Audio Kinesis Swarm Subwoofer Awarded 2019 Golden Ear Award by Robert E. Greene

@millercarbon 

Yes, I feel I have a basic understanding of the reasons behind the advantages of the Swarm/DBA concept.

Landing right into the "fine tuning" stage makes sense now.

So after everything is set up, I look forward to some listening comparisons:
   
1) Swarm off
  
2) Swarm on but with just one sub (one of the subs under the main speakers) powered on to simulate a traditional single sub setup.

3) Swarm on (all subs on)


@noble100 
 
Really appreciate you taking the time coming up with the experiments! 

I plan to install shelves long enough to span each wall (left, right and rear) but with a 2' clearance from each adjacent wall.
That should accommodate all 4 experiments. 

Would it make sense to experiment positioning the subs on the floor to face the floor (on tall spikes) instead of facing the wall?


Thanks,
Hans 

 

hleeid:"Would it make sense to experiment positioning the subs on the floor to face the floor (on tall spikes) instead of facing the wall?"

Hello Hans,

Yes, because you’re venturing into new 4-sub DBA territory that I’ve never been to or even contemplated. I’m willing to help you as much as I’m able along the way but my current advise is it’s likely best you experiment with the positioning and facing direction of all 4 subs until you perceive the bass as being smooth, fast, powerful, highly dynamic, detailed and natural. IOW, until it sounds the best to you.
As millercarbon mentioned, just having four well dispersed subs launching bass soundwaves into your room is likely to result in very good bass performance in your room. Your main goal will be experimenting in positioning and facing, analyzing the bass results and then repeating until you determine the optimum, or at least a very good, combination of position and facing for each sub in your room.
The good news is the subs are not very heavy. The bad news is there are a high number of combinations of sub position/facing possibilities in total. However, I’m very confident you’ll consider it well worth the effort once you hear and feel the bass results of even a good, but perhaps not the optimum, combination of sub position and facing for all four subs.
My advice is to recruit or hire an assistant as the muscle and restrict your responsibilities to directing, analyzing the bass performance of each 4-sub position/facing combination permutation and recording the results.

Have fun,
  Tim

sawdustguy:
"Hello,
I'm curious about the swarm systems and have a couple questions. First, what is the "crawl" process you mention? Second, what do you use for speaker wire? I would need a lot of it as my room is roughly 17' x 27' x 9'. "

     I ordered the Audio Kinesis Debra system from James Romeyn Music an Audio in Utah:  
www.jamesromeyn.com/

     This is basically the same as the Swarm system except the 4 subs are a bit narrower (1'x1'x28").  
The subs are wired to the supplied 1,000 watt class AB amp in series/parallel, with 2 subs connected to the amp's "A" speaker terminals and 2 subs are connected to the amp's "B" terminals.  As an overview, there will be one single-conductor wire run from the amp to each sub and one separate single-conductor wire run between each pair of subs.  All subs operate in mono mode and are fairly simple to connect.  James custom made all of the fairly low gauge and single conductor speaker cable runs required to connect all 4 of my subs at a very reasonable cost.  You'll just need to answer some questions, mainly about room dimensions and cable routing paths, and James will supply you with all the sub cables and written procedures.  You'll just need to do a little wire cutting/shortening and stripping of some of the cables.  My room is 23' x16' x 8' and I was able to run all my cables through the crawl space below

     You can google the crawl method for details but it's basically a simple and free method to optimally position each of the 4 subs sequentially that works extremely well in virtually any system and room. 
     You would begin by hooking up sub#1, place it at your listening seat and play some music with good and repetitive bass. Beginning at the front right corner of your room, you begin slowly walking or crawling around the perimeter of your room, in a counter-clockwise direction,  until the bass sounds best to you (smooth, fast, detailed, solid and natural).   Once you find this first exact spot, you move sub#1 to this spot. 
     You would then connect sub#2 and place it at your listening seat position, replay the music with both sub#1 and #2 playing and, beginning at sub#1, slowly continue walking or crawling around the perimeter of your room until you discover the next exact spot in your room the bass sounds best to you. Once you find this first exact spot, you move sub#2 to this spot.  Complete the optimum sub positioning procedure by repeating this process for sub#3 and #4.  If you have room correction, you can utilize it at this stage if you'd like but it's not actually necessary.
     The final steps required are to optimally set the Volume, Crossover Frequency and Phase controls on the supplied amp/controller.  These settings are just as important as proper sub positioning in achieving best results.  I suggest recruiting a competent assistant and taking your time to reduce setup/configuration time and increase accuracy.







   
     

I am kn the experimentation phase . I think i have nailed it . Partially of intuition and partly convenience. I happened to have a couple like new powered subs .jbl sp 150 .  Very versatile and adjustable . I went to the music store and bought the best mic cables they had. 100’ plugged into the back of my mac c46 from the balanced output 2 . Main 18” come off of output 1 . 
I found i barely had to have the subs on at all (the powered 10”). I was able to tweek my dual 18” up a bit . For some reason the new setup allowed it.  One sub is up 7’ on a heavy duty shelf above my oven in the kitchen laying on its side on a piece of foam woofer to the wall. In the other corner on the floor the second 10” on the floor on foam ,woofer to the wall behind a large oak bar area . Polarity reversed . Volume as low as possible without the sub thinking its of . I felt the cone and turned the dial until i could sense vibration in my hand . That is all . Now the airspace is so smooth its almost like you are wearing headphones but the stage is in front of you . Pretty cool i already had everything and never considered it before . 

Hello davekayc,

     Congratulations, it seems like you happened into discovering a good combination of positions for both of your JBL subs that's providing the very good bass response a dual sub bass system is capable of.  I believe the sub unusually positioned on a shelf over your oven, about 7' above the floor, may be the key to your good fortune.
     The main goal in a dual sub bass setup is to position both subs sequentially in your room at the optimum positions in relation to your listening seat.  The best method I'm aware of for accomplishing this is the crawl method.  If you were starting from scratch, this is the procedure I'd have suggested you follow for optimally positioning each of your JBL subs:

 1. Connect sub#1, place it at your listening seat and play some music with good and repetitive bass. 
2. Beginning at the front right corner of your room, begin slowly walking or crawling around the perimeter of your room, in a counter-clockwise direction, until the bass sounds best to you (smooth, fast, detailed, solid and natural).  Once you find this first exact spot, you move sub#1 to this spot. 
3. Connect sub#2 and place it at your listening seat position, replay the music with both sub#1 and #2 playing and, beginning at sub#1, slowly continue walking or crawling around the perimeter of your room until you discover the next exact spot in your room the bass sounds best to you. Once you find this first exact spot,  move sub#2 to this spot. 

4. Sit at your listening position, replay the music with both sub#1 & #2 playing and verify the bass sounds very good to you.  If it does, your subs are likely optimally positioned and you can continue on to the next procedure phase of optimally setting each sub's Volume, Crossover Frequency and Phase controls.  (Procedure for this phase will be described later.)  If the bass does not sound very good to you at your listening position, you'll need to repeat the procedure starting at step 1.

     The above is the procedure I'd recommend, however, it seems like you just experimented with positioning your subs without following this procedure.  You may have just placed each sub at a convenient or available room position but it's very fortunate that you did, since you apparently discovered an unusual position (7' above the floor on a shelf above your oven) that surprisingly works very well in your room.  The truth is that you would not have discovered this very good but unusual location for 1 of your subs if you strictly followed my suggested crawl method.  You got very lucky because this is a very valuable discovery.
     If you're completely satisfied with the bass response performance of your system from your listening position with your 2 subs in their current positions, I would definitely suggest you leave them right there and buy some lottery tickets immediately.
     If you're not completely satisfied for any reason but you're okay with one sub being located on the shelf above your oven, my suggestion is to just treat the sub on the shelf as an optimally positioned sub#1.  You'd then have the option of further experimenting by treating the sub behind your bar area as sub#2. You could then follow my procedure starting at step#3.  Just place sub#2 at your listening position with both sub#1 & #2 playing and walk slowly around the perimeter of your room and find an exact spot where the overall bass sounds the best to you.  This spot may be behind your bar area or the bass may even sound better, from your listening position, with sub#2 located at a different position in your room.  Only a bit of experimenting and listening from your listening position will let you know for sure.
     I hope this was all clear to you and helped a bit.