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

Hello c_morris999,

     The 4-sub Swarm DBA system requires no equalization, bass room treatments or room correction. Just follow the sequential positioning procedure for each sub, one at a time, until all 4 have been optimally positioned in the room. Once all are positioned, there are controls on the supplied amp/control unit that that are done once and effect all 4 subs equally as a group. The controls on the amp/control unit that need to be optimally set are Volume, Crossover Frequency and Phase. I can explain in detail how best to set these but it’s not relevant right now to answer your question.
     Your scenario, attempting to optimally position and configure a 2 sub bass system requires a different procedure. Best practices calls for first using the crawl method (google it) to optimally position each of your independent subs, with independent volume, crossover frequency and phase controls existing on each sub, in relation to your listening seat for each sub sequentially. Here’s a good procedure for you to follow:

1. Set sub#1’s volume control to about 50% (12:00 on the control), the crossover frequency control to the lowest rated bass frequency your main speakers are capable of producing and the phase control to in-phase (’0").

2. Hookup sub#1 and position it at your listening seat location and play some music with good and repetitive bass at a medium volume level.

3. Starting at the front right corner of your room, begin slowly walking or crawling on your hands and knees around the perimeter of your room in a counter-clockwise direction until you find the first exact spot in your room that the bass sounds best to you (solid, smooth, fast, detailed, dynamic and natural). Once you identify this exact spot, reposition sub#1 to this position.

4. Hookup sub#2 and position it at your listening seat location and, with sub#1 playing at its new position, play some music with good and repetitive bass at a medium volume level again.


5. Starting at the new position of sub#1, continue slowly walking or crawling on your hands and knees around the perimeter of your room in a counter-clockwise direction until you find the second exact spot in your room that the bass sounds best to you (solid, smooth, fast, detailed, dynamic and natural). Once you identify this exact spot, reposition sub#2 to this position.

     At this point, both subs should be optimally positioned in your room. To verify, sit at your listening position and once again play the music with good and repetitive bass. If the bass sounds very good to you and is very well integrated with your main speakers, then the optimum positioning of both subs in your room has been verified. If not, you’ll need to repeat this procedure starting with step #1.

     Once both subs have been verified to be positioned optimally in your room, this very good bass response performance in your room can be even further improved, or fine tuned, by optimally setting the Volume, Crossover Frequency and Phase controls on each of your subs individually.
To perform this bass fine tuning in your room you have 2 options:

Option#1- Do it manually by ear and to your preference by recruiting an assistant; with you sitting at your listening seat and music with good and repetitive bass again playing, the assistant can adjust the 3 available controls (volume, crossover frequency and phase) one control and sub at a time at your direction until you’re completely satisfied with the results.

Option#2- Do it automatically by running the room correction function on your subs one at a time and individually.

     For best results, I recommend performing both options and utilizing the resultant control settings that you think performs best. Based on personal experience with different brands of subs than yours, I’m virtually certain each option will result in different combinations of settings and one option will provide clearly superior results.

     If you follow my instructions above, I’m very confident you’ll be pleased with the bass performance of your 2-sub bass system in your system and room. You’ll also have the future option of adding 2 more subs of your choice and creating your own custom 4-sub DBA system that would likely equal or even surpass the near state of the art bass performance of the Audio Kinesis Swarm or Debra 4-sub DBA systems. 
     The only disadvantage of a custom 4-sub DBA is the need to set the 3 crucial sub controls (volume, crossover frequency and phase) individually for each of the 4 subs rather than once for all 4 subs as a group on the Swarm and Debra DBAs.

Hope this helped you,
Tim

davekayc:
"Most every frequency had a standing wave in a slightly different location from each other . But most landed where i had each of the rear subs. (Rear subs off )  sound right to you tim ?  Felt like i should be putting them in the obviously quiet spots . A couple spots would almost cancel out."


Hello davekayc,

     Yes, it sounds exactly right to me.  The reason there were bass standing waves, and noticeably poor bass performance at the rear of your room, was because you only had the 2 front subs launching bass soundwaves into the room if you turn off the rear 2 subs.  But this makes perfect sense to me given my understanding of the 4-sub DBA concept.
     It's important to understand that having 4 subs well distributed throughout your room and launching bass soundwaves is the key ingredient of the 4-sub DBA concept and the main reason it works so well in virtually any room.  Reaching the threshold of having 4 subs launching bass soundwaves into the room is not an option but a requirement.
     The way it really functions is a bit counter-intuitive and involves psychoacoustics.  The 4 subs actually significantly increases the number of bass modes ( spots in the room where both directed and reflected bass soundwaves meet at various angles and cause spots of bass exaggeration, attenuation and even cancellation) existing throughout the room.  However, our brains process the presence of these numerous bass modes by summing and averaging the bass information by frequency and this rather unexpectedly creates the perception that the bass is very smooth, fast, detailed and natural.  This process is referred to as psychoacoustics.
     By turning off your 2 rear subs, the overall quantity of bass modes existing in your room is significantly reduced and your brain is only summing and averaging the smaller number of bass modes existing in your room which is not sufficient to create the perception of smooth, fast, detailed and natural bass. 
     You're stating you mainly detect poor bass performance at the rear of your room with your 2 rear subs turned off.  I believe if you made a more thorough sound quality canvassing of your entire room, however, you'd likely detect poor bass performance at other specific spots in your room.
     Overall, I think you've done an excellent job of creating a high quality custom 4-sub DBA system in your very large room with seemingly little assistance.  Congratulations and enjoy.
     I'm achieving the same excellent bass quality and soundstage imaging results you described in my 23' x16' x8' room and have been enjoying it daily on both music and HT.  I think it's important that readers of this thread realize that the 4-sub DBA concept is capable of providing these excellent results in virtually any size room.  
     I feel it's also important for all to know that buying a complete Audio Kinesis Swarm or Debra 4-sub DBA system for $3,000 is convenient but not the only option, custom 4-sub DBA systems can be created using any 4 subs properly positioned and configured.  The 4 subs don't even need to be the same brand or model and individuals can buy the same 1K watt Dayton amp from Parts Express (usually for about $300-$500) and build 4 DIY subs if they'd like.

Later,

I just wanted to make it known that, in addition to Jim Romeyn's DEBRA which differs from my Swarm in footprint (his is rectangular, mine is square), Vinh Vu of Ginko Audio offers a slimmer and trimmer Swarm-type system as part of his Sextet, which was introduced at Capital Audio Fest a couple of weeks ago: 

https://www.ginkgoaudio.com/2019/09/12/introducing-sextet-speaker-system/ 

Vinh is using two of the subs as speaker stands in that system, which works very well with his patented Arches resonance-control support system.  The Arches add stability without adding visual mass, as you can see at the link above, and can be used on a regular Swarm or Debra set as well, especially if two of them are going to double as speaker stands.  Jim and I will be offering the Arches as an option. 

Just for the record, I don't get a kick-back from Sextet subwoofer sales. Vinh paid me in Arches for my design work (it was a collaboration but I did the math with the same target curve in mind as for the Swarm and DEBRA). 

Duke

@noble100 - thanks so much for the detailed and thorough response. I think I got caught up in setting up each sub in a symmetrical manner, rather than optimizing the position using the crawl method. I also tried to set them up without the main speakers running, which negated the bass output from that they provided. I will follow your guidance and let you know how it goes :). Thanks again.

Chris

@c_morris999 +1

Agree 100%!  noble100 has always been very forthcoming with detailed and thorough explanations. I now understand the basics behind the major advantages afforded by the DBA concept.  

It really does make sense. 

millercarbon is another great resource as he has built his own DBA system from scratch and is also very knowledgeable.  Learned a lot from him as well.

My listening room is a small office 9 x 11 with no floor space to spare and there was no way I was going to practically fit in a sub (let alone four of them!).  It just would not work.  I did not place an order.

Then about a week ago I read a post earlier in this thread from Duke mentioning that 2 or 3 subs can be mounted up high facing the ceiling. 
  
I called Duke from AudioKinesis (who was very accommodating and patiently spent a lot of time on the phone with me answering all of my newbie questions while giving me a mini education in acoustics) and ordered the Swarm in black finish.

Duke also explained that in addition to saving floor space in a small room, ceiling facing subs help with the vertical plane (don't ask me to explain) in most room sizes.

Duke also mentioned that the two subs on the floor (one under each main speaker) can be placed facing any direction and not necessarily right up against a wall.  

Now I can have two subs up near the ceiling and the subs under each main speaker will not take up any additional floor space!!

He said I might want to experiment with just one ceiling facing sub, one sub under each main and the fourth sub under my desk.  Perfect for a foot rest with the benefit of one less shelf to mount up high on the wall.

Now that's versatility!! 

I will post results after setting things up. Would be interesting to compare setup notes/results with other Swarm/DEBRA/Custom DBA owners using them in small (or any size) rooms.

Hans