LV12R vs. LVX12 vs. L22 for HT in Small Sealed Room

I'm thinking of adding a couple of walls in my basement to seal off a 13' x 19' x 7' room for mainly home theater use, but will listen to a little bit of music too. I plan to have two rows of seating (I know it is a bit tight, but playing around with some room layout specs, it seems to fit just fine), so I want to go out of my way to get uniform bass response in every seat. This means that I want to have four subwoofers in the four corners of the room. My goal is to have the subwoofers extend flat from 20Hz up to 80 or 100Hz and retain low distortion even with more demanding home theater content. I put together a pros and cons list from my perspective, in my room and for my application for the three subwoofers I'm trying to decide between:

LV12R:

Pros: 0.8, 0.9, and 1.1 Q settings
$500 each
Cons: Placement for 4 corner subs is a little weird

LVX12:

Pros: Tuning options
+1.5 dB more output at 20Hz compared to LV12R (only a slight difference)
Cons: $800 each
only 0.5 or 1.1 Q
slightly larger footprint than the LV12R

L22:

Pros: Smallest footprint of the three
0.5, 0.8, 0.9 and Q settings
Two 12" drivers make it more like a one large 17" in terms of area
+1.5 dB more output at 20Hz compared to LV12R (only a slight difference)
Cons: A sealed design will likely have more distortion below 35 Hz, when pushed hard
$850 each

I think that for a mainly home theater application, a ported subwoofer would be best. This is due to the demands of low frequency content tend to be much higher than for most typical music applications. Also, the distortion down below 40Hz tends to stay more under control in comparison than a sealed design. Room gain with help any subwoofer in this small of a room with that, but with 4 ported subs corner loaded, I would expect to have super low distortion even with possible short bursts of up to 115dB, if I were listening at reference level. Would the L22 have comparable distortion to that of the ported subs, when it is pushed hard with below 40Hz content?

I like the LV12R best, since it has such a small cons list, for me. However, my biggest concern is that I might have to place the subs at a 45 degree angle in the corner so that the driver and port have room to breathe. This makes it take up more floor space in this smaller room, since I now have some dead space between the subwoofer and the corner. Any thoughts on placing the LV12R in the corner? Is this a challenge with the rear port? How close can I get this in the corner to being flush up against the two walls? Any thoughts on these questions and just general thoughts would be appreciated.

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Originally Posted by N Boros

I'm thinking of adding a couple of walls in my basement to seal off a 13' x 19' x 7' room for mainly home theater use, but will listen to a little bit of music too. I plan to have two rows of seating (I know it is a bit tight, but playing around with some room layout specs, it seems to fit just fine), so I want to go out of my way to get uniform bass response in every seat. This means that I want to have four subwoofers in the four corners of the room. My goal is to have the subwoofers extend flat from 20Hz up to 80 or 100Hz and retain low distortion even with more demanding home theater content. I put together a pros and cons list from my perspective, in my room and for my application for the three subwoofers I'm trying to decide between:

LV12R:

Pros: 0.8, 0.9, and 1.1 Q settings
$500 each
Cons: Placement for 4 corner subs is a little weird

LVX12:

Pros: Tuning options
+1.5 dB more output at 20Hz compared to LV12R (only a slight difference)
Cons: $800 each
only 0.5 or 1.1 Q
slightly larger footprint than the LV12R

L22:

Pros: Smallest footprint of the three
0.5, 0.8, 0.9 and Q settings
Two 12" drivers make it more like a one large 17" in terms of area
+1.5 dB more output at 20Hz compared to LV12R (only a slight difference)
Cons: A sealed design will likely have more distortion below 35 Hz, when pushed hard
$850 each

I think that for a mainly home theater application, a ported subwoofer would be best. This is due to the demands of low frequency content tend to be much higher than for most typical music applications. Also, the distortion down below 40Hz tends to stay more under control in comparison than a sealed design. Room gain with help any subwoofer in this small of a room with that, but with 4 ported subs corner loaded, I would expect to have super low distortion even with possible short bursts of up to 115dB, if I were listening at reference level. Would the L22 have comparable distortion to that of the ported subs, when it is pushed hard with below 40Hz content?

I like the LV12R best, since it has such a small cons list, for me. However, my biggest concern is that I might have to place the subs at a 45 degree angle in the corner so that the driver and port have room to breathe. This makes it take up more floor space in this smaller room, since I now have some dead space between the subwoofer and the corner. Any thoughts on placing the LV12R in the corner? Is this a challenge with the rear port? How close can I get this in the corner to being flush up against the two walls? Any thoughts on these questions and just general thoughts would be appreciated.

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I have one LV12r placed 6 ft behind my seating position in a 13x18x8 sealed room. I get less than 1% distortion down to 20hz at 85db. I haven't tested it at 115db, though.

Subjectively, it's tight and musical. I've only encountered one bad experience with The LV12r. It tries to play Edge of Tomorrow's beginning scene. And on Low you get some major port noise and mechanical noise from the driver. That's why if you buy this sub, I recomend setting it to high as it effectively rolls the sub off higher and doesn't try to play scenes it doesn't have any business trying to play. To give the LV12r credit, it seems as the EOT scene has wreaked havoc on other subs as well.

Personally, I like infrasonic tactile bass, so I will be upgrading to either the F15hp or FV15hp for the more capable driver. However, if you aren't looking for anything lower than 20hz, set the LV12r to high and you will be fine for most things.

Since you are willing to go up to the $800 range. in your size room, with 4 subs, I think the F12 would be more than enough and do everything you ever wanted from a sub.

I own dual F12's in a big open room and they provide insane, tactile, deep, distortion free bass all day. I would not worry about slight 20 Hz output improvements of one sub over the other because you're using 4. You won't ever expend the headroom of any one sub, so the extra output of each individual sub is kind of pointless as you'll never be using that much output. I have both of my subs below half output and at -9 dB in Audyssey. With your small room you can go with the smallest subwoofers they have if you're getting 4 and your room will pressurize like mad.

Because of that I think you should go with sealed subs as they'll be far easier to place in the corners and you just don't need the output of a ported sub if you have 4 of them. It's a little less efficient, but to me it's worth it. The F12 goes down to 5 Hz, further than their ported subs, and it does it with no port noise. If you're buying multiple subs, you get a 10% discount as well, so don't forget about that.

-9? Holly cow! I don't think I'll need the F15s then. Thanks Alex.

Have you considered multiple L12s? A single one would not have the same output down low as a ported sub. However, with a respectable -3dB point at 18Hz, two or more of them would rock with the combined output increase

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Originally Posted by MusicHead

Have you considered multiple L12s? A single one would not have the same output down low as a ported sub. However, with a respectable -3dB point at 18Hz, two or more of them would rock with the combined output increase

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He's considering 4 of each of those, so yeah, but I totally agree that 4 L12's would be totally awesome and would have an incredible amount of output down to 20 Hz and below in a small, sealed room.

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Originally Posted by N Boros

This means that I want to have four subwoofers in the four corners of the room.

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While the L12 will sound amazing for both music and home theater ( since you will be having 4 of them). The sub itself is a budget sub and will have its limitations as it should for its price. If you have it in your budget as you said you did to go with the aluminum cone driver of the F12, I would do it. Having said that, any of the servo subs are extremely accurate in their reproduction and I would have no qualms saying the LV12r (and assume L12) are the best bang for the buck in the $500 subwoofer category. But since you are willing to go up to the $800 category, personally I would get the f12s and never have to upgrade ever again.

Lots of good suggestions here. I know that I want to stay in the Rythmik line of subwoofers, since just about anyone who has heard them says that they are excellent for music and not just for movies. Even the ported models. So while my primary use would be watching movies and TV, I do occasionally listen to music and want to it match the performance of my Ascend speakers.

The more I think about it, the more I think that going with FVX15s is the way I might be the way I want to go, and I know that sounds like it is way overboard for this small of a room. Let me tell you my thinking. Johnny Mac III measured the LV12r in a room almost identical in size the mine and found that at 20Hz there is excellent THD numbers at 85 dB. It is likely if if one sets the volume level of a movie to reference level (85 dB) and there are massive peaks (can be up as high as 115 dB), that it won't be quite that clean. That is not a big deal to me though. However, he continues to say:

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Originally Posted by Johnny_Mac_III

I've only encountered one bad experience with The LV12r. It tries to play Edge of Tomorrow's beginning scene. And on Low you get some major port noise and mechanical noise from the driver. That's why if you buy this sub, I recommend setting it to high as it effectively rolls the sub off higher and doesn't try to play scenes it doesn't have any business trying to play. To give the LV12r credit, it seems as the EOT scene has wreaked havoc on other subs as well.

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This is a problem for me. I know that this is just one movie, but I'm sure there are other movies (maybe War of the Worlds, etc.) that gives the LV12R issues. Also, this may be entirely a moot point though since I would be corner loading four of these LV12Rs and should expect a 9dB gain in overall output. So maybe in my room with the additional subs EOT or other tough bass scenes are not a problem. Also, Home Theater Shack had a largely glowing review of the LV12R, in almost the identical room size as mine, but there was a small issue on Tron where the reviewer noticed a slightly bad noise: http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...er-review.html. For these reasons I think the LV12R's are out for me.

A DIY Rythmik sub that looks slightly larger in size than the F12 was measured a long time ago here: http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...ealed-56l.html. If the F12 measures similarly, then it is a very good subwoofer. However, I want to keep distortion low when I am watching movies. Looking at the 105 dB sweep in the long term output compression graph, if I corner loaded four of these, this would really be about 115 dB sweep. In the best case scenario the heavy compression that is happening on that sweep from 30 Hz and down when measured in a large open space, would extend down flat to below 20 Hz because of room gain in my room. However, on that sweep the THD from 40 Hz and down is quite high. This isn't a knock again Rythmik, it is just the nature of any sealed sub. This tells me that if I crank up an action movie to reference volume the peaks will have high distortion in my room. This means that the F12 is out for me.

I started thinking about four of the FVX15s as an alternative. This sounds like I have lost my mind. These subs are a huge step up from the F12s and it is in terms of size and output. But, it is not in terms of price. Since the shipping is included on the large ported model and not on the F12s, when you add them to your cart and take in the multiple subwoofer discount four FVX15s are very close to the price of four F12, which I was considering. Since I am putting them in the four corners (that is the only place I can put them in my room to be out of the way) the extra size is not a big deal. My walking path to the seats is not obstructed in the least, I wouldn't be placing speakers there and it is not in the way of the projector screen. I found a review of the Salk/Rythmik 15 inch sub with dual passive radiators, in the same sized room that I am considering: http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...er-review.html . This review is quite helpful, since he threw tough movie soundtracks at it trying to trip it up (like War of the Worlds) and it never made any bad sounds and always seemed to reproduce the scene as it was intended. This sub should be very close in performance to the FVX15 or the FV15Hps. To further give me confidence that the Rythmik will not only sound great regardless of the movie I am watching, Josh Ricci measured the FV15Hp here: http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=51&mset=49. If I look at the 105 dB sweep of the long term output compression, in one port mode, the FV15Hp can extend flat to just below 20Hz and then gently roll off almost like a sealed sub. In my room, with all of the room gain, I bet it can extend flat way below 20 Hz. On that 105 dB sweep the THD from 15 Hz and up is for the most part less than 10% except for a small blip from 25 to 27 Hz, or so. If I had four FV15HPs corner loaded in my room, then this is basically how 115 dB peaks would measure. To step back a retain a little sanity, four FVX15s would only be about 2 to 3 dB down from where the FV15Hps would measure. Which means on these rare occasions when I am listening at reference level (85 dB), if there are 115 dB peaks, the distortion should still be not too far off of what I was just mentioning. Meaning that the peaks at reference levels should be pretty clean, in terms of distortion.

I should say that I don't typically listen to movies at reference levels. But, usually it might happen that if I pick up a fun blockbuster/action movie and have some friends or family over that we crank it up. I just want to make sure that I don't crank it up and get bad noises, or a tough scene just not produced as well as it should be, or there is massive amounts of distortion when doing so. So, while it is about an extra $1500 to get four of the FVX15s over four of the LV12Rs, I think it is pretty minor to ensure that even tough bass scenes will sound great when I crank it up a little bit. This is only about the cost of deciding to go with Sierra towers with the Raal ribbon tweeter over the Sierra 2s. The other selling point for going with these larger subwoofers, is that if I do have to move at some point and need to use them in a larger room, it shouldn't be a problem. I'm not planning to move, since I own a house that I plan to stay in until retirement ideally, which is very far off, but you never know what might happen and this would give me a little more peace of mind there.

Hey. I just watched a review of the SVS PB-13 Ultra. The Edge of Tomorrow scene also tripped it up. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k-E-oqe4Lq0

That scene was my only qualm with my LV12r. Everything else sounds fantastic. If the well regarded PB-13 Ultra -- a sub costing 4x as much had an issue with playing it, it's no sweat off my back if the LV12r couldn't handle it either. Everything else sounds fantastic and realistic.

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Originally Posted by Johnny_Mac_III

Hey. I just watched a review of the SVS PB-13 Ultra. The Edge of Tomorrow scene also tripped it up. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k-E-oqe4Lq0

That scene was my only qualm with my LV12r. Everything else sounds fantastic. If the well regarded PB-13 Ultra -- a sub costing 4x as much had an issue with playing it, it's no sweat off my back if the LV12r couldn't handle it either. Everything else sounds fantastic and realistic.

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I watched the review and saw where he was talking about Edge of Tomorrow and I must have missed where the PB13 Ultra had a problem with Edge of Tomorrow. He seemed to just be focused on how much the pots and pans and tables were vibrating and rattling. I couldn't hear a bad noise, though he was just recording with a camcorder, so I can't imagine it is a high end microphone on it.