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High end Subwoofer question

I have recently stated to experiement with dual subwoofers in my system. So far, alot of fun and quite interesting. The question I'm asking you GON members is:

Based on your experiences how important is it to get a Subwoofer, regardless of the brand, that has the built in feature were the sub is first optimized for the room using a microphone were you have your listening chair and the sub uses a series of test tones to load the room correctly. I fully realize that you must fine tune by ear the crossover point and volume of the sub by ear. So, is this room optimization feature a marketing gimmick or really a terrific help in dailing in a pair of subwoofers for maximum performance? Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.
teajay
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
Since you can do this with Room EQ Wizard or another software I'd say it is more important to choose a high quality sub than to go for features. Many subwoofers are nothing more than excellent harmonic distortion generators.
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martykl
3,578 posts
 
I'd agree with Bob and Shadorne that many subs (including mine) generate scary levels of distortion. I only question whether you can hear it at these frequencies. I've auditioned the lower distortion JL subs pretty extensively - different rooms, different systems - and can't honestly say that I can hear much difference. I'll eventually replace my subs with better performers (mostly on principle), but I do question how much benefit I will hear. Caveat: You & others may well hear stuff that I don't.

As to Room EQ Wizard, it's a useful tool for analyzing bass anomalies in a room, but my version was a bit of a pain to use. I found the SMS superior and it also offers really effective PEq and crossover functions. Caveat - my version of Room EQ Wizard was -as I understand it- a custom package based on the same shareware algorithm as REQW, but as modified by a local recording studio. Therefore some of my issues may be unique to the specific package I was using.

Marty
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rauliruegas
13,108 posts
 
Dear Teajay: +++ " How important... " +++++

here are what is my opinion and experience about:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1117893153&openflup&27&4#27

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1117893153&openflup&31&4#31

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1117893153&openflup&47&4#47

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1117893153&openflup&63&4#63

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1117893153&openflup&68&4#68

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1117893153&openflup&75&4#75

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1117893153&openflup&84&4#84

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1117893153&openflup&158&4#158

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1117893153&openflup&196&4#196

I hope could help to put an additional " light " on the subject.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.
nick778
147 posts
 
I have a Velodyne DD-15 that has the EQ feature that also displays the EQ and frequency curve on your TV and allows you to test various phase, polarity, contours, volumes etc to blend with your mains. It would have been very difficult for me to have done it by ear alone and the mic and software is very accurate.

You can do the set-up for each of 6 presets (ie, music or action movies) which I find useful and for say music set the servo to produce the least amount of distortion.

After this is done, you can also put on a music or movie source and let your ear be the guide to 'is it seemless?' and still watch the frequency curve on your tv and do any tweaking.

While all this took a while, it was productive in the end. Needless to say, I like the DD Velodyne Series. The DD-15 and DD-18 have the least distortion.

And to answer you question directly, its internally EQ and other set-up features that yuo can see on you TV were invaluable.
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