classic PB-2000 Pro and SB-2000 Pro. The long-throw woofer also offers the subtlety and detail to make this subwoofer relevant for music lovers who listen in stereo. Inducing earthquakes in films is not a problem, but it can also come out of the corner.