Eh hem!...Subwoofers... What do ya know?


Subwoofers are a thing.  A thing to love.  A thing to avoid.  A misunderstood thing.  

What are your opinions on subwoofers?  What did you learn and how did you learn it? 


128x128jbhiller
richmos,

I had Duetta Signatures some years ago and they were really something special. They were very current-hungry and I ended up buying a Krell amp to feed them. They also liked lots of space behind them, but the sound was unmatched.
" How would you determine crossover frequency and gain with less than four subwoofers?"

Buying a sound meter is a good idea, sub woofer(s) or not.

You can determine when the bass starts to drop off from your mains, IN YOUR ROOM (not factory data sheet, that is 'roomless'.)

Use meter to find the best trouble free location of your mains first, then, get the answer when they start to lose bass, use a bit below that as a starting point for the sub crossover, then use your ears.

It's like an old carbureator, you have to adjust two factors (air/fuel mixture and idle speed) with each other, not separately.
Do you have any experience using the Crawl Test for anybody locating less than four subwoofers?


This is the one where you put a sub in the listening spot and walk or crawl around looking for where the bass is best, and that's where you put the first sub. So there's your answer. Because the first step is simply repeated again and again until you run out of subs. 

I did try this and unsurprisingly all the best bass was in the corners. Which anything else would have been a surprise. Bass is always stronger near the walls than out in the middle of the room. No wonder when Tim did this he wound up with speakers in the corners. But that's not hardly even the point. The real point is Tim has great, awesome, impressive, bass that continues to please after many years, and with both movies and music. He does move his chair for music but that only goes further to emphasize the point that having a DBA means having great smooth bass that is not fussy when it comes to speaker or listening locations.


Thanks for sharing your knowledge. How would you determine crossover frequency and gain with less than four subwoofers?

Same as always- by listening! 

Oh, you can use meters too. But there's a problem with that. A really big problem. One that far as I'm concerned kills the whole idea of EQ. That being, meters measure sound all nice and flat and without regard to volume. But people don't hear like that. Really low frequencies we don't even hear at all until they get fairly loud. That's why they made the Loudness switch! Don't believe me? Look up Fletcher Munson Loudness Curves.

Got it? All those lines on the left pointed up and converging? What this says is, if you set your bass to measure flat, you will indeed be able to get it to measure flat, but you will NOT be able to get it to SOUND flat except at one volume level. Then even if you get it to sound flat, it will only ever sound really flat at that one volume level. Turn it up, it will sound like more bass. Turn it down it will sound like less. 

The only real solution is to listen. Listen a long time, and to a lot of music. Listen at or close to whatever volume level you use when you really want it to sound good. Tweak tiny amounts until you're happy. You'll wind up with a little more bass at higher volume, a little less at lower, but there's quite a range recording to recording anyway. 

Doing it this way takes a little longer and if you're one of those needs validation types sorry, but its the best we got.
Validation? Nope, If you're happy, I'm happy.
I'm interested in subwoofer variable crossover control methodology.

Thank you Miller and Elliott for taking the time.