SVS 3000 MICRO SUBWOOFER
ONCE UPON A TIME, there were three bears, with three subwoofers. You probably can guess how this story ends.
Designing a subwoofer is simple: big box, big driver, powerful amplifier. You wind up with something the size of a small refrigerator, but it does the job. Designing a good miniature subwoofer is a bigger engineering challenge, but the recipe is also fairly well known: small box, very powerful amplifier, small drivers with lots and lots of excursion, or throw. This formula can yield surprising bass extension from something not much bigger than a 24-pack, with output that may qualify as plenty in small rooms and for moderate listening levels, or as not nearly enough in big rooms and for lifelike listening levels.
Finding that j-u-u-u-s-t right combination is what SVS appears to have aimed for with its new
Micro 3000 sub, the first mini-woof to emerge from the American-heartland firm. SVS spun its first product two-plus decades ago—a gigantic, upright tubular sub reminiscent of an apartment-size water heater— into a respected full-range loudspeaker line bristling with technology and including tower, bookshelf, active wireless speakers, and more. But it’s still best known for subwoofers.
The Micro 3000’s two opposed, 8-inch drivers each boast an Xmax (effective maximum excursion) of nearly one inch— that’s a lot. And they are matched with an 800-watt RMS amplifier for which the firm claims 2,500 watts peak output, to compensate for the huge loss in efficiency, in the physics sense, that a smaller driver gives up in comparison with a larger one. There’s more
tech on board, too: a proprietary surround designed to maximize linearity over full driver excursion; single-piece aluminum cones claimed to be light, stiff, and thermally conductive; a heavily engineered motor system with “overhung” layout, four-layer voice-coil, high-temp former, and aluminum shorting ring to minimize distortion at high levels; and 50MHZ Analog Devices DSP processing to handle filtering, EQ, and dynamic management at full fidelity. The company’s two-box Soundpath wireless connection kits are a $120-$200 optional accessory.
The 3000 Micro’s input panel features only the basic controls, via pushbuttons, because its primary interface is meant to be the SVS ios/android Subwoofer app, which accesses all the usual setup adjustments and provides extensive EQ and tuning options. (Much more on this to follow.) Otherwise, the 3000 Micro, rounded up, is a single, solid cubic foot.
Our sample was finished in a nicely executed gloss black lacquer (white is also an option), with sturdy round metal grilles on two opposing faces. The pushbutton control panel is nearly flush, widening placement options close to walls or furniture, while the bottom panel features removable coneshaped rubber-coated feet. All in all, the little SVS is a complete and well-thought-out package, just about precisely the size of the aforementioned 24-pack.
SETUP
I auditioned the SVS in my main system, supporting my long-term left/right pair of threeway active monitors. I simply connected the long RCA cable from my preamp/processor to the 3000 Micro’s RCA LFE input, and plugged the sub into AC power using the provided removable cord.
Though we talk about subwoofers, the room is what we’re really listening to in those bottom three octaves.
Room dimensions, construction, surfaces, and furnishings profoundly affect the performance of any sound source below a couple of hundred
Herz. Consequently, evaluating subwoofers by ear indoors is a slippery slope. I do the best I can by placing the unit under test in my long-established subwoofer spot—the location that yields the smoothest, leastpeaky (but still far from flat) excitation of room modes, deduced from decades of trial and error, and which is true regardless of the size or type of subwoofer that sits there. Full disclosure: To hear more clearly what a subwoofer itself is actually doing both below and above my room’s worst mode, I engage a single narrow parametric equalization, implemented either in my A/V processor or in Roon music management software, to mitigate this most egregious of acoustical roadblocks. (This is about 80 percent of the magic that room-correction systems like Audyssey or Dirac achieve.) Knock the energy at your room’s primary mode down by 6 or 10db, or whatever’s necessary (this works best for a single listening position), and the sonic improvement over the full audio range— because bass resonances muddy up everything— will surprise you.
LISTENING
For a subwoofer, it’s all about how low, how loud, how clean, and how smooth (or flat).
The interaction of subwoofer response and room acoustics is what yields “fast” or “tuneful” bass, not woofer cones made from unobtanium.
So, how low did the SVS 3000 Micro go? Very. I played a parade of my favorite “bass cows,” or tracks with strong content below 40Hz, and was not once disappointed. For instance, Bela Fleck’s “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo,” my current favorite subwoofer wet-read, has a series of strong, downsliding electric-bass notes that cover the range from about 45Hz down to 25Hz, and these came across loud and clear. At a level I’d call “solidly loud demo” (roughly 83db SPL average) the 3000 Micro matched my everyday subwoofer— one of those gigantic, upright, tubular jobs I mentioned above— perfectly. I also compared the SVS to the KEF KC62 micro-sub
($1,499) that so impressed me when I reviewed it in the June/ July 2021 issue. Again, I heard nothing to distinguish the two. Within the constraints of my room/system/listening position, both sounded identical at this loud-but-not-too-loud level.
I then moved on to an even more severe test: the “Flight to LAPD” scene from Bladerunner 2049, where the sub-bass excitation in Hans Zimmer’s trippy electronica score extends to well below 20Hz. At my relatively “moderate” but still roomshaking level, the 3000 Micro again matched up perfectly with the KEF, though my four-foot-tall SVS Pc-12-plus bested them both. Not with more or better musical bass, but with stronger excitation of the sub-30 Hz stuff, manifested in a sensibly stronger “fluttery” feel, and decidedly more gut-tumbling effect from the very lowest elements. (I’ll further note that on a couple of this track’s deepest/strongest passages, the big SVS, at approximately eight times the cubic volume of the 3000 Micro, uncovered a couple of new rattles from my throughly de-rattled— or so I had thought— room.)
Next, up: How loud? My previous trials were just about as loud as I ever listen electively. But science demands more, so I powered down my left/ right monitors and repeated the same track rotation, auditioning the subs “naked,” while gradually increasing level. With about 6db added, the little SVS was still fine—solidly pitch-defined and free of rude noises—as was, of course, the big SVS tube. So too was the KEF, though it was noticeably less loud, its DSP dynamic/ equalization being activated as the electromechanical system approached its limits. At about 10db louder than my original level the SVS evinced the same sort of limiting: it still sounded clean and musical, but essentially stopped responding to higher signal input, getting little if any louder. It also produced a noticeable “tup” on the leading edge of the strongest/lowest notes, which was not present at the lower levels. Presumably, this was a mechanical artifact of the sub’s drivers and/or bass-dynamics brain probing their limits, though it was never audible in full-system listening at any level. The Pc-12-plus took the blue here, producing ridiculous bass levels, and simultaneously exciting many previously unknown room rattles.
Now, the toughest test: How smooth? This is the hardest factor to judge by ear. We want a subwoofer’s frequency response to be flat, or perhaps slightly falling smoothly from its crossover point down to its lower limit, which will make integrating any woofer with the rest of the system much simpler. The SVS 3000 Micro seemed to me to be admirably so. I had no difficulty matching it to my main monitors, and I heard no midbass emphasis or “extra” punch at any specific point over its useful range right down to 25Hz and a bit lower. But this is only one setup, one crossover point, and one set of speakers. And, at the risk of repeating myself: the room, the room, the room. Any sub may work better in one room and worse in another, where its own peak coincides with a strong acoustical mode. Still, the 3000 Micro impressed me as quite un-peaky—and the measured response curves SVS publishes for it support this—so I’d expect it to work easily over a range of rooms and systems.
Subwoofers used to be essentially featureless boxes, but not in the digital age. SVS, like many other subwoofer-manufacturers, has implemented DSP smarts—though not auto-eq/ room correction—into the
3000 Micro to enable a range of optimizations, all accessible via the company's free app. This is simple and cleanly designed, with a nice “Tutorial” tab that offers pop-up help for each feature (though it assumes understanding of basic terms like “phase” or “filter”).
The SVS Subwoofer app provides instant access to low-pass frequency and slope (6, 12, 18, or 24db/octave) plus continuous-phase adjustment and polarity-inversion, along with a range of equalization possibilities. These include three parametric bands of +6/-12db, adjustable over the 3000 Micro’s full 20-200Hz frequency range, and with “Q” (bandwidth) infinitely adjustable from 10 (very narrow and steep, effectively a 1/6th-octave peak/ dip), to 0.2 (very broad and gradual, effectively a shelving filter depending on frequency).
This is easily enough EQ to get us into trouble, and one band is all most rooms should require. You can effectively sit and listen to low-bass-rich music and slide a single high- Q filter cutting by, say, 6db up and down in frequency, from the comfort of your listening chair until you find your room’s principal mode. You’ll know it when you find the frequency where the bass suddenly sounds “tighter” or cleaner, but not significantly less strong or weighty. Pretty cool.
Equally useful is Room Gain Compensation, which offers a high- pass filter at your choice of 25, 31, or 40Hz, with your choice of 6 or 12db/octave slopes, to counteract the “bass buildup” that occurs in many real-world rooms below the frequency related to the wavelength equivalent to the longest wall. Though there are many, many mitigating or exacerbating variables, for best accuracy the smaller the room the higher the frequency that should be applied. But as much as most of us love deep bass, many may just leave this off— I did! (To be fair, many current A/ V receivers on the market offer an equivalent to one or both of the two features listed above.)
The handiest screen of all is “Home,” which offers just a subwoofer volume slider providing 60db of range below your setup reference level plus a choice of four presets (Movie, Music, Custom, and Default, all renameable). Each of these presets can also store a custom combination of adjustments.
THE BEAR FACTS
Clearly, the new SVS 3000 Micro subwoofer is neither too big nor too small. But is it just right? Pretty darned close. I found that it delivers more true deep bass, accurately, at greater levels, than any compact sub I’ve encountered. For most listening, in most rooms, it will be all the subwoofer you need. Will the 3000 Micro provide cinema-standard, reference-level bass underpinnings in a large home-theater? Almost certainly not. But I’ll bet a pair, or a trio, or— hell, at $800 a pop why not?—a quartet would.
And that value factor is what makes the 3000 Micro a happymedium bear. For similar money you can get slightly greater (maybe) extension, and rather greater output, in a much bigger package—from SVS among others. Alternately, you can get less extension, and rather less output, in an even smaller package. For my money, I’d prefer to split the difference with the Goldilocks of subwoofers, the SVS 3000 Micro.