Subwoofer slam vs boom

I noticed the slam in my system vastly improved when I switched to a different amp in my woofers. I used to use IRS Betas with Adcom monoblocks and they had some good bass, but then I upgraded to the IRS V, which have a 2,000 watt amp in each tower. I believe that they are digital amps. Slam galore. Since it uses the same drivers as the betas and 12 woofers vs. 8, the biggest change was the amp. When listening to a bass cascade on Without Me from Eminem's The Eminem Show, it actually felt like I was falling. And on track 3, well, there is some slam. I must put a lot of it on the amp. Of course, the speakers have to be there to be driven as well, but it isn't just the speakers or the placement.

Seantaylor....I agree it can always just be your corner compared with the rooms I have integrated. Carpeting versus hardwood floors matters also. There is no one single way that works for all, as is everything in audio. That is why I also mentioned how overlapping the roll-off has worked for me away from the corner.

No matter what the cause, if someone is using a quality sub, with too much boom, it is probably a sign of too much bass at some frequency.

Richard E. Lord (REL) from what I have read, tried to designed his subs to go in the corner as a first resort, if possible. I think many people want the sub out of site, especially in Europe.

Marty if you're after slam & dynamics without the boom; check out Tom Danley's ServoDrive ... the contrabass are killer!
http://www.servodrive.com/
http://www.mindspring.com/~sdinc/pages/contra.html

The reason you have sloppy bass is probably the fact that you have so many different drivers trying to move air at low frequencies. When it comes to tight bass less is sometimes more. The less things you ask of each component, the better they can work. The first thing you should try is setting your speakers to small and allowing your subs to take over below 90hz (usually the point most preamps/av receivers are set to). You may even want to go with a single sub- the VTF-3 puts out quite a bit of bass from what i've heard. I don't know what kind of bass management capabilities your processer has but you may want to invest in outlaw audio's icbm. This will allow you to fine tune each speaker's crossover point with the subs, particularly helpful if some of your speakers produce nice bass below 90hz. Lastly, two woofers operating in phase fireing opposite each other will cancel each other out, you may want to adjust the phase of the subwoofers. Keep in mind two subs do not equal twice as much bass, the only reason you should use a second sub in a room is to account for an odd shaped room that may have some sort of acoustical imbalance (i.e. open on one end). You may even be drawing too much AC out of the wall, five speakers and two subs, plus a TV if you are watching a movie will draw a hellava lot of current. This should be easy to spot b/c your lights will flicker- turn something off!. With your equipment you should be able to loosen fillings, bowels, cement and so on, its just a matter of proper setup. Let us know how it goes-

Thanks for the help all, just pack to tinkering I reckon...

The processor has stereo sub outs, with the usual large/small speaker sizes and bass redirect and roll off. Cross points are 50,65,80,90 and so on up. The processor can be switched from one to two subs, or none.

The amp and subs share a 30amp dedicated line, with the source equipment on a 20amp dedicated line. Current "should" not be a problem, I have 200amp service to the house(renting, guess I should have asked before I installed the lines...) with an old Push-Matic circuit breaker box. New breakers for the lines.

I still am confused about the speaker settings, to me if a speaker is large, so flat to 40hz, and you set it as a large, does this speaker play stuff at 40hz, with the subs playing the same thing at 40hz? Back to what is in the .1 track.. Does this track contain the same information as in the front mains? My guess is yes, so their is no reason to have "large" speakers.

I really love the idea of the Outlaw ICBM, with the ability to tweak each speaker. I just having a hard time sticking a $250 piece of gear smack in the middle of $20k worth of electronics. The cables would all have to be unbalanced, ect. On the other hand, for $250 bucks, this is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest.

The current room does have an open corner. Stereo subs are impossible to "localize", blend in very well. Sounds silly, but it is hard to hear one sub when you have two.

Thanks
Marty