Top notch speakers with their own sub

Hey Duke (or anyone else who cares to comment) - Is a flat response always necessarily an ideal target? I can understand addressing major dropouts at the sweet spot, certainly. When we go attend a concert the folks on the mixing board aren't getting a flat response from the room, are they? So if we're just talking about bringing the intent of the sound engineer / producer's work into our listening room with the least coloration/distortion, I expect that would lean towards the flat response, but could that also, for any reason, tend to sound any more or less engaging than a response that is more typical of most rooms (ie peaky)? Just curious what your take on that might be. Certainly if the Planetarium system speaks to this end it is a very convincing voice for that approach. I just wondered if that was the ultimate goal, or is that only a shade of something broader in what you are trying to achieve? What occurred to me as extraordinary about what you've achieved, at least in the room I heard, was a very natural and seamless integration of the low-end that did not call attention to itself as such, it was simply there at one end of the spectrum, yet was unmistakable as such. What I've objected to in some other approaches is that you become very aware of the low end to where it becomes distracting. I don't know whether this is due to overemphasis, room nodes, or some other imbalance. So is a flat response always the goal? Or?

Discussion on sub equalization and placement going on today is precisely the reason I hesitate straying from the mainstream speaker establishment. Now I have more plausible theory as to why major speaker manufacturers don't want to package non-integrated subs with their main speakers for music listening just yet. The technology is not sufficiently developed. Secondly, the idea of having 4 sub is quite intrusive, one way to get into major fight with your wife. Oh well, back to square one for me! But then the Prelude MTS is not bad at all really.

Jax,

Killing the nodes bewteen 50hz and 150hz makes a HUGE difference IME. Getting flat in-room response in this range is really worth some effort and -IME- it will take some effort. I use bassbusters for the octave above 80hz - which works very well - and active PEQ below. In addition to much improved impact, weight, and "punch", the midrange sounds cleaner. Really flat response in this region also allows a more seamless integration of mains and subs - if you're crossing this high. My rule of thumb, cross where it's flat. The bass will seem to be a natural part of a seamless whole - it won't "stick out" at all. At least, not to me.

Below app 50hz, the whole excersize becomes a lot more subjective - IMHO. Again, weight is impacted as is, to my surprise, soundstaging. I'd heard people make this claim before, but I was doubtful - it wasn't intuitive. As it turns out, getting it right down low allows deep bass notes to "bloom" and expand in a way that feels natural and seems to define a larger space. To my ear, there's a decently broad band around truly "flat" response that achieves this result. I chose to extend flat in-room response to 25hz because it measured well and sounded great. Other folk's MMV.

Marty

BTW I currently use a pair of 12" Rythmik subs which require much less EQ than the 8" Velodynes.

Jax2 writes:
>Hey Duke (or anyone else who cares to comment) - Is a flat response always necessarily an ideal target?

The goal is flat on-axis response with a gradual directivity increase (or decrease in total power response). Your ears take a few cycles to pick up low frequencies so total power response comes into play more there although there seems to be some time domain component with steady-state measurements being an incomplete approximation.

Floyd Toole and Sean Olive at the Harmann Group have done studies on this with blind listening and their computer controlled speaker mover. The preferences hold regardless of listeners preferred musical genre, country of origin, and experience/training in critical listening.

>What I've objected to in some other approaches is that you become very aware of the low end to where it becomes distracting. I don't know whether this is due to overemphasis, room nodes, or some other imbalance.

It's the room and speaker+listener placement. Peaks really over-whelm the music. Placement too close to boundaries increases the whole bass spectrum. In-phase bass signals in the music add +3dB to total power response at high frequencies but +6dB at low enough frequencies. The room has up to 12dB/octave of gain below its fundamental resonance.

Reducing modal problems and room/boundary gain does a lot for natural bass which is like music as opposed to some fast, slow, tubby, or thin approximation that's noticeable and distracting.