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Looking to change from Mirage BPS-400 to....?

#1
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3/10/08 at 12:37pm
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While I have enjoyed using my Mirage BPS-400, as it has plenty of power and slam for movies, I sometimes wonder if it isn't the best match for my front ported towers etc. I guess I am thinking of trying another subwoofer for a change. My front speakers are PSB Image T65's and I really like their bass output in two-channel for music. What subwoofers out there today would have similar performance abilities to my Mirage BPS-400? (maybe a ported sub..most are these days). Any suggestions? I'm looking for a change and possibley for something that just blends better with my front tower speakers.

The Mirage has two 12" woofers facing away from one another, and a BASH digital amp with 400 watts rms and 1600 watts peak.

Going from projector to flatscreen for a while.... :p

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#2
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3/11/08 at 10:43pm
  • Joined: August 1999
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Re: Looking to change from Mirage BPS-400 to....?
Quote:
I'm looking for a change and possibley for something that just blends better with my front tower speakers.
That’s usually a placement or equalization issue. Before you drop a bundle on a new sub, I suggest downloading the free Room EQ Wizard software program from the Home Theater Shack Forum. It can show your sub’s in-room response and help you see why it’s not blending well with the mains.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
My Equipment List
“A nice mid-fi system,” according to an audiophile acquaintance.

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#3
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3/12/08 at 2:31pm
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Re: Looking to change from Mirage BPS-400 to....?

Thanks. I will try that. I admit I haven't tried much lately, and, for whatever reason, my newest receiver does blend better than my previous units, so I will give it a try. Once my home theatre room is ready to go, I will set up the subwoofer again and EQ it first before making any drastic decisions.

Going from projector to flatscreen for a while.... :p

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#4
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3/12/08 at 5:16pm
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Re: Looking to change from Mirage BPS-400 to....?

That Mirage is a pretty good sub. It won't be easy to get the performance you have now without investing a fair amount of coin.

If it's not worth waiting until the last minute to do, then it's not worth doing.

KevinVision 7.1 ...

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#5
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3/12/08 at 8:26pm
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Re: Looking to change from Mirage BPS-400 to....?

Maybe this is one of the problems you're encountering, particularly the 3rd paragraph (excerpted from this article over at hometheaterhifi.com "Bass Management Woes: Trouble on the Slopes"):

Quote:
As a result, to this day, surround sound processors feature odd, mis-matched slope combinations. I recall an old receiver I once owned which would low-pass the sub with a 3rd order slope and high pass the mains with a 2nd order slope, at, of all frequencies, 90 Hz. I never did find a speaker which "fit" that particular combination.......For the most part, things have not improved..........
Quote:
Using any full-range speaker with an arbitrary combination of slopes just doesn't work. Let's take the THX crossover as an example which, as we said, is just as arbitrary as anything else when used with non-THX speakers. At 40 Hz, the speaker should be down 24 dB if it's to fit into the scheme of things. But a full-range speaker, having no 80 Hz roll-off of its own, will be down only 12 dB. This means that in the region of 40 Hz - 60 Hz, the speaker is literally doing too much work. You can't compensate by lowering the subwoofer level, as that lowers the entire subwoofer signal, essentially robbing you of the juicy 20 Hz - 30 Hz region.

Many of you many already be thinking, "Just lower the crossover frequency to be closer the speaker's actual cutoff." Yes, no, maybe. You'd be closer to getting it right, but still would not have a perfect splice: your speaker would still have to exhibit a 2nd order roll-off at whatever frequency you chose.

Ported speakers will never fit. In addition, lowering the crossover frequency means you'll be cashing in on all the negative aspects of using an inordinately low crossover frequency. We have an entire article* detailing why you don't want to do that, and why you would not want to set the crossover frequency different for each speaker in your setup.

As an example of the non-ported recommendation, check out JBL's largest loudspeaker made expressly for HT satellite use, the PT800 (I've never seen JBL use a sealed enclosure for one of their conventional loudspeakers).

* here's the link that is inside that article: Feature Article <-- this thing's alive! I just copy/pasted the link and when I posted this message on HTF, it showed up like you see i.e. something automatically added the words "feature article" and the HTML stuff so you don't see the link itself. Spooky........
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#6
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3/16/08 at 1:01pm
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Re: Looking to change from Mirage BPS-400 to....?

What about a Mirage SS1500? Looks like an interesting sub with lot's of options in terms of hookup, crossover, phase etc. It's only using one 10" woofer and one 10" passive radiator, so I suppose it won't quite be the same as the BPS-400.

Going from projector to flatscreen for a while.... :p

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#7
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3/16/08 at 6:07pm
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Re: Looking to change from Mirage BPS-400 to....?

Actually scratch that....the SS1500 isn't quite the match of the BPS-400. I can't go backwards.

Maybe I'll just try to EQ the subwoofer once I get it all going again. I'll even try an LFX-1 crossover too. If I can get it working well, I could always add a second BPS-400 to blow-up my room!

Going from projector to flatscreen for a while.... :p

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#8
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3/17/08 at 5:14pm
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Re: Looking to change from Mirage BPS-400 to....?

A friend of mine has one. I consider this sub sort of a hidden legend. Really big and heavy, lots of output and deep extension, but it never got a lot of visbility.

If it's not worth waiting until the last minute to do, then it's not worth doing.

KevinVision 7.1 ...

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