I can't recommend any Zaph. Even with a high-end build there is no contact/feedback. This can be very frustrating since even simple questions have no answers.
P
+1
The price for a subwoofer (or loudspeaker) seems to increase almost exponentially
for every 10Hz further down you want it to reach....and I just don't have the $$ for that, particularly when I am not even sure my type of music - mostly rock, which usually seems to fizzle out around 35Hz - has anything down there to reproduce. And while I'm not all that concerned about the size of a speaker, an 8 cu/ft enclosure or something similar to that squatting in my living room is just too much to deal with.try transmission line speakers they are not room sensitive and deliver fantastic low undistoted bass they breath and suffer no compression throughout the frequency range.
I built a pair of AOS studio 100 about three years ago they are better than most £3000 plus speakers i have auditioned.
not easy to build but worth the effort in the end.
regards
I built a pair of AOS studio 100 about three years ago they are better than most £3000 plus speakers i have auditioned.
not easy to build but worth the effort in the end.
regards
I'm currently going through the same quandary.
I have two good (commercial) speakers that are advertised to go down to 35Hz (anechoic -3dB I'm assuming?). they are large (19l) bookshelves, bass reflex boxes. sometimes I feel that there needs to be more bass but I'm not sure if it's not just the way the music is recorded.
the room is small (3x4m / 10x13ft) and untreated. when I owned a measurement mic I measured the in-room response of my old speakers and the bass region showed a 10dB wide (~1 octave) null centered at ~150Hz.
I'm wondering if a mono sub would fix anything?
I have two good (commercial) speakers that are advertised to go down to 35Hz (anechoic -3dB I'm assuming?). they are large (19l) bookshelves, bass reflex boxes. sometimes I feel that there needs to be more bass but I'm not sure if it's not just the way the music is recorded.
the room is small (3x4m / 10x13ft) and untreated. when I owned a measurement mic I measured the in-room response of my old speakers and the bass region showed a 10dB wide (~1 octave) null centered at ~150Hz.
I'm wondering if a mono sub would fix anything?
That would sure suck the life out of them! That's the region were most of the bass lives. You might have to go with the multi-sub technique to overcome that. Or maybe one sub playing in the same range placed carefully in the room.
I think I've found a fundamental problem in my speaker setup that prevents me from getting bass... My speakers are 8"-12" from the wall, about 9' apart. The only place where I got good bass is directly in the middle of them, let's say at a distance of 10'. Everywhere else in the house, bass is non-existent. I just discovered that when I get out of my listening room (the whole floor is irregular open space), i'm always in a diagonal position from my speakers. There's always a speaker that's closer to my listening position by 7'-8'. That creates a complete wave cancellation in the bass area around ~75Hz or so. I tried unplugging one of them and bass response was way more consistent all around the place.
Because of physical limitations, that is windows, furniture, etc. I cannot really put them elsewhere. This explanation means that even if I put huge speakers that delivers big bass, it will still cancel completely when I'm not in the perfect listening spot.
Now the problem is explained, yeah! A solution is needed now... It seems that having a single source for bass will prevent wave cancellation. A single subwoofer seem the automatic choice. I was thinking of a sub with line-input that has a 80Hz high-pass line-output, so my now called "satellite" speakers won't reproduce those frequencies that cancels out and the sub will take care alone of whatever below 120Hz-80Hz or so.
Am I too simplistic? Seems almost too simple as an explanation but hey, I tried with either speaker unplugged and bass is now propagating.
Any suggestion for a DIY sub? Should I switch to the "Sub" section of the forum and consider this thread over?
Thanks,
Martin.
Because of physical limitations, that is windows, furniture, etc. I cannot really put them elsewhere. This explanation means that even if I put huge speakers that delivers big bass, it will still cancel completely when I'm not in the perfect listening spot.
Now the problem is explained, yeah! A solution is needed now... It seems that having a single source for bass will prevent wave cancellation. A single subwoofer seem the automatic choice. I was thinking of a sub with line-input that has a 80Hz high-pass line-output, so my now called "satellite" speakers won't reproduce those frequencies that cancels out and the sub will take care alone of whatever below 120Hz-80Hz or so.
Am I too simplistic? Seems almost too simple as an explanation but hey, I tried with either speaker unplugged and bass is now propagating.
Any suggestion for a DIY sub? Should I switch to the "Sub" section of the forum and consider this thread over?
Thanks,
Martin.
Quite a lot years ago, a friend asked for advice on buying a good CD player. I recommended one of the Marantz range as being good value. It might have been a cd63, it was that long ago.
He came back and asked for more advice. He claimed he wasn't getting proper bass response. Could I help.
A site visit resulted in many surprising conclusions. I just give two of them.
Standing behind the listening sofa, we agreed there was almost no bass effect.
Crouching low behind the sofa we agreed that the bass was deafening.
A lot of room placement experimentation later, he had found all by himself a layout that suited what he wanted and what he could live with.
He came back and asked for more advice. He claimed he wasn't getting proper bass response. Could I help.
A site visit resulted in many surprising conclusions. I just give two of them.
Standing behind the listening sofa, we agreed there was almost no bass effect.
Crouching low behind the sofa we agreed that the bass was deafening.
A lot of room placement experimentation later, he had found all by himself a layout that suited what he wanted and what he could live with.
It may be worth calculating the reflections. Floor, ceiling, near wall, front wall, (and combinations).
For a cancellation, a half wavelength at 150Hz is 115cm (4'). Place a mirror on the wall until you can see the speaker in the mirror from your listening position. Now measure that reflection distance. Now subtract the distance you measure directly from your listening position to the speaker, to see if you can find 115cm.
You can use woofers to change these reflections but it is better to work on them by room placement first.
@canonnica,
It may not seem intuitive, but try to think of your bass as spreading to fill the room rather than reaching out like a ray, the way that higher frequencies might. Bass tones normally play long enough to reach around the room before we really hear them. By this time the room has had its influence.
So imagine the room as a collection of modes. Modes affect both the speaker and the listener.
so what do you then when there is practically no window for placement due to a small room and common sense considerations? I'm at the place where WAF becomes PAF (personal acceptance factor).
OK then
Well, equalising is not a good choice. You may be able to put some absorption around the speaker and make it look reasonable. Or you can focus on getting your bass right and the upper bass may not be so bad.
You said you might use a subwoofer. I think that is worth a try. It is better to do this with a mic but I'll run through the options so you can try it without a mic.
Try the sub in as many places as you are able. A corner may be a good place but it depends. Often one location will be best for some frequencies but not others. Adjust the phase. Adjust the low pass filter on the sub. Do not put a lower crossover on your mains.
If you can get the low bass to sound good but the upper bass isn't blending well, experiment with a small amount of foam in the main speaker bass reflex ports.
Well, equalising is not a good choice. You may be able to put some absorption around the speaker and make it look reasonable. Or you can focus on getting your bass right and the upper bass may not be so bad.
You said you might use a subwoofer. I think that is worth a try. It is better to do this with a mic but I'll run through the options so you can try it without a mic.
Try the sub in as many places as you are able. A corner may be a good place but it depends. Often one location will be best for some frequencies but not others. Adjust the phase. Adjust the low pass filter on the sub. Do not put a lower crossover on your mains.
If you can get the low bass to sound good but the upper bass isn't blending well, experiment with a small amount of foam in the main speaker bass reflex ports.
8-12" from the wall will be bad no matter what. Your only option there is satellites that have no bass (or mid-bass for that matter) very carefully coupled with a sub.
A single source for bass applies outdoors, not where boundaries are involved, ie in a room. This is just the foundation, frequency wise, of this entire conversation. Low frequencies are omnidirectional they say. Then the reflections and standing waves show up. Very soon. More woofers, thoughtfully dispersed, are what works. Or live in a tent, with real musicians.
I'm starting to see why, for music playback, so many picky audiophiles will only use small standmounts that only reach to around 80Hz: correct me if this is wrong but limiting bass output to that region helps eliminate the problems being discussed in this thread.
This is also why I think such people - if they have just recently entered this hobby - think that large speakers i.e. those equipped with woofers 8" and larger, sound sloppy, boomy or otherwise "unmusical". That's too bad because if that is what they heard, then unless the room was really impossible to deal with (this does exist), IMO then that just means the system was not configured correctly.
This is also why I think such people - if they have just recently entered this hobby - think that large speakers i.e. those equipped with woofers 8" and larger, sound sloppy, boomy or otherwise "unmusical". That's too bad because if that is what they heard, then unless the room was really impossible to deal with (this does exist), IMO then that just means the system was not configured correctly.
Try setting up your system to play music in a style you think is good.
Now switch the source to male and female spoken voice.
Do the voices remind you of people actually speaking to you.
This is quite a severe test, but it does show up High Q in the bass response very easily.
It can take a lot of effort and re-design to make spoken voice sound right.
When you have achieved that goal, go back and hear whether the music reproduction is still up to the standard you expect. Getting both right is not trivial.
Now switch the source to male and female spoken voice.
Do the voices remind you of people actually speaking to you.
This is quite a severe test, but it does show up High Q in the bass response very easily.
It can take a lot of effort and re-design to make spoken voice sound right.
When you have achieved that goal, go back and hear whether the music reproduction is still up to the standard you expect. Getting both right is not trivial.
Member
Joined 2009
what is the room size? carpets, amount of furniture? any treatment? speaker placement?
this is the in-room response of my old speakers, as measured with ARTA a few years back.
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