subs

[admin_exported]

was just wondering how you guys have your subs set up?? Mine seems a little detached from the rest of the system and sounds a bit out of place when the volume gets pushed a bit. A guy at audio T's told me to have a play around with the crossover thingy (oo er) and also noted that my sub was sufficient for a room my size.

Im searching for a smoother sound / integration.

Thanks.

 

[Messiah]

Just experiment with the various settings, Phase, Crossover and Volume.

Personally I play some music I am familiar with and adjust the levels accordingly until it sounds just right. I find that the volume has the most impact so try not to set it too high. It should back up your speakers and not take control of them as it were.

Once this is done I find the movie side of things is fine too.

(Too me it sounds like the volume is probably too high)

Hope this helps!

 

[Anonymous]

yeah that helps mate thanks. I only have volume and crossover though so will have a play so to speak.

Cheers

 

[up the music]

Sub positioning in room is important. A location between the front left and right speakers but not centrally between them often works. If you're using them with floorstanders which have a deeper bass of their own, you might be able to push the crossover on the sub down low enough (40 -55ish Hz) that you could try a corner position. To my ears at least above that frequency bass becomes directional. If you use standmount speakers and therefore need a higher crossover frequency, I'd tend to notice where a sub was if it was corner positioned. The advantage of corner loading though is that you get reinforcement from the back and side walls. More reinforcement as the frequency drops.
The best way to position a sub is to find something with a repetetive deep bass line, nasty drum and bass or organ music or better still a low frequency test tone or sweep to use for listening tests.
This next bit is going to appear a little crazy, but believe me it works. Put the subwoofer on the seat you listen from most. If you have a downward pointing driver or port, put a piece of wood or similar under the sub so that your seat doesn't absorb it's output.
Put the volume somewhere sensible and the crossover frequency fairly high and swich on your stereo/AV amp too. Then while your test piece is playing crawl around the floor in the positions you can reasonably put your sub without ruining the aesthetics of the room (ie where your wife will let you). Listen for the place with the strongest response. Make a mental note of the positions with the strongest response.
I'm assuming now that you also have a simple 180 phase switch. Flick that to the opposite position and do the same noting areas with a strong response.
It helps to have an assistant for the next bit (your wife will be confirmed in her view that you've gone completely mad). Put your head in all the likely positions in turn and get your assistant to flick the phase swich. Look for the deepest response you can get in your candidate spots.
Once you've found the spot with the deepest bass make a note of the phase position. Take the sub off your seat and place it where you got best response with the phase in the same position as before. Sit in your newly vacated seat and listen to some of your fave music with a decent bass component. Adjust phase and volume to taste.
Sit back and enjoy.
Points to note:-
This method is known as crawling for bass.
It is time consuming so set aside a few hours.
If you use high (speaker) level connections you can use some mains cable temporarily for this if your usual cable doesn't reach. Don't buy decent speaker cable just to sit your sub on your seat for a couple of hours. If you use a low (line) level rca phono cable for the sub and it doesn't reach either move the stereo amp nearer or get a cheap extention/adapter from the pound shop.
Do listen for bass with your head to the floor, not crouching or standing. Levels of bass response can vary hugely over the vertical plane. Try to avoid getting your body in the way of the sound when crawling.
It can be bad to have your sub against a thin partition wall. Thin walls can be made to virate and cause a nasty boom.
Have the doors and windows open or closed as you usually do when listening or watching films while doing this.
Generally speaking bass should be better with the doors closed.
Oh yes, you may need to adjust the delay time on your AV amp to account for the difference in distance between your front speakers / monitor and sub.
If things don't get better after all this, you could treat the room a little but that's another thread.

 

[up the music]

This is the first place I found for test tones, a google will turn up others.

http://www.eminent-tech.com/music/multimediatest.html

 

[up the music]

audiocheck.net looks good for test tones and an explanation of their use.

I've just come acreoss a variation on the above method for sub location. Rather than look for the strongest bass, look for the weakest position. Put your sub there then flip the polarity by 180 degrees. Never heard that before, but yes, it'd work. I guess it depends whether the bass is relatively heavy or relatively light as to which would be the easiest to use.

 

[Anonymous]

wow, thanks for your detailed response. So a another quick question (and yes i am being lazy by not playing around myself), how do i get my sub running with my music? (i have an onkyo 905). This would be the easiest way to test this lot out with some steady 4/4 house beats i guess?? And once i have done this for music would this then naturally be the best for movies??

Reason for asking is that my speakers are completely fine on their own bass wise for music (neat motive 1's) so i'm looking for setting it up to its optimum with movies.

Thanks again.

 

[up the music]

OK Essay no 2

What sort of sub / main speakers are you using?
What is the problem with the sound? Detached?
How big is the room? Shape and dimensions?

Above method should work for both 2 channel and surround. As the speaker configuration is different for the two though this can affect where best position for the sub is. If your surround speakers are small enough though (and the vast majority are) you'll probably find that the best location for 2 channel is the same as for surround.

A lot of people seem to prefer different settings for music and surround duties.

There are all kinds of nice touches that could be built into the digital stages of the LFE channels which I understand are now being implemented to some degree. Read that section of the Onkyo manual. If the Onkyo gives you presets for how the LFE behaves so much the better. Do you get a mic and an auto calibration utility?
If so use it.
Ny Yamaha is 5 years old and gives no scope for control other than a level adjustment.

Try to find the low frequency at which your main speakers are -3dB and match the Onkyo to that and the sub to max frequency. Adjust the sub volume to blend in with the mains. Then see if you have any control over the slope on the Onkyo (look for things like -12dB per octave, 2nd order, Butterworth, Linkwitz Riley etc in the LFE parameters set up). You may well not be offered that flexibility though. If you have it experiment using test tones around the crossover frequency to try to get the volume as level as possible. Look as well for Parametric EQ on the Onkyo (again, if it has it). Use this as the next stage in tinkering for a flat response with test tones.

If you have a dip in responce above your crossover frequency on the Onkyo, increase the crossover to a higher setting to try to smooth this out. If the response peaks above the Onkyo crossover frequency try lowering it.

You can later lower the subs own crossover frequency to try to cure peaks above the Onkyo crossover frequency.

Again, if you have room response problems, there's not much that you can do with tweaking the above the cure it.

Once you've got your system as flat as possible you can use that as a starting point to get the bass sound how you actually like it. If you do the above though you'll have a good idea what to change to make it sound the way you like it.

I've probably overcomplicated this. If you just accept the default settings on the Onkyo and experiment with level, phase and crossover you should find something that's nearly acceptable.
That's what most people do.

If you mostly listen to stereo rather than surround though, you could always experiment with using front pre outs or front high level outs to feed the sub its signal.

There I go complicating it again.

Read, experiment, relax with music or movies and a cup of tea and enjoy.