Hello, I just joined, primarily for the audiophile products. Looking at purchasing the NHT C3 speakers for our new living room. Space is about 15 feet wide by 33 long and they will fire long ways. Space is just for general listening, music room with all equipment is downstairs, so hoping they will fill it with sound nicely. Cheers.
Mar 18, 2024
To connect the Yamaha you'll need XLR cables, which tend to cost a little more, and at least one adapter of some sort to get your (presumably) stereo RCA out into the sub. With the SVS options you only need a stereo RCA cable and two mono ones, no adapters (unless your monitors only have XLR in). You need to factor adapter and differing cable costs into your final total cost.
This is true in particular because this would be my first ever subwoofer purchase, and I'm sure I'd enjoy it very much for being a decent piece of equipment, even if someone [as well-versed in audio tech as you] claims it has obvious flaws. Moreover, I have to be skeptical of your saying that the SB1000 is over twice as good as the HS8, largely because sound quality is subjective but also because of diminishing returns. Forgive the analogy if it has no place here, but in the world of headphones, for example, I'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would claim that even a $1000+ pair could ever sound 'twice as good' as a good $200 pair. I appreciate your criticisms of the HS8, and I've taken them into consideration (I'm not joining the drop; I'll look at more alternatives before making a purchase), but, without intending to offend, I must say that you sound like an SB sales rep, haha.
Similarly, if the sub can't make the volume, your "monitor" is just too "dim" to enjoy, or even notice at all in a lot of its professed range. Once you realise this, the only solution is to replace it completely, so the most frugal option is to buy the right thing first off. What the right thing is depends on what you want to play through it, how much room volume you want to sacrifice to the bass gods, and how big your room is. The HS8 doesn't sound like it'd be the "right" thing for anyone, really. The "Studio" part of the name is largely ruled out by the ported design choice, and the "Sub" part by the fact it doesn't produce much actual sub-bass. And then it's only 150W, which puts a low cap on your maximum SPL and severely limits your ability to try to EQ it upstream for better performance.