2. speakers
  3. 1237387644

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
Ag insider logo xs@2x
rauliruegas
13,103 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.
martykl
3,578 posts
 
Another quick note:

The Velodyne SMS I mentioned is a stand-alone version of the controller embedded in the DD subs described by Nick, above. I use the presets for different main speakers. Maggie SMGs are preset #1, Ohm 100s are preset #2, etc. If you rotate speakers with your subs, it's a great convenience.

Marty
More to discover