(Review) SVS PB-1000 Pro, Ported Power House

Our last SVS product in for review was the SB-1000 Pro, this time we are checking out the Ported version of this subwoofer. the PB-1000 Pro is a similar setup to the SB-1000 Pro being a 12′ front-firing woofer with a 325-watt (820 peak) Sledgehammer amplifier. The obvious difference is the porting and the cabinet size, being quite a bit larger than the SB-1000 Pro. We are not going to compare the two in this article too much as we are also going to have a specific article about the differences between Sealed and Ported subwoofers. The PB-1000 Pro comes at a price of $799.99 (U.S.) and includes a front grille, power cable, port plugs, owner’s manual as well as the IOS and Android app. Let’s hop in and see out the PB-1000 Pro performs.

Unboxing and Setup

Getting the PB-1000 Pro out of the box is not the easiest thing to do alone, the sub is fairly large, and being well-packed means having someone to help is advised. After I got it out of the box, I placed the sub in the same place as I had the SB-1000 Pro as this seemed to be a good place for a front-firing sub. Luckily I didn’t have to move the sub from here as the PB-1000 also worked great here and incorporated well into the room. The position used was just in front of my mains and to the right of the center. After getting the sub placed I played with the various settings in the app and came up with what I liked best in my room, -5dB volume, 130Hz crossover with the 12dB slope, and the rest at default.

If you are not into apps or do not have a smartphone, on the back of the sub you have a set of lights and buttons to dial in your sub. The buttons could have a little more tactile feel, but I am also a mechanical keyboard guy so it may just be me. The back panel adjustments are fairly intuitive, though not as easy as adjusting settings from your phone. For me, the real benefit of the app is being able to adjust the subwoofer from your listening position and hearing the changes in real-time.

App Setup

As I just covered this in the last review I just quoted what I wrote there,

The app is pretty good, it’s not perfect but SVS is also not an App company so I really don’t have any complaints. I would say the interface, responsiveness, and ease of use are very good. Connecting your sub is super simple, just make sure Bluetooth is turned on, on your phone and the sub is on, and pair them in your settings. Then open the app and you will see a green Bluetooth symbol next to the sub name if they paired, and a red one if they didn’t. Once connected you can work your way through the menus on the top right to change the various settings to get your preferred sound. Also if you changed settings and don’t like what you got you can reset to factory settings and start over.
Hifi Chicken – (REVIEW) SVS SB1000 Pro, Possibly the Best in Class Performance

PB-1000 Pro Sound

The PB-1000 Pro is pure bass bliss, it blended into the room so well. I love how effortlessly it pushes out low frequencies. The benefit of a ported box is the driver does not have to fight the volume of air in the box as it moves. As the woofer moves in an out it is able to push and pull air out of the box allowing it to move easier, the downside is that when done poorly the ports will make their own sound as the air travels through them. The ports on the PB-1000 Pro were never audible which knocks out any downside to this style of subwoofer box. The sub sounds great at low and high volumes, which offers listeners flexibility depending on how you prefer to listen. I personally don’t listen at super high volumes, so it makes me happy to have the bass not completely anemic without having to turn up the volume. As usual, I threw a battery of different music at the PB-1000 Pro to see what I noticed both positive and negative as well as listened to some tracks more carefully to note what I heard.

Included with the PB-1000 Pro is a pair of port plugs to help you tune the sub to your liking. I played with them during some frequency sweeps as well as listening to the same track, with one, both, and no plugs to see if I noticed a difference. The track I listened to was Daft Punk’s “One More Time” on “Discovery” through the Rotel CD-11 Tribute. With Both in the bass tightened up, a bit too much for me, losing some of the punch. With one plug the bass opens up more and with none, it feels the most effortless and open. It doesn’t get muddier, just has a touch more ease to it. Now as you can see in the measurements, these are not huge night and day differences, the plugs are a fine-tuning option depending on your room needs.

I wanted my critical listening tracks to span a variety of music once again to see how well the sub handles different situations. I played some Classical, Indie, and Electronic music as outlined below. I also played each one from a different source to try to spread out my listening as much as I could. As with the SB-1000 Pro, I was impressed by everything I heard.

Test Tracks

Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News – “The View” (CD)

This is one of my favorite Modest Mouse songs, it’s got a great bass line and the rhythm of the song is quite enjoyable. The SVS PB-1000 Pro presents the kick in the drum clearly and has good texture, while not drowning out the light taps on the high hats. I listened to the whole album, to be honest, how can you not, Tom Meleso plays the upright bass, and the detail in the slaps and plucks are incredible. This really comes through on “Satin in a Coffin”

Tchaikovsky – 1812 Overture (Vinyl)

The ultimate percussive instrument may just be a canon and well, Tchaikovsky used canons in the 1812 overture so it’s clearly a fitting listen when trying out a subwoofer, on top of it already being a beautiful piece by my favorite composer. My Pressing as played by Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra uses a Brass Cannon provided by West Point. Now the Canon is not the only percussion or bass tones, but it certainly draws attention, as do the crashes of the cymbals. The build-up to the finally gets you going, the drums, the strings, and the wind instruments all climbing to the most dramatic crescendo, perhaps in history. The PB-1000 Pro handled this all like an absolute champ, detailed and impactful.

Headphone Activist – Pythoness (Streaming)

Headphone Activist has some very deep hard hitting tracks with blissful backdrops. Pythoness is his latest release and it is no different. The song has a very dreamy silky midrange with a sustained mid-bass and thumpy kicks. A lot of times where you will hear clarity issues is in sustained bass lines, where the punchier notes need to come through the sustain and this can cause that muddy sound we think of when we think of bad bass. I don’t get any of that from the PB-1000 Pro in any of Headphone Activists’ bassy tracks.

Theater Use

As with the SB-1000 Pro, I used the PB-1000 Pro in our theater. I used the same placement as the SB-1000 Pro in the theater as I did in the 2 channel as it seemed to work well for both situations. I really like the PB-1000 Pro in the theater as it can really recreate powerful effects and sounds in action movies. I watched a handful of movies with this sub as well, one of which was Book of Eli, more so than the effects I was interested in how the score would sound as it is one of my favorite movie scores and it was beautiful, Panoramic by Atticus Ross has some really low notes and our old sub just did not handle them well, really distorting the intro of the song, the long low ambiance was very muddy. When the Piano comes in it the PB-1000 Pro really drives those low notes home. My wife watches Peaky Blinders which often has gun fights and the subwoofer really delivered the percussion of gunfire effects cleanly and crisply. The PB-1000 Pro being ported can really dig into deep effects sounds and it is often why we see subs marketed towards theater use be a ported version. In the theater room, I did have the sub turned all the way up, I wanted the bass to be felt as much as heard, the rumble really helps with immersion into a scene.

Measurements

Manufaturer Specs

Subwoofer Specs:

Protective non-resonant extra-thick ABS fabric mesh grille
Iso-elastomer feet included
Extra heavy-duty, high current power cord 6′
Quick Start Guide
Port Plugs (free upon request)
Unbalanced stereo input/output
Speaker Level Stereo Input
Auto/On and Trigger options through app, 3-12V AC/DC trigger
RoHS compliant, lead-free construction, world-wide safety certifications
Green 0.5-watt low standby power consumption

Dual 2.5-inch ports
Dimensions (w/ grille): 18.9” (479mm) H X 15” (380mm) W X 20” (509mm) D
Dimensions (without grille): 18.9” (479mm) H X 15” (380mm) W X 19.2” (488mm) D
Shipped Dimensions: 23.4” (594mm) H 19.9” (506mm) W X 24.4” (619mm) D
Weight (unboxed): 42.5lbs (19.3kg) with Grille
Shipped Weight: 51.6lbs (23.4kg)

Driver Specs:

All-new proprietary 12-inch long-throw driver with high-precision tuned overhung motor configuration.
9.26lb (4.2kg) pound Woofer with 6.91lb (3.14kg) pounds motor
13.1mm Xmax, 26.8mm Xmech precision aligned excursion
1.5” diameter Voice Coil with high current 6-layer high-purity copper wire windings
Premium high-purity copper voice coil winding design minimizes distortion and power compression with maximum heat dissipation, linearity, and tuned magnetics for high excursion
Two-piece high grade oversized Y35 Ferrite magnet motor
High Temperature 3003-H18 aluminum former/bobbing
6” composite cotton-poly extreme excursion linear spider

Dual 24-strand copper-alloy high-temperature leads
Proprietary injection molded gasket and NBR extreme-excursion surround
Lightweight treated Fiber Composite cone for enhanced sensitivity and transient response
Top plate assembly with low carbon 1010 steel for optimal magnetics
Oversized low carbon 1008 steel T-yoke with integrated pole piece extension for maximum cooling and electromagnetics
12” premium powder coated basket with FEA optimized analysis for maximum rigidity, tensile strength, and energy transference
Oversized motor system for driving full excursion and industry best SPL, with pinpoint transient speed
Precision machining for motor and narrow tolerance suspension parts ensure flawless linearity at full range of excursion

SVS Sledge-325D Amplifier Specs:

325 watts RMS, 820+ watts peak power output Class D design
50MHz Analog Devices Audio DSP, high resolution double precision 56bit filtering
Wide input voltage bandwidth compliant for consumer and pro audio up to 4V line level input.
High efficiency LLC resonant SMPS with 17A 650V MOSFET, resonant switching results in lower EMI and highest efficiency.
Cool-running Class D amplifier switching topology with massive 34A 120V MOSFET’s
SVS BLE control app for iOS and Android contains 3 complete name-able and customizable User presets, supports IOS (iphone5 or newer or Android (4.42 or newer), 3 PEQ’s per preset, adjustable low pass, phase, polarity, room gain compensation, and control for best alignment with speakers.

Customer EQ and DSP limiter settings specifically for the 1000 Pro
Input impedance 16kohm (unbalance RCA)
Input impedance 1kohm (speaker level)
New Intelligent Feature control (IFC) user interface on the amplifier with bright blue 11 LED bar display and easy push-button controls.

SVS App Specs:

Bluetooth controlled subwoofer DSP smartphone app works with iOS, Android and Amazon operating systems.
Easiest and most convenient way to adjust crossover frequencies, parametric EQ, polarity, room gain and all other bass management functions.
Three convenient custom presets allow for perfect tuning in any room or system, from your favorite seat.

Unique bidirectional feedback shows adjustments in real time on both app and subwoofer interface.
Easy-to-follow tutorial provides clear guidance for all functions.

Accessories:

Protective non-resonant extra-thick ABS fabric mesh grille
Iso-elastomer feet included
2 Foam port tuning plugs

Extra heavy-duty, high current 6-foot power cord
Quick Start Guide

Pros and Cons

Pros

crisp detailed bass
good control and responsiveness
app control
good bass at lower listening levels
easy to tune

Cons

size could be an issue

Something to Consider when looking at the PB-1000 Pro is to measure the space where you plan to put it, it has a rather beefy cabinet. It. is significantly deeper and taller than the sealed version so that is certainly something to consider. Also, Similar to what I mentioned in the SB-1000 Pro review, I think that the PB-1000 Pro suffers from a similar issue, the price tag, being $699.00 U.S. is a lot to swallow until you hear the sub in your system. Neither of these subs are overpriced, but when you see price tags nearing a grand for what is the entry-level option it can seem high, however, ultimately good sound comes at a price and good subwoofers are not cheap, they are large drivers, require sturdy cabinets and a lot of power. If you want to get the most for your money you don’t want to cheap out on any part of the subwoofer or you will get subpar sound quality.

Associated Equipment

2.1 System

Marantz SR7009 Pre Amp
Mcintosh MC250 Power Amp
Nakamichi PA-5 Stasis Power Amp
Sonus Faber Sonetto V Speakers
Audioquest Power and Interconnects
Prosper Cables Custom Speaker Cables
Rotel CD-11 Tribute
Audio-Technica LP-7 w/ Quintet Blue
FIIO M9 (FLAC / Streaming Services)
iPhone 14 Pro

Theater

Onkyo TX-NR686
Martin Logan Motion LX-16 Mains
JBL In-wall and In-ceiling Atmos
Boston Acoustics VR500 sub (normally)
Samsung 65 Inch LCD HDTV
Streaming services for sources

Conclusion

I really like the PB-1000 Pro, SVS builds great subwoofers and this is their entry-level ported sub and it could be your last subwoofer. This is not a subwoofer you are going to feel the need to upgrade right away, granted you may want to add a second, as we found with the 3000 Micro review, 2 can really help with difficult rooms, or just adding in more impact in a theater. I think my favorite part of the PB-1000 Pro is how well it plays at lower volumes, as I mentioned I. am not a loud listener, sometimes I like to turn it up like when a composer decides canons would go great with his music, so having a sub that will still fill in those lower frequencies effortlessly and without having to turn up the sub to where it takes over the room is a really nice touch. I would have no problem having this ported sub in my 2.1 system next to my Sonus Fabers, or rather slightly in front of them. If you are looking to upgrade your subwoofer or add one to a system that doesn’t have one I think you need to audition the PB-1000 Pro and see if it is the right sub for you and your room.

For more information on where you can listen to and purchase a PB-1000 Pro click the link below
https://www.svsound.com/pages/us-dealers
https://www.svsound.com/pages/international-dealers