|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
23.242.92.238
Hi, all.I'm going to be replacing a Dynaudio BM9S subwoofer in my music mixing studio and am looking for opinions on subwoofers (under $2500) that can go down to at least 25z and that have the following qualities:
1. HPF filters (or two-way filters) that are variable, or can at least go to 45 or 50hz. This is for a very specific setup/situation and I need it to be that low a crossover for the "satellites" (Amphion One18's).
2. Must have no AD or DA conversion at all. None. I don't need or want room correction software or any of that.
3. Accurate. This is for critical mixing and mastering so I need it to be accurate and to not hype the sub region. It doesn't need to be flattering -- it needs to be fast, tight, and accurate and show the subs as they are as much as possible, just like my Amphion One18s do for the rest of the frequency spectrum.
I know there will be tweaking involved with the setup, etc., but those are my three requirements. Almost all pro audio subs for some reason have very limited HPF options for the satellites, whereas audiophile subs seem to have more, in general. I look forward to any recommendations!
Thanks.
Edits: 05/30/16 05/30/16Follow Ups:
I can't imagine why you'd want a single sub in a "pro" studio, crossed at 45-50 Hz.
If you really want great sound, you get two subs, and cross them higher - maybe 100 Hz or so. And, you actively HP the other speakers.
:)
It's for a very specific reason that I'm not going to get into here - trust me, it would just cause a lot of message board madness that wouldn't change what I'm looking to do. :-)
In the majority of typical situations you would be correct, but this is a very-different-from-typical situation.
If your rationale and reasons are 'secret', then, you can't expect high quality nor useful advice.
:)
I totally appreciate your point, but in this case I actually got some great, very specific advice here that I'm taking!
How does one note that one's question has been answered to his satisfaction?
having personally heard rythmiks, i can see where one could suffice. of COURSE two are better and at the price, you can afford the two but you have your reasons.
otherwise, JL Labs can be a choice.
...regards...tr
Based on my own experience, and theory, I would also recommend two or more subwoofers. I use 2x Rythmik F12G servo subs. They are placed at the midpoints of the long wall, so they do not excite any of the odd order axial modes associated with the length dimension, and they are placed symmetrically on opposing sidewalls, so they cancel any of the odd order axial modes associated with the width dimension. If only I could elevate them to the midpoint in the height dimension, then I wouldn't have to worry about odd order axial height modes either, although that is almost a moot point in my room since I have a 7'9" ceiling. Given that subwoofers cover a frequency range where the lowest odd order axial modes dominate (100, 010, 001), placing two subwoofers smartly gets you most of the way to flat bass. Four would be even better.
Good enough. Sorry I can't be of more help, but, given the secrecy, I'm out.
:)
You might want to check out Rythmik Audio. I don't know if they have everything you want but I'll bet they are accurate.
+1 on the Rythmik
Post 22754 from Enrico from RythmikHi guys,
As I mentioned before Chris Fogel, from Hyperion Sound @ ELBO Studios in Glendale, CA got an FV15HP back in June 2015 for his film mastering studio. Today we got a second order from him for a pair of F12s for a small stereo room. He is very impressed with the capabilities of the FV15HP. So I just wanted to share with you guys the list of the movies he already mastered using the FV15HP:
Creed
Spy
Trumbo
Zoolander 2
5th Wave
Ghostbusters (still in production)
Birth of a Nation (just won Sundance)
Halo 5 soundtrack (game)
Edits: 06/03/16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHaecgoIWgI
Nice demo by Anssi Hyvonen.
Have you auditioned Amphion's matching subwoofers(US$6500)?
or waste your time tilting at windmills.My guess is this would be a good choice for you.... There are adjustments, but easily defeated - good old analog circuits - no DSP...
Now I use DSP power amplifiers (Crown) so I have complete control over my two subwoofers.
And I used measurements with very accurate instrumentation (flat to 6Hz) to set up and adjust the subs for optimum bass performance.
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
Edits: 05/31/16
Can you imagine the absurdity?
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
aspect of what we hear (imaging, placement, accuracy, timber, pace, timing, etc.) are determined my playback when the recording is mastered IN A CONTROL ROOM.
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
Equipment designed to analyze and build the recording is not the same, and not necessarily "right" for playing back the recording in the home.
Cheers,
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
So you don't want to hear music the way the artist envisioned but the way you think it should sound like?
So you don't want to hear music the way the artist envisioned but the way you think it should sound like?
I suspect the "artist" has little to do with what the recording engineer does.
I have little interest in using what is normally used as "studio monitors". I prefer using better.
You said that very well.....
Besides (likely) being not "full-range," - there's also the "amp," again, often solid state, thin through the mid-range, & harshly analytical.
Perhaps my posts should've included the fact that, (at least from my experience), There are at least a couple of stereos to test final mixes on several types of systems. Mixdowns, (IME), always get done on home speakers.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Studio monitors, and other tools, - are designed to find problems, (sometimes noise), - analyze what has been recorded.The final product is designed in the studio to be heard differently in context of presentation as a cohesive whole, not an analysis of the parts of the recording....
Before mixdown, the rough track of one recorded track may be analyzed for "hiss" or extraneous low level amplifier hum that the engineer may want to add a limiter or gate to eliminate.
A type of "studio monitor" designed for hyper detail analysis of low-level noise may be too detailed and "noisy" & not as well balanced across a full sonic spectrum to create the "illusion" of a soundstage to give the home listen the cohesive "whole" experience of being at a live event.
A studio monitor is more of a tool, than a home audio "finished" experience. Listening at home is designed to put you into a complete event, where-as studio monitors are tools designed for correcting, adjusting, analyzing individual parts of a recording.
Often, studio monitors are small foot print "bookshelf" sized powered monitors that do not deliver the kind of mid-range "bloom" and/or bass response that a home floor standing speaker delivers.
Finally, - most studios do not "mix" to the same speakers they use to analyze the rough tracks.
At Skywalker Sound, we mixed down to B&W 801s & 802s: home speakers.
Cheers,
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Edits: 06/02/16
Who are your Bassist influences? Favorite recorded Bass tone?
Abbey Road also 'use' B&W but they are getting paid to do so.
They are practically drowning in those things, there are B&W tucked away in corners, shoved into cupboards etc. Most engineers working there don't like them since they sound nice enough but are far from neutral and thus make the engineers job unnecessarily difficult.
The Magic we hear - the imaging and placement, "realism" in created by the Producer and the Mastering engineer almost always in a control room. There are products called monitor controllers where the mastering engineer will play back through various loudspeakers in the control room and validate the representation he wants the recording to represent.
Remember the microphones or electronic pickups or the syntesizer signal or drum machine do not sound real, the engineer/produc "places" them be various means in the environment he wishes to create. he can mess with the frequency and phase response to place a signal to your left or right or even behind you if he likes... even from a stereo speaker system. Now they don't really often do that. because that wouldn't match what they consider realism.
Good monitor speakers can make very good hi-fi speakers and good hi-fi speakers can make very good mastering speakers.
The JBL M2 is a current example, or the B&W 801 back in the 80's was a premium home loudspeaker that was also used by the BBC and others as a classical reference monitor.
A mastering Speaker can be designed to purpose a little better than a home speaker because the general listing configuration and room acoustics in a studio playback environment are a lot more consistent.
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
I like the old days. A stereo microphone or two microphones in a great acoustic space with proper placement. Muscians played balanced and the job of the engineer was to get the correct placement of the microphones. A spot microphone is ok if used judiciously. I despise modern recordings were it is obviously multi mic'd. It is difficult to find good big band recordings that don't sound or obviously multi mic'd. Chesky Records is one of the few that do a great job.
Edits: 06/05/16 06/05/16
n.t.
I have a customer who has a Meridian processor that has 60 programmable digital filters for smoothing out the region below 250 Hz. When he was using a single subwoofer, he had the system professionally calibrated and was using 16 of the available digital filters.
When he switched to a distributed multisub system (the Swarm), he reset everything to flat and had the technician come in again to re-calibrate the Meridian processor. THE ONLY ADJUSTMENT NEEDED WAS TO THE LEVEL. None of the digital filters were needed for the Swarm, its native in-room response was that smooth. The technician said he'd never seen anything like it.
And because of the greatly reduced spatial variation of a distributed multisub system, this smoothness holds up pretty much throughout the room. This is especially valuable for a recording studio where one of the critical roles of the sound system is "impress the client" - namely the band that is paying you - and so the "sweet spot" has to include anyone standing or sitting in the room.
That being said, the Swarm does use an amp that has a single channel of parametric EQ built in, just in case it's needed.
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
EQ can tame peaks, but cannot fix nulls.
It makes sense to seek a solution that can address both challenges.
It can cure nulls but at the cost of throwing away power. You set the worst null as a base and then consider everything above a peak. But if there's a deep null you will be throwing away tons of power effectively.
.
That was my point. It can be done but it's a lousy solution.
On the other hand, I get great results upstairs with the stats for several reasons: the room dimensions are favorable, I use a small forest of bass traps and am free to optimally position the speakers. I spent hours measuring the results of various trap, speaker and listening position positions.
While this is only a third octave plot, the results do indeed sound quite neutral.
impressive. curious what stats? did you use any equalization or just placement and treatment in order to have no room resonances showing?
It is an EQ-free environment simply based upon (lots of) optimization.
I do, however, use two narrow bands of the parametric EQ built into the Emotiva processor in the HT for attenuating a couple of peaks.
Even so, I cannot fix the 40 hz (and to a lesser degree 80 hz) suckouts. Room dimensions are not ideal (20x17) and I don't have the same latitude for placement. Even the following took some doing by experimenting with numerous combinations of high and low pass filter frequencies and sub output. Earthquake simulation is down somewhat, but most of the upper bass is reasonably flat.
Throw all the money you want at subs but if the room wont cooperate you get substandard results as you said. Room trestments and room correction are the answer.
ET
I'd agree if the playing field was equal, but it's not.
You probably have never experienced bass reproduced by a properly integrated set of dipole woofers. Room treatment is generally not required nor is active room correction nor are more than two (stereo) woofers.
(The operative word is "generally").
It doesn't really matter if the subwoofer is a monopole, dipole, or tripole. They are all omnidirectional radiators in that frequency range.
The room is not loaded the same.
It's a matter of fact; do some research. Here's a good place to start if you have the inclination: http://www.linkwitzlab.com/AES'98/aes-98.htm (Skip to section #3 - "DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS" if you don't care about measurements).
For those of us who have heard the effects that dipole bass has in our rooms, the alternatives sound like varying degrees of mud.
Bass in the 1st 2 octaves is totally Omni. You can't even locate it. If you think you can it's the harmonics giving you the location.
I've seen people tell the demonstrator of the Pipedreams speaker the bass module which was feet away from the main speaker that the module wasn't even working even though there was tons of deep bass. And the listener was standing right next to the bass module. The demonstrator had to take the grills off the sub so the listener could touch the driver to see it was pimping away.
Perhaps dipole bass is different since it radiates primarily front and rear only but I suspect that's apparent only near the woofers which is good in that it doesn't drive the room and standing waves as drastically. But I wouldn't be surprised that feet away in a listening seat the bass is similar to a monopole but with a bit less room resonance.
DEEP BASS is OMNI and unlocatable by the ear(without the harmonics)..
I think you confusing "omnidirectional" (a property of a sound source) with "non-localizable" (the inability of human hearing to tell where a sound is coming from).Dipoles are not omnidirectional. They are bi-directional.
Under normal circumstances, human hearing is typically unable to detect where frequencies below about 80 Hz are coming from. This is because the ears are too close together to detect a significant phase difference at such long wavelengths.
These are two different things. MBL Radialstrahlers are omnidirectional in the horizontal plane, yet you can hear that sound is coming from them. Dipoles are not omnidirectional by definition, see the link MikeCH posted or see what Wikipedia has to say about dipole speakers.
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
Edits: 06/01/16
I know dipole bass is not Omni. I mentioned it in my comment. I just wondered what happens listening feet away where sound is bouncing off the back wall(as conventional systems) and less bass but some off the side walls.
And I was really more concerned with claims that deep bass is locatable by ear.
Read if you wish to enlighted yourself: http://www.linkwitzlab.com/AES'98/aes-98.htm
Try dipole woofers if you aren't adverse to experiencing a paradigm shift.
The first is free while the latter will cost you.
I've heard them. A friend built the latest Linkwitz dipole. It's excellent, a speaker I could live with and I'm hyper critical about certain sonic factors. But my bass was tighter and better controlled than his bass, excellent as it was.
I see, you're talking about a true dipole, with an open baffle or with two opposing drivers wired out of phase. I thought you were talking about the fairly common bipole subwoofer configuration. My misunderstanding.
But does anybody actually make a dipole subwoofer?
A dipole bass system with two opposing drivers wired out of phase only works above a certain frequency. Below fmin, it just cancels itself. If implemented with conventional cone drivers in a box, it wouldn't be effective in the sub-bass range. Linkwitz's measurements confirm this. I think you either need a large baffle or a large radiating area e.g. a large panel speaker to achieve a dipolar response in the low bass.
The LXStudio and LX521 systems are suited for home listening purposes *and* for studio monitoring. They are true full-range speakers that do not require additional "sub woofers". Although they will provide "sufficient output" at low frequencies, they were not designed for HT LFE effects. Guess it depends on your expectations. For me, they will move as much low frequency air in my listening room that I require. (One can always double-up the woofers if more output is necessary.)
Anyway, my point is that dipole woofers excite room modes significantly less than monopole woofers and (IME) once one becomes accustomed to the quality of bass they provide in a "normal" listening room, there is no going back to listening to sealed woofers (even with a room loaded full of bass traps and DSP correction).
"Anyway, my point is that dipole woofers excite room modes significantly less than monopole woofers"
The OP states that this is a properly built out control room and should have little room modes.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
After several bounces around the room, the initial advantage dipoles have in the bass due to their directivity is reduced because all of the modes will eventually be excited. Still I concede that a dipole will generally have smoother in-room bass than a monopole.One solution is to use multiple monopole bass sources intelligently distributed around the room. According to Geddes, "the spatial variations, and to a certain extent the frequency response variations, will go down (get smoother) as 1/N, where N is the number of independent sources."
That is why, when I designed a subwoofer system specifically to blend well with Maggies and Quads (the original target market for the Swarm), I used four small subs instead of just two... in my experience, it takes four intelligently distributed monopole subs to match the in-room bass smoothness of two dipole main speakers. (In practice, thus far I have found that reversing the polarity of one of the four subs improves the in-room smoothness.)
Because a monopole can pressurize the room below the modal region, whereas a dipole cannot, monopole bass sources can potentially go deeper and deliver more tactile bass.
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
Edits: 06/02/16 06/02/16 06/02/16
The "swarm" approach recommended by Geddes (and used by many before then) has merits... and disadvantages. I personally feel that dipole bass radiators deals with room modes better because it does not excite them to begin with. It's also a much simpler approach, only requiring two "boxes" rather than six or more. Using many woofers requires a very low crossover point (greater group delay), etc. IME. YMMV.
I'm not being facetious Mike, I really do appreciate the opportunity. Lots of people have misconceptions about multisub systems, and you've just brought up several of them."The "swarm" approach recommended by Geddes (and used by many before then)..."
I'm pretty sure Earl Geddes was the first. Can you tell me who was advocating and/or using four subs asymmetrically distributed as a means of smoothing the in-room response before Earl did?
"...dipole bass radiators deals with room modes better because it does not excite them to begin with."
Dipole bass excites all room modes, some more than others.
Room modes ARE NOT BAD... and it is having TOO FEW room modes that degrades the bass in small rooms because the resulting widely-spaced peaks stick out like sore thumbs to our ears. In a larger room, the modal peaks in the bass region are bunched up much closer together (like what we get in the midrange region in our smaller rooms), so that they effectively form a CONTINUUM. A distributed multisub system essentially replicates this advantage of large rooms in the modal region. And perceptually it is the in-room frequency response that matters most in the bass region.
"[Dipole bass is] also a much simpler approach, only requiring two "boxes" rather than six or more."
In practice four monopole subs intelligently distributed is plenty, and Earl Geddes can deliver smooth in-room bass with three subs each independently equalized in the digital domain using his proprietary algorithm.
Practical dipole subs need a lot of displacement to get down to 20 Hz, and that usually takes its toll on system headroom. And as a longtime dealer of high-end dipole speakers (SoundLab and Gradient), in my experience dipole bass excels at pitch definition and clarity but is subjectively lacking in impact relative to a good comparable monopole system. In my experience a good distributed multisub system is the equivalent of a good dipole system in pitch definition and clarity but retains good impact.
"Using many woofers requires a very low crossover point (greater group delay)"
Group delay doesn't come into play as far as crossover frequency goes. What does come into play is the need to keep audible upper bass/lower midrange energy out of any subs that are located well away from the main speakers. For this reason I recommend lowpass filtering the subs no higher than 80 Hz, and using a steep slope, or using separate amps for the subs in the front and rear of the room if the subs in the front need to be crossed over north of 80 Hz.
Typical group delay in the bass region, in and of itself, is of negligible audible consequence, but its effect on in-room frequency response is of consequence. However since subwoofer + room constitute a minimum-phase system, when we fix the frequency domain, we have simultaneously fixed the time domain.
Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by "group delay" in this context?
(from another post) "Also, unlike some who have commented in this thread, I have no financial motivation."
Just for the record, my dealer and manufacturer status is disclosed in my signature so that has been out in the open all along.
I mentioned my product only in replies to misinformation where I needed to cite a counter-example. In this thread I have been promoting an idea which can be implemented many different ways.
Note that in my initial reply to Noah I offered to provide him with a DIY solution that would be within his budget. Where's the financial motivation in that? I wouldn't be selling him anything, but instead would be my spending time helping him. This is because I really believe the idea offers what he is looking for, given his set of requirements. Gosh, that's almost the sort of thing Siegfried Linkwitz might do!Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
Edits: 06/02/16 06/02/16 06/02/16 06/02/16 06/02/16
Yeah, I'll have to give that some thought.
5 edits and counting. Perhaps the 6th will be golden. :)
Ahem, yes well... I always do my best proofreading AFTER I hit "Post"...
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
I personally feel that dipole bass radiators deals with room modes better because it does not excite them to begin with.
While I agree that dipoles load the room differently, room modes are still excited. How could it possibly be otherwise? If the loudspeaker is putting any energy into the room at an eigenfrequency, its mode will be excited.
The links you shared to Linkwitz's experiments include measurements which clearly show that the bass response is dominated by modal peaks and cancellation nulls in either configuration. The pattern is a bit different, but it's hard to say based on frequency response that one is better than the other.
What's more relevant to this thread is the low bass, since the OP is looking for a subwoofer to cover frequencies up to 40 or 50 Hz. I still don't see how a dipole subwoofer could be a viable option due to the two drivers cancelling each other.
SL's dipole woofers are flat to 20Hz, so they do a fine job with 40 to 50Hz.
As I've mentioned, SL's summary section #3 clearly states the significant improvement that dipole bass radiation has on "small" room acoustics.
Until you have first hand experience with what I'm saying, please take my comments at face value and FWIW. Once you do have experience, perhaps you too can help educate those who do not.
Also, unlike some who have commented in this thread, I have no financial motivation.
Good luck to the OP with whatever solution he implements.
SL's dipole woofers are flat to 20Hz, so they do a fine job with 40 to 50Hz.
They are not flat to 20 Hz that I have seen. The measurements you linked to show a rapid dropoff of > 12dB per octave below the lowest room mode, which was at 50 Hz in the small room and 35 Hz in the large room. This is exactly what you would expect from the design.
As I've mentioned, SL's summary section #3 clearly states the significant improvement that dipole bass radiation has on "small" room acoustics.
I can't find any such statement in section #3. The closest I could find is this:
"The degree of these differences is difficult to predict and will depend upon the specifics of a room and the placement of woofer and listener. However, the dipolar source can be expected to interact less strongly with the room and will, therefore, on average convey greater detail and resolution of complex low frequency material."
But then that seems to be contradicted by the following bullets:
"* It is nearly impossible to predict the room transfer function from a prior knowledge of room dimensions, woofer and listener placement, radiator type and the room's eigenfrequencies."
and
"* No meaningful conclusions could be drawn from the steady-state room transfer functions about performance differences between dipolar and monopolar radiation."
Further, when I look at the differences between the monopole and dipole frequency response measurements, I can't say qualitatively that one is better than the other.
I'm not here to argue with you and not sure what measurements you are referring to. The woofers system used in the LX design is flat to 20Hz in a listening room.
- Response -3 dB at 30 Hz (Q < 0.5) on ground plane, free-field
The difference in my rooms between a dipole woofer system and conventional sealed woofers has always been enormous - the difference between listening to music Vs mud - especially after getting used to not hearing the room's effects, which does not take very long. While results will vary to some degree from room to room, a dipole woofer system will always excite room modes less.
"By far the perceptually most uniform response in the range below 200 Hz is obtained with an open-baffle, dipole or figure-of-eight radiating source. Because of its directionality, the dipole excites far fewer room resonances than an omni-directional source. The measured room response is not necessarily any smoother than that for an omni-directional source. But the perceived difference in bass reproduction is startling at first, because we are so used to hearing the irregular and booming bass of the typical box speaker in acoustically small rooms. Quickly one learns to recognize the distortion of this combination and it becomes intolerable."
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/rooms.htm
Whether or not any of this matters to you, who knows? Regardless, try to keep an open mind until you have had an opportunity to hear a system like the LX521. It will likely render discussions like this one moot.
I have not heard the LX521. I have heard the Orion and it was very good.
I just don't believe the claim of flat to 20 Hz though. And it seems to contradict Linkwitz's own measurements that you linked to.
I do believe the claim of -3 dB @ 30 Hz in a ground plane measurement. But an anechoic or free field measurement of a loudspeaker is not representative of its performance in the "pressure region" of frequencies below the lowest room mode. For a monopole, the free field response will understate the in-room response in that frequency range. For a dipole, the opposite is true, the free field response will OVER-state the in-room response in that frequency range.
Here's why: In the pressure region, which is the frequency range below the modal region, the longest room dimension is less than one half of the shortest wavelength. Therefore, there is no wave front and no radiation pattern to speak of. The pressure in the whole room just rises and falls. With a sealed monopole subwoofer, the room pressure increases on the outward stroke and the box pressure falls, and the room pressure decreases on the inward stroke and the box pressure rises. With a dipole, with one side pushing and one side pulling there is no net pressurization of the room. If not for air resistance, you wouldn't get any sound at all. The reason why a free field measurement is different is that the volume is infinite so there is no pressure region. In free space, the dipole will radiate a dipolar pattern even down to the lowest frequencies. That doesn't happen in a room.
If you don't believe me, you can see it in Linkwitz's in-room measurements.
Sure I have. We were Quad dezlers and did dipole woofer setups. The key is integration. But thats the key with any sub and speaker period as it interacts with its room.
ET
I'm certainly not up on everything out there in the world of 2.5 grand subwoofers, but here are some thoughts...
I don't know of any subwoofer in that price ballpark that has a variable-frequency highpass filter. It might be possible to hotrod the fixed, typically 80 Hz passive filter in a sub's amp.
Unfortunately I don't hold out much hope of finding really high quality parts in the high-pass section of a 2.5 grand sub's amp. Nor am I a fan of converting to the digital domain for high-pass filtering the mains. While it may be possible to find a truly transparent highpass filter, it probably won't fit into anything near this price ballpark. When I design speakers to be used with subs, I design them to be run fullrange with no protective highpass filter, and to naturally roll-off benignly on their own, thereby side-stepping the highpass filter dilemma entirely.
To meet the accuracy requirement without room correction, let me suggest the technique of using multiple small subs intelligently distributed around the room. I have customers who no longer use the DSP room EQ in their expensive processors after switching over to a distributed multisub system because the in-room response is quite smooth (and therefore quite "fast") on its own. This technique should give even better results in your already well-treated room. I can go into more detail if you'd like.
I have three questions for you:
1. Can you tell me why you need a 45-50 Hz highpass filter for your Amphions, as opposed to the 80 Hz filter you're much more likely to find? Is it to take full advantage of the Amphions' bandwidth?
2. How big is your mixing room?
3. Would you be up for some DIY if that was the only way to meet your price point at the accuracy level your require?
Thanks!
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
Ha ha ha...well, thanks for the detailed response, Duke, even if you're a dealer/manufacturer. :-)
1. I need a 45-50hz HPF for exactly the reason you stated: to relieve the Amphions of information below that, which you mostly can't hear but looks like it still works the woofers. This would be to get more efficiency out the system when I sometimes need to blast levels for clients. The Amphions have a naturally steep rolloff at 45hz, but it seems like the woofers are still getting worked with frequencies under that...unless Im' completely wrong about that, which is possible. This is my main dilemma with even my current Dynaudio sub.
2. My mixing room is 19 x 10 x 8.
3. I would entertain some DIY, though I have little experience with it. I do have friends that could help, though.
I was looking at an external Marchand active crossover, which come very highly recommended (do you have an opinion on those?) as a possibility, as well.
Even if you can find a sub with a HPF that can be set to 50 Hz or below, I think you would be better off with an external crossover, and Marchand can build you one with whatever crossover specs you want.
But if it were me, I would try to do this in the digital domain prior to DA conversion (so no AD-DA). That would be more transparent.
Unfortunately I can't, due to my monitoring setup. I have an analog controller for multiple speakers in my studio, which would necessitate an additional AD/DA were I to use a digital crossover. There's no way around that, unfortunately. I would LOVE the insane flexibility of a digital crossover; there's just no comparison...but I need to stick with analog, which I know sounds great but is very limited as far as adjustability when compared to a digital device. :-/Marchand looks great. Pricey and limited compared to a digital crossover, but c'est la vie.
Edits: 06/01/16
Thanks for your replies to my quesions.
The woofer getting worked at low frequencies isn't contributing much useful bass, as below the 42 Hz ballpark tuning frequency the woofer will be out-of-phase with the passive radiator and so they will be cancelling one another out. At the same time the woofer's motion is no longer effectively damped by having to compress the air inside the cabinet, so it is susceptible to being driven beyond its linear limits by deep bass at high sound pressure levels if not protected by a high-pass filter. So the excursion-limited power handling of the Amphions will definitely go up when you add a high-pass filter.
I think you'll get about 3 dB more excursion-limited headroom out of your Amphions by highpassing them at 80 Hz instead of 45-50 Hz, because the excursion requirements on the woofers will be even further reduced. It would have been closer to 5 or 6 dB except that woofer cone motion is reduced near the tuning frequency anyway. The reduction in thermal compression will probably be negligible. To keep thermal effects to a minimum, I suggest keeping really loud "impress the client" sessions fairly short, or if that's not possible, maybe finding a pretext to take a short break to talk about something so the Amphion's magnets can cool down a bit.
A distributed multisub system will do a better job in that south-of-80 Hz region than the Amphions. But you do need to roll off the top end of the subs steeply (I use 4th order) so that their locations aren't betrayed by upper bass leaking through.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but smaller rooms benefit more from a distributed multisub setup than larger rooms. This is because smaller rooms start out with worse behavior in the modal region, which is what a distributed multisub system is designed to deal with.
I haven't had firsthand experience with a Marchand in decades, but have always thought very highly of them.
Best wishes,
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
Looking at the manufactures One 18s frequency response the system is recovering from a substantial bump at approximately 100Hz and begins a rapid drop reaching 0dBf at approximately 80Hz?
Using Velodyne's DD+ (Digital) room correction that 80-100Hz area is where I would most likely begin manual EQ and Q attenuation pattern on the laptop then setup three remote presets to high, medium, and low gain.
To bad you can't use digital EQ because this system with its visual display and monitoring from the listening position/s is a snap.
Since your speakers have passive radiators I would cross them higher to avoid getting them into play.
The nature of PRs is that they are the least satisfactory way of bass loading as they inevitably introduce much greater timing errors than porting.
Whoever mentioned The Swarm concept of subwoofers is correct. The good thing is that the subs do not have to be of particularly high quality. With $2500 you'll get better results with five $500 woofers than with one $2500 sub.
no such thing.....lows are determined by the sub's location/room interaction.
That will depend on how his control room is built.
With proper build practices (no parallel surfaces, diffusion, bass traps, etc) there won't be (much) location/room interaction.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Yes, it's totally built out and treated acoustically -- bass traps, the whole nine.
I've tried making 2x4 foot panel traps tuned for 40 Hz and they are ineffective. You would need something much bigger and carefully tuned to address the lowest order axial room modes.
Have you measured the room? Do you have any peaks in the bottom octave?
A bass trap in a recording studio is one whole wall, 4 to 6 feet deep and often the entire ceiling in wedge shape, etc.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Just to be sure, this isn't a studio, it's a control/mixing room, if I understand correctly.
:)
Yeah, that's how I understand it.A properly built control room, as a stand alone or as part of a studio, will have heavy trapping etc, that will virtually eliminate the "room interaction" and "room modes" that others keep referring to.
The room treatments in a properly built professional control room will have almost nothing in common with "Conventional room treatments".
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 06/05/16 06/05/16
An important aspect of control room design is to provide an aural environment which is conducive to either tracking or mixing, or both, for the type of music which they work on and in which the engineer and producer like to work. I've been in control rooms which are 'dead as a doornail' - almost suffocatingly so. I've also been in control rooms which are acoustical nightmares. My preference, in general, is a control room which has a good balance of well-engineered sound quality, and just a bit of liveness - so you feel like you're in an actual room rather than a dead zone.:)
Edits: 06/05/16
When you're tracking or mixing you want to hear the signal you're laying down, not the room going nuts.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
10-4 on that. But rooms which are excessively dead are weird. That's what I mean by just a "touch" of liveness. I want to feel like I'm in a room - not outside.So, I take it that you're not a fan of Hidley's now-old LEDE approach? (I'm not.)
:)
Edits: 06/06/16
Live end, dead end. (I think that was Davis)Yeah, it's all a balancing act.
In this thread all I was trying to get across is that in a good room there shouldn't much in the way of room excitement/room interaction.
Not like in a typical home living room.
The "room treatments" that one might use at home have little to do with the treatments that are used by a designer of a professional recording studio where those treatments are part of the build.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 06/06/16
Yes, you are absolutely correct. Davis and Davis, not Hidley.
Although, didn't Hidley use the concept in several designs in the Eastlake years? Heck, I gotta go look this stuff up - can't remember it anymore!
:)
You mean no such thing for that one point. I won't argue that here, but what about the other two points?
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: