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Swarming!

Hi folks!

Hope everyone is doing well.

I just got my Swarm Distributed Subwoofer Array from AudioKinesis hooked up.

Wow!

Pre Swarm setup:

Office (10 x 14 minus closets):

Amp: Hegel H190 integrated, Bryston P26 preamp, Ampzilla 2000 Second Edition monoblock amps
Speakers: KEF LS 50 non wireless, Ologe 5, Magnepan LRS


So two subs arrived yesterday (Saturday).

With two subs and the Dayton amp, I first hooked up one sub in various positions on the floor.

Listened to a variety of music.
Played around with the gain.
After four crawls and two more "just to confirm" crawls, I located and left Sub 1.

I’m still a newbie here so apologies in advance if the proper terminology escapes me when I try to describe all the ways everything (not just the bass) just sounds a lot better.

While it sounded better than three other subs I tried, the bass got less clear soon after the gain was up enough to hear the sub and especially when I moved around the room.

Now, with Sub 1 optimally (for now) placed, Sub 2 took the rest of the evening.

Sub 2 is ceiling facing (3" clearance from the ceiling) on a long shelf behind the listening position.
Spent a few hours sliding it left and right, flipping it over to fire the port in the opposite direction, etc.

Flipped it three times.
My back was starting to complain when I first got it up on the shelf. These things are heavy and awkward to remove from a high shelf when flipping over, not to mention the heart stopping, lose balance or grip on the sub, close call moments!

Decided to leave it in the corner where the shelf meets the right wall with the port facing the corner and wait for the other subs.

The improvement, though not significant, was more than noticeable at my listening position.
The improvement started to get significant when I rolled my chair around the room or got up and walked around.

Things sounded pretty good in more areas of the room.
I heard more quality out of the newly added quantity of bass.

The other two subs arrived today.

Duke at AudioKinesis suggested varying the heights of the ceiling facing sub(s) if possible as this will affect the vertical plane.

So,...

Subs 3 and 4 are also ceiling facing with a 6" clearance located in the left and right front corners of the room.
They are perched on steel wire shelving units allowing for one inch height increments. The added storage space with the shelves is a huge bonus!

Turned the music back on a little while ago.

What a mind blowing experience!
While the LRS made the room seem bigger, with all four subs firing, the Swarm seemed to add body, intensity and dynamics to the "bigger room".  Just about anywhere in the room.

I can raise the gain much higher and actually enjoy the clarity and evenness in the added bass.
Bass is not lost at low volumes. I can actually hear more details in the bass without needing to raise the volume.

Absolutely love the LRS! Thought the bass was pretty good. Didn’t hit like the LS 50s but seemed more than adequate.
But after a satisfactory gain setting and listening with the Swarm added, I got up and turned the gain all the way down and listened to just the LRS.
The Swarm added such a high quality and intense "kick" to the low end that just went away.

This got me out of my chair again to bring the gain back up.
A remote for the Dayton sure would be great!

I just can’t imagine listening to my system without this really cool subwoofer solution!

Limited to a small room?

Yes, there are four sizeable subs and an additional amp to place.
I thought there was no way that would work in such a small 10’ x 14’room.

Why four subs?
For anyone not familiar with the Distributed Bass Array concept, search through these threads.
There are numerous postings on this by some really knowledgeable people. (millercarbon and noble100, especially)

With three of the subs up high, the fourth sub is the only additional piece taking up floor space.

It’s been only about 2 hours listening with the Swarm in place.
With just the first sub placed via crawling and the other three just put in place, everything sounds like my system had a major upgrade!

It’s actually quite shocking! Seriously.

Excited to experiment with the subwoofer heights, different amps and also with the LS 50s and Ologe 5s.

Kodus to Duke at AudioKinesis for building such an effective, simple and flexible subwoofer solution!

These things actually look pretty cool too! Zero WAF issues!


Stay safe and healthy everyone!

hleeid
hleeid OP
219 posts
 
Well it certainly improved my sub million dollar LRS, LS50s, Ologe5s, B&W Matrix 801S2s and now my new Harbeth SHL5+40ths.
A Harbeth 40.2 review in The Absolute Sound pointed out that while this speaker does not need subwoofers, it will greatly benefit using them because of it’s really good bass response.
I am still just wrapping my head around how the DBA does what it does.
But it makes sense that the quality of bass response in a speaker will only be augmented by a DBA (or any subwoofer configuration).
Trash in trash out?
@noble100 - Nice to hear from you!  Thought you went elsewhere.
noble100's avatar
noble100
2,419 posts
 
Hello all,

You all know my excellent experiences with the Swarm DBA by now. I had spent an even $1 million on my system at the time but wasn’t quite satisfied with the bass performance. So, I splurged another $3K on the Swarm and suddenly my system actually sounded like a million bucks, plus at least about another $3K and tax.
I think we could describe how well it performs until we’re all blue in the face and few would believe us, it’s too good to be true. But I know almost anyone would be completely convinced how incredibly well it performs by even just a brief audition. One listen is probably worth all our words of praise combined.

Later,
Tim


benzman's avatar
benzman
401 posts
 
Ok, just got my swarm set up. Wanted to tweak my 2 channel first in the new room    27x17x10 all one room.  Set up in a golden ration configuration  Twin Dayton amps ( dead quiet) I have the 2 subs behind the listening position with the port plugs removed . Just by going by Dukes recommended setup sounds pretty good but know there is much more. Any recommended software for the IPad Pro, I phone ?  I wouldn’t mind spending a few bucks on the program if it was easy enough to use. Any songs that make your swarm really shine?  I was playing Malia and the Ozone percussion gang and it was pretty impressive. Thanks for any tipsRuss
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
That was my experience, immediately excellent results from the first haphazard placement. Tried a lot of things- moving subs (including the crawl method), reversing and adjusting phase, even tried different series/parallel to get 4, 8 and 16 ohms. Tremendous amount of work to learn almost all the difference is in setting crossover and level. Next would be impedance. Then springs. Moving the subs around, phase, etc, hardly noticeable at all. 


You can mess with apps, a lot of guys just love tech, but I wouldn't waste my time. The problem is the equal loudness curves. The lower we go the more the volume levels converge. And these things go low! What this means is you can tweak and do whatever to get perfect results by whatever meter you use, and even get it to sound absolutely perfect. At one volume level. The minute you turn it down, there went the bass. Or turn it up, oh now too much. Its like you need a continuous loudness adjustment. 

Also some recordings have near zero really low bass. If you adjust levels using one of those, good luck, a better recording will blow you out. Or just the opposite, some are real bass heavy. This is not like trying to get midrange/treble right because those are there all the time every recording you can hear them just fine. Deep bass however, until you get a DBA its hard to believe just how much deep bass has been there all along, its just been in hiding. 

So what I did, after zinging back and forth pretty dramatically in the beginning (because of all the above reasons) was just let it alone a while. Listen to a lot of different stuff at a range of volume levels. Then every once in a while make a judicious teeny tiny little tweak. Lather rinse repeat. Takes a while but got to where its been pretty amazing for quite a while now.

benzman's avatar
benzman
401 posts
 
I like the way you think!!   I built this room with the idea of no acoustical treatments. Angled front walls , soffits gently sloping to a coffered ceiling , proper furniture , double 5/8 drywall with
green glue,etc. the swarm was going to be the room treatment. I am sure the amps and woofers  need a few days to break in but I can already hear the improvement to an already great sounding system. 
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