There's a lot to be said for using multiple subwoofers in a room. What they don't say is that they are invisible, easy to find space for and enhance the decor.
So I have a question as I contemplate my next stereo speaker build. I'm considering bass modules with 2x 10" Dayton subwoofers per side with a 250W DSP capable plate amp, which will sit under my current bookshelf speakers. I guess my question is, does using a speaker with deep bass and EQ offer much of the same benefits of having two subs? Were you able to EQ each side separately and come to an exceptionally smooth bass response? Did it substantially help improve the integration of the speaker with the room?
I don't mean to attack subwoofers or get into a discussion about the benefits of adding 4 more speakers around the room. Please, let's not go there. Just want to understand if others have tried this and what their thoughts are having tried it.
So I have a question as I contemplate my next stereo speaker build. I'm considering bass modules with 2x 10" Dayton subwoofers per side with a 250W DSP capable plate amp, which will sit under my current bookshelf speakers. I guess my question is, does using a speaker with deep bass and EQ offer much of the same benefits of having two subs? Were you able to EQ each side separately and come to an exceptionally smooth bass response? Did it substantially help improve the integration of the speaker with the room?
I don't mean to attack subwoofers or get into a discussion about the benefits of adding 4 more speakers around the room. Please, let's not go there. Just want to understand if others have tried this and what their thoughts are having tried it.
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I have two sets:
-Sansui AU-317 Mk1 / B&W 703 S1
-Pioneer SX-1010 / HPM-110
Very powerful bass - the house Is shaking , but very juicy, very beautiful sound. A beautiful warm sound!
I'm starting to think that subwoofers are overrated.
-Sansui AU-317 Mk1 / B&W 703 S1
-Pioneer SX-1010 / HPM-110
Very powerful bass - the house Is shaking , but very juicy, very beautiful sound. A beautiful warm sound!
I'm starting to think that subwoofers are overrated.
Hello
I have been using "subs" under my mains for years now. It's part of my HT set-up so I also have LFE subs. When I run in stereo I use only the 2 suns under the mains. It's a pair of DIY B380's using EQ from BX-63A 15" 2235's to flatten the response. It's part of an active analog set-up and is placed asymmetrically in the room which actually helps. I have a cut only stereo subwoofer EQ to help smoothed out and balance the response. It works just fine and gives me a full octave and a half of usable response to 20hz below the mains.
Rob 🙂
I have been using "subs" under my mains for years now. It's part of my HT set-up so I also have LFE subs. When I run in stereo I use only the 2 suns under the mains. It's a pair of DIY B380's using EQ from BX-63A 15" 2235's to flatten the response. It's part of an active analog set-up and is placed asymmetrically in the room which actually helps. I have a cut only stereo subwoofer EQ to help smoothed out and balance the response. It works just fine and gives me a full octave and a half of usable response to 20hz below the mains.
Rob 🙂
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The location of speakers is better set by the needs of higher frequencies and is often constrained by the needs of the mids. When it comes to bass, you might have to take what you get which isn't always good. Subs may then become the way forward. In any case, they offer better spatial distribution.
The OP especially asked to not bring the sub thing up. 🙂
I use two full-spectrum speakers without dedicated subs, with great success. The speaker placement roughly follows the "1.272 rule", so dividing the room dimensions by 1.272 gives the placement of the speakers' woofers. It seems that the midranges and tweeters are also happy with the positioning they have received.
I went with big (for the UK) main speakers and no subs.
Originally, it was 1x Seas H1252-08 + 1x 1" compression driver per speaker. Sealed box. They measured reasonably well, with an in-room -3dB point just below 10Hz. Apparently I have a very helpful room.
However, there was some upper-bass "slam"/"punch" missing, which came through well on a pair of speakers using 4x bass drivers per side, vertically arrayed.
Revisiting my system, there were some cancellations in the 80-160Hz range, which seemed to be related to vertical reflections: moving the mic in that direction changed the frequency, or filled in the cancellations entirely.
So, I added another pair of those Seas drivers, near the floor, and wires the crossovers to be a 2.5-way design, with the lower woofers rolling off above a couple of hundred Hz.
After EQing away the excess low-mid/bass energy from doubling up the drivers, the cancellations were much improved and the bass "punch" was back.
Apart from upgrading the compression drivers a few years ago, I haven't felt the need to upgrade/mess-around-with these speakers. They're great.
I do suspect I was lucky, though, in that I don't have any major cancellations in the bass with my speakers positioned as they are. Your acoustics may vary.
Chris
Originally, it was 1x Seas H1252-08 + 1x 1" compression driver per speaker. Sealed box. They measured reasonably well, with an in-room -3dB point just below 10Hz. Apparently I have a very helpful room.
However, there was some upper-bass "slam"/"punch" missing, which came through well on a pair of speakers using 4x bass drivers per side, vertically arrayed.
Revisiting my system, there were some cancellations in the 80-160Hz range, which seemed to be related to vertical reflections: moving the mic in that direction changed the frequency, or filled in the cancellations entirely.
So, I added another pair of those Seas drivers, near the floor, and wires the crossovers to be a 2.5-way design, with the lower woofers rolling off above a couple of hundred Hz.
After EQing away the excess low-mid/bass energy from doubling up the drivers, the cancellations were much improved and the bass "punch" was back.
Apart from upgrading the compression drivers a few years ago, I haven't felt the need to upgrade/mess-around-with these speakers. They're great.
I do suspect I was lucky, though, in that I don't have any major cancellations in the bass with my speakers positioned as they are. Your acoustics may vary.
Chris
Technically, yes. Essentially I outlined the difference in answering OP question about how much success you can have that way, by defining constraints.
I have been operating three-way OB speakers in my main rig for a while now. I am not chasing the lowest octave because of neighbors (I live on one end of townhouse units). The last time I took measurements and tweaked with EQ was ~ six months ago. I've been very happy with this. I rarely listen above 75dB.
Thanks to everyone. For those of you who have tried this, have you seen evidence of one sub filling in for another? That is, do you see non-overlapping dips? Are your EQ curves identical L and R in the bass section?
I experimented with stereo EQ (I have DSP combination of MiniDSP SHD Studio and Danley SC-48. I also have subs - essentially 4way active system) While stereo EQ has theoretical advantages I found that focusing on the near field speaker performance paid bigger dividends than anything else I tried. I also found that a common EQ on both channels sounded better, and this includes a pair of subs in stereo.
I have an absolutely terrible room (don't we all). I use Dirac as well, but only when I am convinced that the system is working properly (until recently it mostly didn't.)
Having DSP has really tweaked my OCD, OTOH I now would not want to live without it - I did not always feel this way and questioned my sanity for going down this path.
AND.... treat the room.. Good luck!
I have an absolutely terrible room (don't we all). I use Dirac as well, but only when I am convinced that the system is working properly (until recently it mostly didn't.)
Having DSP has really tweaked my OCD, OTOH I now would not want to live without it - I did not always feel this way and questioned my sanity for going down this path.
AND.... treat the room.. Good luck!
I've been doing bookshelfs + sub with EQ for a long time. In every room I've tried it I've had to do a big notch (~10 dB) to pull out a room node, usually around 40 Hz. After that I get smooth / tight sounding (subjectivly) bass without room boom. I don't notice a lot of spatial nodes, though I'm sure if you go right up to the walls / corners you'd be able to notice build-up. A simple RTA or FFT of pink noise is usually enough to help find it and even things out, one could spend time with REW and sweeps but you don't have to. One might be able to do it by ear (but maybe you'd have to get used to flat bass sound first?), but a phone / tablet app will help dial it in more quickly. Be aware of how your RTA or FFT relates to white or pink noise...
Essentially, subwoofers in stereo set up are expected to help speakers with the bass notes, and lift up the experience of listening with the music taking centre stage. To achieve this, any decent dual sealed subs can do the job. If you however want to get into EQ side, you could try and achieve results but this several days of of your time finding out the right combinations of delay and eq adjustments for individual subs and depending on the maximum support your room could provide would decide how much corrections you are looking to work on. Certain dips cannot be compensated no matter what you do but it’s a trial and error method and can improve overall system performance
Me too. I like a 10"-5" WAW with a crossover at 300Hz, or a 15" two way with a horn top. Subwoofers were sold to us to sell loudspeakers against the, ummm, wife's wishes. Manufacturers couldn't sell large monkey coffins but they could sell two small "satellites" and a "place it anywhere because bass direction is imperceptible" flat black subwoofer for just as much money and a lot less material cost. It was all marketing and finance. A true subwoofer is valuable to get the lowest octave, below 30HZ. For that a large loudspeaker driven with a lot of power is required. Wives (in general) don't like those either.
It depends on what you call big, but my main system is a 10" Scanspeak 26W8534G000 in a 77L sealed cabinet and a 5.5" (cone) Mark Audio Alpair 10.3 fullrange driver in a 11.5L sealed cabinet crosssed at 300Hz. These days i use a MiniDSP flex with it and got to this result in my room (without using DIRAC). The cut at 90Hz is a room mode as this is measured from my seating position. I was planning to use DIRAC, but i don't feel the need of it (disclamier: i tuned dozens of dsp's back in my sound engineer days, mainly for high power dj setups or private hifi of others).
You can do a lot with eq, but the limit will always be how much xmax and what FS your woofer has. You can't get arround that xmax limit without going into distortion (and ultimate into destruction), and tuning way below the fs is often also not a good id. Also room modes are hard to fix, boosting it at that frequency won't help as the cancelation at that frequency also get boosted. But if you stay in that limits and make your boosts a wide boost, not a peaky one, you can do a lot with eq without destroying the good sound.
You can do a lot with eq, but the limit will always be how much xmax and what FS your woofer has. You can't get arround that xmax limit without going into distortion (and ultimate into destruction), and tuning way below the fs is often also not a good id. Also room modes are hard to fix, boosting it at that frequency won't help as the cancelation at that frequency also get boosted. But if you stay in that limits and make your boosts a wide boost, not a peaky one, you can do a lot with eq without destroying the good sound.
Also how important is to also take into consideration room gain while tuning? It would be helfuk to compensate signal at that frequency to avoid inconsistent booms, right?
Regarding using different EQ for each sub, I have a bay window on the left and open plan on the right, and this gives a 70Hz notch on the left speaker
I fill this in with the right speaker using DEQ (Dynamic EQ = PEQ with a compressor). I use DEQ so that I don't overdrive the right speaker. At low levels the response is flat, but at party levels I rely on beer to fill in the notch
Brian
I fill this in with the right speaker using DEQ (Dynamic EQ = PEQ with a compressor). I use DEQ so that I don't overdrive the right speaker. At low levels the response is flat, but at party levels I rely on beer to fill in the notch
Brian
Man I regret how I typed this. By "sub" here I meant the lowest drivers in a large speaker OR a subwoofer. I was thinking of the 10" Dayton subwoofers I'm going to put in under my bookshelves and wondering how much luck others have had in equalizing them separately to overcome room anomalies present in one but not the other.
That's my experience too. I've measured a peak close to 20 dB in one room. That's an insane amount of extra acoustical power in a very narrow band.
These peaks usually result in very uneven bass to mid balance. You end up with a sub playing too soft to avoid exciting the room mode. Clipping these peaks then results in being able to raise the overall subwoofer/bass level. If all you are left with is a couple of narrow nulls you've still fixed 90% of your problems.
It's a shame how many audiophiles then try to keep swapping subs for one that doesn't have the problem to begin with. << sigh >>
Well, sometimes these can be assisted with bass traps. The bass traps don't fix the nulls entirely, but they shorten the room ringing time long enough for EQ's to be able to step in. So, you CAN adjust, but WAF, placement, cost, etc. are all a factor. If your null is very narrow, maybe worth ignoring.