location, location, location

honda cber

hi folks,

IVE GOT BOOMY BASS!

there, i said it... aesthetics and a certain lovely blonde require my largish sub to be placed right smack in the corner of our living room--- on the back wall adjacent (by several feet) to all but one listening position. i have no sort of meter, but seat-of-the-pants tells me that i have good low-end extension, but have some peaking in the 80-on-up range which translates to MUD. the sub is forward-firing, but has a rear-firing port that is making corner placement a nightmare (which i knew it would be). i have rotated the speaker and reversed the phase over and over, but am always stuck somewhere between a lackluster low-end extension on some movies and tv, or boomy mud for concert dvds and the like (i do have a 2 channel rig in another room for more "serious" music listening). taking the crossover point down does help for obvious reasons, but too much creates a hole and ruins integration with the smallish front speakers (rt35i). i am leary of mucking with the crossover point on the avr due to threads i have read on this forum; it is set at 100Hz. turning the sub down ruins the impact and rumble, but obviously alleviates some of the booming problem. i went so far as to place a heavy pillow in the corner behind the sub, which helps, but does not solve the problem.

what do ye recommend to me?

thanks in advance,
a

fatchowmein

1. Technical solution: Muck with the crossover. You can't rely on the old setting with the new placement.

2. Expensive solution: Replace sub with downfiring and more trial and error.

3. Cheap solution (that don't always work): Renegotiate with luvly blonde.

Good luck!

wingnut4772

Another solution: get a Velodyne SMS-1 Eq for the sub but I would try sweet talking the blonde also.:p

pearsall001

Room treatments, Room treatments, Room treatments!!!!!! Bass traps, Bass traps, Bass traps!!! Absorption panels, Absorption panels, Absorption panels. Oh, did I forget to mention room treatments, bass traps & absorption panels!! You're not getting a true reading until you tame your room. Without addressing this problem you're wasting your money. EQ's can only do so much & all they do is move the room void to another location in the room where the same problem still exists. The best investment you can make. PERIOD!!!!!

engtaz

rugs, toys, curtains funiture work good a traps and absortion. Do you have tile,wood or carpet.

tonyb

You can get all the room treatments in the world and it won't help a poorly placed sub.Your rear ported sub is smack against a wall is the problem.Can you turn it sideways at least?Use it as an end table maybe?You simply have to play around with placement first,then negotiate with the blonde.Or tell her because of her demands,you have to get a new sub that will work in the spot she wants.

engtaz

tell her because of her demands,you have to get a new sub that will work in the spot she wants.

That's the ticket.

pearsall001

tonyb wrote: »

You can get all the room treatments in the world and it won't help a poorly placed sub.Your rear ported sub is smack against a wall is the problem.Can you turn it sideways at least?Use it as an end table maybe?You simply have to play around with placement first,then negotiate with the blonde.Or tell her because of her demands,you have to get a new sub that will work in the spot she wants.

Wanna bet!!!

tonyb

Don't get me wrong,room treatments are important,but placement comes first.
Try blocking the ports on your sig 3's and tell me how that works out for ya.
Room treatments can not correct everything.

engtaz

well put

Schwingding

First off, congrats on being aware enough to want to do something about it. Secondly - you're not really serious about it. I know this because you;

1. Have no SPL meter
2. Haven't told that lovely blonde to go, well you know what.

Placement is the most important factor in your room's low frequency response. Until you find the best spot for it, which you can't really know without an SPL meter, treating the situation with other solutions won't give you the most bang for your buck.

With subs, the room IS the sub enclosure. Without an SPL you can't possibly determine the true best spot for your sub. Go spend the money and get an SPL.

Room treatments come next. Then get yourself a sub EQ. I like the BFD, but there are others (some mentioned above)

If you absolutely cannot stick that sub elsewhere, she's not going to love the look of corner bass traps either. In that case, go buy a SPL, a soundcard, and the BFD and EQ the heck out of your sub. No finicky wife issues.

SPL - $40
Room EQ Wizard - free
Behringer BFD - $100
Sound card for laptop - $50
Flat frequency response graph - priceless

tonyb

Agreed,sub placement first,then dialing it in correctly,then if your still not satisfied,room treatments.You may not realize the natural room treatments you allready have in the way of carpet,drapes,etc.

honda cber

hi... thanks for replies, and apologies for the delayed response--- weekend leisure, etc, etc...

the room is medium sized (maybe 24x14x9; i dont remember exactly)... has a 3 piece overstuffed-type (literally, they are huge) sofa set, berber carpet with thin padding (that has to stay for awhile, $$$), heavy drapes with backer for the bay window, and thoughtful placement for the other six speakers... the sub is not *exactly* in the corner--- i tried to pull it away from the wall as much as possible, but the "best" apparent positioning in that corner is with the port firing directly into the corner (which, i suppose, is the longest distance from port to wall)... i have tried it in other positions (as i alluded to in my first post), but the cadi-cornered way sounds best to me in the main listening positions. i even tried it 180 from that with the port firing into the room (not the most attractive option, trust me lol). beleive it or not, but the cancellation and reinforcement usually experienced by walking around the room is not nearly as severe as others i have heard, including the stereo-only set in my den... good mud everywhere. i suppose the corner forms some sort of pseudo-horn, like the folded-horn EV bass bins i used to use for PA... hmm, they were muddy too... but LOUD

i concede that the ideal way to set the room up is with the equipment listed by Schwingding... but as we sometimes say in north carolina, i aint got that yet... i am intrigued by the behringer unit, though, as i have a few pieces of their rack gear... not bad for the bucks; not bad at all... even if the preamp tubes ARE run with 12v on the plates...............

in fact,

i hadnt really thought of eq-ing the sub. i guess since "EQ" is the antithesis of "FLAT"--- however, it seems i am not particularly in the realm of "FLAT" anyway... seriously, thanks for the idea.
i do have a spare 31 band mono eq that i could probably hide somewhere. all connections are TRS if i remember correctly, so i will have to figure out how to adapt that to unbalanced RCA without creating a 95dB boost at 60Hz... while not particularly a hifi unit, it probably wont be noticed much on a sub channel...

so yes, i am serious, in a financially-challenged, smoke-hazed sort of way... :cool:

Schwingding

OK then! At least buy yourself the radio shack SPL. Scrounge up $45, I know you can do it. Then search around for free test tones - I think the BFD forum (hometheatershack.com) has them free.

Play the test tones, record the SPL number. Chart the results and you have your frequency response graph for $50. With that you can move the sub around to find the flattest graph and truly know where your sub fits best.

Seems that almost everyone who really gets into their subs uses some sort of EQ as the last item in their quest for good bass. Behringer makes the least expensive one. Till you can get that far - knowing your sub through test tones and hand made response charts is a great step towards getting the most out of your sub - and room.

And you can say things like this "look honey, I have PROOF that it should be located here!"

honda cber

i am listening...

but can you *really* trust a meter from radio shack? i know i once bought an el-moderately-cheapo DVM from the shack that wandered all over the place... they offered to exchange but i used the store credit for something else i probably didnt need...

a

Schwingding

Heh, go over to the BFD forum and ask that question. The radio shack SPL meter is quite accurate for low frequency tests, up to about 2Khz IIRC. I have a better quality one so that I can test the full spectrum, but it was 3x the price of the radio shack meter. There are calibrated correction charts available for those really nit picky folks and the Rives Audio test CD has corrected frequency tones just for the radio shack meter. In a word, yes, it is good enough.

Sherardp

CBR huh, MV Agusta here brother. Welcome to the club, those radioshack meters are pretty darn good man.