Has anyone here set up a system with tiered subwoofers handling different bass spectrums?


Has anyone here set up a system with tiered subwoofers handling different bass spectrums? I currently have bookshelf speakers fully crossed over to a pair of smallish symmetrically placed, force-canceling stereo subwoofers at 160Hz, and I am thinking about adding a big, ported sub and fully crossing that over to the stereo ones at 60Hz. My setup will easily allow me to do it (I have a miniDSP Flex that is applying DIRAC Live room correction to my current 2.2 setup downstream and that preamp is handling the full bass management duties right now, so the miniDSP only sees a pure 2.0 system at the moment--I can just attach the new sub to the second pair of outputs and use the miniDSP to handle this level of the bass management). Am wondering if anyone else has tried this? I am looking to improve bottom end impact and extension with the big ported woofer (looking at SVS PC-2000 Pro) since the stereo ones are not currently reaching down as low as my previous sub (currently a pair of SVS 3000 Micros; before these, I had a single SVS SB-3000).

-Ed

eddnog

Showing 4 responses by eddnog

Okay, so it seems a few people are missing some aspects of my setup here...

Firstly, the 3000 Micros are fully crossed over at 160Hz; slope is 30dB/Oct for high- and low-pass filters, and completely time aligned via REW scan/manual delay set for the speakers. This isn’t some half-assed setup where my subs and speakers are overlapping for multiple octaves. Do it right, or don’t do it at all.

Secondly the 3000 Micros are a pair that is symmetrically placed extremely near to each sub’s matching speaker, so localization is a complete non-issue and in fact imaging is significantly superior to a single sub placed anywhere. I wish I could figure out how to post images in this forum so that you can see. I actually have a paid of IsoAcoustics ISO-155 stands arriving today to really get them even better aligned with each other. Their acoustic centers are exceptionally close to avoid problems like comb filtering and poor integration--essentially, the design is meant to mimic something like Blade 2 Metas or R5 Metas (granted, I am sticking with at 160Hz crossover since that is where my room's Schroeder frequency is, instead of crossing higher which would better simulate the aforementioned 3-way speakers).

Finally, I am acquiring the PC-2000 Pro open box at substantial discount. This one will be fully crossed over to the 3000 Micros with a 36dB/Oct slope. I am trying to decide if I want to do that at 50Hz, 55Hz, or 60Hz. I debated this model against other models for quite a while and am looking to keep to a single unit. The down-firing driver of the PC-2000 Pro combined with rear-firing port will be even better protection against potential localization compared to front-firing drivers and ports, and of course this sub will provide significantly greater extension and slam than the pair of 3000 Micros do. Relieving those little woofers of this deep bass/extreme excursion frequency range will also further improve their performance up to their upper band.

-Ed

@mapman Wilson Audio's WATT/Puppy combo is a known example where the top two-way and the bass drivers are essentially separate speakers, but built to be a combination with matching crossover built in.

 

@avanti1960 Take a look at this chart:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/kef-ls50-meta-measurements-thd-vs-frequency-response-bookshelf-coaxial-speaker-png.145864/

Notice the increase in distortion at 200Hz and down (300Hz-700Hz range is what it is, no reasonable way to resolve that part) at these volume levels and up. By crossing over to a proper sub at 160Hz, I am offloading all of that from the LS50 Metas, and since the mid/low driver is the baffle for the tweeter (being a coaxial 2-way design), this also significantly cuts down on distortion for the higher frequencies as the tweeter's baffle is not experiencing very high excursion in order to produce deeper bass.

-Ed

KEF LS50 Metas. They have rising distortion under 200Hz at higher playback levels.

-Ed

@fatdaddy2 @gdnrbob please don’t confuse me (the OP) with gdaddy1; I never said anything about AI. It has nothing to do with the main topic of discussion.

-Ed