Actually Ive been doing this constantly. I live in a split, and the speakers are on the lower floor. They are against one wall and the greatest bass pressure is around 7 feet away opposite the speakers at the stairs. If I walk up the stairs, the bass kinda disappears, and if I go up the next staircase which is the floor over the bass room, the bass is present, but not strong. It seems like the stairs catches , then cancels all the best wavelengths. The wall behind the speakers is the garage, and thankfully the bass doesnt go in that direction. I think thats due to the design of the cabinet directing the bass where it should go. Its probably more likely that the drivers are terribly inefficient, but it will be while before I can afford a pair of $350 drivers. 🤷♂️
I suspect its possible that the bass can be greater and far reaching in an open space. So what I will try is to move the speakers to the narrower far end of the room where the couch is and try it that way.
Ok weird things going on.
So I moved my speakers to the end of the longer side of the room instead of the side. They were separated, and I immediately could hear the dead zone in between. So now Im trying to go back to the basics. I checked the phasing first for all 4 speakers.
So I put them together, and the bass was still clipping, but was a little better. Just not 2400 watts better. and as soon as I walked away from the stack to the back of the room the bass disappeared.
Then I walked to the side of the stack and THATS where all the bass was. And I could hear WHY the bass is peaking the amp. (Still not 2400 watts worth, but its more) So I spun the cabinets 180 degrees with the drivers firing against the wall. Then I got more bass and sound pressure that way, that actually worked better at the other end of the room. But I walked to the side of the cabinets again and most of the bass is still there, at 90 degrees of the drivers.
Pretty much the same as my old smaller JBL 18" cabinets. Im going to turn them sideways and see what happens. First with the drivers firing at each other then away, then both to the left.
Im also wondering if the carpet in this room is part of the problem. Its somewhat thick carpet, but its laid over concrete foundation. Dont know if the carpet could be absorbing some sound there, or at least enough create a problem.
My sunroom has much thinner carpet, but Im hesitant to setup in there because its all windows, no real walls. Might have to just disturb the neighbors. Maybe Ill try the garage. Its surrounded by concrete walls.
So I moved my speakers to the end of the longer side of the room instead of the side. They were separated, and I immediately could hear the dead zone in between. So now Im trying to go back to the basics. I checked the phasing first for all 4 speakers.
So I put them together, and the bass was still clipping, but was a little better. Just not 2400 watts better. and as soon as I walked away from the stack to the back of the room the bass disappeared.
Then I walked to the side of the stack and THATS where all the bass was. And I could hear WHY the bass is peaking the amp. (Still not 2400 watts worth, but its more) So I spun the cabinets 180 degrees with the drivers firing against the wall. Then I got more bass and sound pressure that way, that actually worked better at the other end of the room. But I walked to the side of the cabinets again and most of the bass is still there, at 90 degrees of the drivers.
Pretty much the same as my old smaller JBL 18" cabinets. Im going to turn them sideways and see what happens. First with the drivers firing at each other then away, then both to the left.
Im also wondering if the carpet in this room is part of the problem. Its somewhat thick carpet, but its laid over concrete foundation. Dont know if the carpet could be absorbing some sound there, or at least enough create a problem.
My sunroom has much thinner carpet, but Im hesitant to setup in there because its all windows, no real walls. Might have to just disturb the neighbors. Maybe Ill try the garage. Its surrounded by concrete walls.
try running one in opposite polarity so as to create a "push pull" that may also allow your subs to be separated likely to opposite walls and move the pressure zone from 90 to on axis (this is the simplest form or primary building block of bass arraying)
and decouple them from the floor, concrete sucks bass like a sponge.
and decouple them from the floor, concrete sucks bass like a sponge.
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That suggests the drivers are actually out of polarity with each other which will cancel most of the output.
Stop right here and do a test. Get a 9v battery and while touching it to the terminals on the box or with a bare wire test cable note which way the driver moves with battery positive on what you think is driver positive. If the driver moves out then the cab and cable are wired correct but of the driver moves in then either cab or cable is wired incorrectly. Test both boxes and cables.
I did the 9v battery test, both the drivers moved out and not in, so theyre phased correctly.
Now what I did was turn the cabinets to point the drivers at each other, and now the bass is actually reaching the end of the room. Its still peaking early but the drivers are working, I can see the excursion happening. Still doesnt seem like 2400w, but I guess this is as good as Im going to have it with these drivers.
I might need you to clarify this as when I separated them and flipped the phase on one, the bass went away. I looked for bass arraying online and couldnt find much, Ill have to keep looking.
Keep in mind this system was built to work on a concrete floor in a pavilion like any other DJ setup, so I have to work it for that.
What you are experiencing are the effects small rooms have on low bass reproduction, this will always be something of a problem indoors so experimentation such as you are doing will be necessary to find the best location for the subs. One trick you can use is to put a sub in the location you want the most bass and then walk around the perimiter of the space to find where bass is the loudest, that is where the subs should go.
I think I found the issue. After moving the subs around, on top of each other, and only getting the same results with them firing at each other, I tried a tone generator to see which frequency they respond to the most, it’s 56Hz.
As I’m moving the sub around I’m trying different songs until I put on one with much lower bass notes, and only those notes really hit hard. which is what made me try the tone generator.
Now I’m at a loss because it seems the bass frequencies for the music I need are too high to be represented by these subs. But I also know that not one bass cabinet can do low subs and low mid, you usually need two different cabinet types and crossover frequency cutoffs for that.
So unless someone has any different ideas, I think my next step is to find cabinets that will work better from like I guess 60-150?
Update just in case anyone was curious.
I have switch alot of things around and got the sound I was looking for. My rig has changed and I found out the issue with my lack of bass.
First, of course as I was told by you guys, the soundtown subs were too lightweight and were popping under the drive of a real amp.
Second, I had the QSC 2450 clip limiter switch on the subs which made sure the amp didnt blow them. Someone with extensive experience with the 2450 reminded me to look at this. I had completely forgot I put those switched in.
I have since been lucky enough to acquire someone's late 90s PA systems that were in storage, for only $200. Most components of which I have sold off including much of the equipment I mentioned in this thread.
I have since hooked up a Crown Macro-Tech 2400 for the subs and bought two 1000 watt RMS subs to handle the amp and the box volume. So far so good.
(Theyre still cheap subs though, maybe Ill save up for Eminences next year)
I put a Driverack PX in the mix and ditched all of the other crossovers, EQs and such. This thing is a godsend. Got it for $100.
I put a DBX 482i Maximizer in the mix as well.
In the midst of old rig junk I picked up, was a half working JBL SF15 full range speaker. It sounded like a speaker in moist storage but still sounded better than my older JBL G-734 that I ran with it, so I threw the JBL away and got a set of JBL MP215 and these REALLY compliment the subs well. So the G-734s are going to get sold (People actually want these...)
I also got a DBX 3BX III out of the old rig and sold it right away, but that brightened up the sound to a point where Im stupidly considering getting the 3BX II on ebay, which is 1/3 of the price I sold the 3BX III for.
Just in case the Crown craps out, I also have a QSC PLX 2402 that I can use alongside the QSC RMX-2450.
I have switch alot of things around and got the sound I was looking for. My rig has changed and I found out the issue with my lack of bass.
First, of course as I was told by you guys, the soundtown subs were too lightweight and were popping under the drive of a real amp.
Second, I had the QSC 2450 clip limiter switch on the subs which made sure the amp didnt blow them. Someone with extensive experience with the 2450 reminded me to look at this. I had completely forgot I put those switched in.
I have since been lucky enough to acquire someone's late 90s PA systems that were in storage, for only $200. Most components of which I have sold off including much of the equipment I mentioned in this thread.
I have since hooked up a Crown Macro-Tech 2400 for the subs and bought two 1000 watt RMS subs to handle the amp and the box volume. So far so good.
(Theyre still cheap subs though, maybe Ill save up for Eminences next year)
I put a Driverack PX in the mix and ditched all of the other crossovers, EQs and such. This thing is a godsend. Got it for $100.
I put a DBX 482i Maximizer in the mix as well.
In the midst of old rig junk I picked up, was a half working JBL SF15 full range speaker. It sounded like a speaker in moist storage but still sounded better than my older JBL G-734 that I ran with it, so I threw the JBL away and got a set of JBL MP215 and these REALLY compliment the subs well. So the G-734s are going to get sold (People actually want these...)
I also got a DBX 3BX III out of the old rig and sold it right away, but that brightened up the sound to a point where Im stupidly considering getting the 3BX II on ebay, which is 1/3 of the price I sold the 3BX III for.
Just in case the Crown craps out, I also have a QSC PLX 2402 that I can use alongside the QSC RMX-2450.