Does You Subwoofer Settings ??


Do most find that subwoofer settings are not perfect for every song you play ??

Last year went to a SVS SB16 Sub and 95 percent of songs it sounds beautiful.

But other songs has boomy sound and I have tinnitus and guess at times think it may be my hearing ...

But at times would like to get a professional in that understands all the adjustments the SVS has that I do not understand..

Do others have this issue or is it that Subs can not be adjusted for every song that is played and the way it was recorded causes this at times ???

Tried to correct title  Your Subwoofer Settings !!!

128x128harleyujoe

This starts with finding the best sub locations in your room for optimal bass, which you can do using the crawl method.

https://www.audioholics.com/home-theater-connection/crawling-for-bass-subwoofer-placement

Then after that dial the sub’s settings in properly.

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-properly-set-your-subwoofers-volume-without-sh-1506136549

Doing these things, if you haven’t already done both properly, should get you better results.  And I agree that you should add a second sub when possible because it makes a big difference, again assuming you have them properly set up.  Best of luck. 

If 95% of your playlist sounds good with current settings, don’t shake the cradle.

Crossover, phase, PEQ settings and placement should not be changed and remain constant, if your setup is correct.

For the remaining 5%, (i.e. there are many mastering technicians screwing up recordings all day), determine if dropping or raising the sub volume through your SVS phone app fixes it. What you are ’perceiving’ as boom may be just a case of the sub running a couple of db hot for such a recording.

Essentially, you should only have 3 memorized volume settings for your subs, one for very bass anemic recordings, one for hot and one for normal that you can quickly change with your app, i.e. not go crazy with the tweaking.

Other times, you could even avoid doing any sub volume changes and just use tone control/bass on your amp, if the latter is controllable through a remote.

Last year went to a SVS SB16 Sub and 95 percent of songs it sounds beautiful.

But other songs has boomy sound and I have tinnitus and guess at times think it may be my hearing ...

But at times would like to get a professional in that understands all the adjustments the SVS has that I do not understand..

Do others have this issue or is it that Subs can not be adjusted for every song that is played and the way it was recorded causes this at times ???

Tried to correct title Your Subwoofer Settings !!!

I really do not have the room for 2 big subwoofers,,LOL.

I have a Harley in there and do not want to give up that for another Sub and it really is just few songs that come up from time to time that makes me not totally satisfied and maybe best just to delete them from my Tidal selection..

I have been really thinking hard in Fall to hire someone to see if they can come in and adjust for optimum sound on what I have...Any one of you in NJ ..LOL

Thank You Again

IMO, you have already received good advice on this thread. In my case, with two large Aerial SW-12 subs, I would invoke the 80/20 rule and say that they sound just about optimum on about 80 percent of tracks that I listen to. However, I have them dialed in at just barely above the roll-off frequency of my mains, and at just about the minimum acceptable loudness, so that on many of the tracks where they are not optimal, the errors are omission (slightly less than optimal bass loudness) rather than commission (i.e., boominess). Even though my room is moderately large, I had the boominess issue with about 40/50 percent of the music I played with my former large, bass reflex speakers. Moving to more moderate sized acoustic suspension speakers (two 9-inch woofers in a sealed box) and adding the two subs allowed me to dial in a much more impactful and less intrusive bass response from my system.

Positioning and settings are certainly important, as pointed out by @soix, and moving to a slightly higher roll-in frequency and slightly lower output loudness can help (mostly) optimize the bass response over a wider range of your music collection. I am fortunate that Aerial chose to offer remote control operation of the SW-12s, since most of the time a problem can be solved by slightly increasing or decreasing the output level. In addition, I find that bumping the output up a notch or two when playing music at low volumes, or bumping the output down slightly when playing music really loud, can also help optimize the sound. In addition to the output level, the SW-12 remote also has toggles/settings (that I never use) for mute, EQ, and damping.

One last thing, look up the Audiokinesis Swarm Subwoofer System, which is a bass array using four subs. You don’t specifically need the swarm system but adding another pair of subs, or even just a third sub run in mono, may help equalize the bass response in your room.

You've already gotten some good advice but I'd try lowering my crossover frequency.