Planar Speaker Asylum

RE: "That's an interesting experiment" ...

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Gson1976

In Reply to: RE: "That's an interesting experiment" ... posted by ColinB on January 02, 2021 at 14:31:24

I have played around a lot with different setups between 1.6 and subs last 5 years... I share same experience - sealed is the route and at least 2 subs, one per side behind mains near corners. Room modes will help bottom end, but you need to run PEQ to tame and make them sing correct. Phase is a key to performance too... Nobody has mention room acoustics that will affect bass performance A LOT?! Heavy treatments (mass) will have impact how bass start and stop. This is often overlooked as it eats up volume of listening room and is ugly.
Back to topic, yes I use HP to relief them and to avoid phase issues between subs and mains. I use a HT-receiver with HP/LP 12/24dB @ 80hz. I carefully setup my subs with PEQ (Velodyne SMS-1) and run setup with mic to get best phase (distance) via receiver and SMS-1. I have tried bass reflex, but went back after one day testing - it could not keep up above 50-60 hz... Muddy/too slow.
I have also tried another solution that was quite interesting. I bought a second pair of previous model of 1.6 - the 1.5 and ran them as bass panels LP 24dB @ 90hz, but it became too much low bass, too less slam/impact. It added bass but not where I wanted it... It was more actually much more pleasing to run them with disconnected mid/high QR with inbuild LP 6dB @ around 600hz only. I was chocked to realize how little midrange the bass/mid section sounded!!! A lot of the audible sonics are coming from mid/high "tweeter" in the 1.5 model. The total amount of radiating bass area I had now was around 900 sq.inches per side - much more than the 3 series. Go figure! I always had the dedicated bass panel from Magnepan in my mind and went a different road with a lot more bass area...
I lastly just wanted to know how both sounded full range side to side with tweeters in the middle and has stayed there ever since - Wow, amazing! If I shut off one amplifier, running "only" one pair it sounds dull, flat and boring... I�ll never get back until I perhaps change to 3 series to get that true ribbon mid/tweeter... The bass has always sounded clean and natural BUT, bass slam/impact has not been there to satisfy me in my 15 by 25 feet room (quite big IMHO).
I then added dynamic subs. First 2 x 12" sealed (CSS drivers). Yes, sounded great after a lot of tweaks with more bass impact and lastly, why not over do it, changed to 4 x 15" sealed. More of everything, but bass slam (80-150 hz?) is quite weak. I will probably test with higher LP/HP frequencies but I think I will lose to much finesse from my Magnepans clean higher bass, but we�ll see :) It is a journey for sure and I will never stop experimenting. I am so addicted to this hobby... Next thing is to rebuild my dedicated sound room with a LOT of heavy treatments to clean up the BASS.

Edits: 03/11/21

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