I need help with my PB-10 ISD! (1 Viewer)

[Charlie Campisi]

Vaughan -

You do realize that you calibrate using a test tone disc that sends pink noise (static hiss like) to each speaker and then you adjust with your receiver to equalize the levels, right? The following sentence gave me the impression you were planning on using a movie to calibrate.



Your receiver should have some test tones built in. You can try calibrating by ear using those. Later use the SPL meter (from your main seating position) to get a better read. Even better still, get Digital Video Essentials (subs in DVE should be set at +10 db compared to speakers) or Avia to calibrate.

Sorry if this is basic. Just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing.

As for bass demo discs, Incredibles (lots), Finding Nemo (Darla tapping on glass), FOTR cave troll and ROTK oliphants are all great.

Oh yeah, and the first place you should try your sub is in the front corner of the room, a couple of feet from the wall, in the corner of the room with the largest unbroken wall. And why is the sub on its side?

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Stick it in a front corner, get an SPL meter, calibrate. Save impressions until that's done.

 

[Mike^S]

I have my PB10 in the corner. If it sounds boomy, just turn it down a bit.

 

[Vaughan Odendaal]

You do realize that you calibrate using a test tone disc that sends pink noise (static hiss like) to each speaker and then you adjust with your receiver to equalize the levels, right?

Yes. Sorry if I gave you the impression that I thought that the disk was to be used for calibration. I would like to know what other PB-10 owners have their subwoofers set to (subwoofer level and gain), how big their rooms are, placement, and whether or not they have felt bass in any movies.

--Sincerely,

 

[AlanZ]

Vaughan: If you are more interested in 'feeling' the bass than hearing it, get some bass shakers or a bigger subwoofer (or more subwoofers). It sounds like the sub is playing the deep bass it's supposed to, but not quite up to the task of pressurizing your room like you want. If you want your subwoofer to give you a new hairdo while watching a movie, just get a PB12Ultra/2 and be done with it

 

[Vaughan Odendaal]

I'm not expecting the subwoofer to create mini tornado's in my room. I know the bigger SVS subwoofers will go louder, but I haven't felt a single thing from this thing, and apparently it can go down to 15hz!

I'm not expecting extreme SPL down low, but I expect to feel at least something. Even if it's a small bit of air, anything.

--Sincerely,

 

[John Garcia]

I can feel really deep stuff with my PB-10, even in that size room. Not the same that I have felt with a 25-31PCi in a friend's even larger room though (actual pant flapping), but still a fair amount of pressure is felt in the room with a scene like AOTC ch.2. The Haunting DTS-ES downright scared me the first time...

Tactile transducers, such as Aura Pro Bass Shakers will probably do the trick to add plenty of rumble to your seating position, if that's what you are looking for. Not sure where you would find them in South Africa, but two or so of those and a cheap amp will probably help.

Thanks Greg

 

[Vaughan Odendaal]

Interesting. I thought that the PB-10 ISD was tuned lower than the 25-31 PCI. Is that correct? I always thought that the "pants flapping" kind of bass was subsonic.

I'm getting confused now. Ed measured the subwoofer to go down to 15hz, which is pretty low. I've heard an M&K V-1250 that has produced pants-flapping bass on the pod race in TPM, and that subwoofer is no where near as powerful as the PB-10, apparently.

It's only rated to go down to 20hz. According to TN's measurements, the PB-10 (and Tom V concurred with me) will produce more than twice the output at 20hz compared to the bigger MX-125, and almost three times the output between 25-63hz.

The MX-125 is far more powerful than the VX-1250. So I don't understand how I can't feel much bass from a far more powerful subwoofer that reaches down a lot lower. Have you tried the pod race sequence with your PB-10, yet?

Where do you have your subwoofer placed? Thanks.

--Sincerely,

 

[Vaughan Odendaal]

John, sorry if I have asked this before, but I see that you have your gain at 50% and your subwoofer level at +1. That is quite a bit more than what I have mine set to, though.

So my question is, how hot is the subwoofer with those settings?

--Sincerely,

 

[John Garcia]

It can have everything to do with your room. There was a pretty good discussion about pants flapping a while back. The only thing I can figure is that it happens at a specific frequency, and it can be entirely dependent on your room (both size and shape) and the room modes associated with it. No doubt, the PB-10 has more output at 20Hz, but the 12" driver in the 25-31 facing up into a room that has the right modes (which may be over accentuating certain frequencies) gave the impression of moving more air than my PB-10. My sub is about 9' away, and the 25-31 in my friend's room was probably more like 15' away, and it still seemed to have more output. Smaller rooms can actually be WORSE for bass, because full waveforms cannot set up and you get much more interaction of standing waves at 1/2, 1/4 etc... That's what I suspect is happening in Brian's case also, because I would expect dual 16-46s to KILL someone, or at least small animals and children, in a room that size

SVS recommended a 12/2+ for my room.

With those settings my sub is about +2dB hot (using receiver's test tones). It could also be exactly what you said before - your other speaker settings are too low relative to the sub, and while you can probably set your other speakers somewhat by ear with test tones, it will be all but impossible to do that with the sub.

Once you get the SPL meter, you will probably want to look into a disc with a frequency sweep, such as Avia, to see what is going on at various frequencies in your room.

Give it some time, you will come to find that it really is doing it's job just the way it was designed to. MANY people complain about their SVS not being that impressive when they first get it, usually because they've been listening to something that sounded loud, but was really just over-exaggerating certain frequencies. That "percieved" loudness was, in fact, wrong and it takes a while to adjust to the relatively smooth, flat response SVSs have (in the typical room).

 

[John Garcia]

One more thing, that I don't think we entirely touched on are some of the settings on your receiver. With most Yamahas you can set bass management for mains + sub to BOTH (I think it may only be available with mains set to large). How do you have this set?

-6 on the receiver would suggest to me that your levels need to be set. What are the rest of your speakers set to? "0" or have you made any adjustments to them?

 

[Vaughan Odendaal]

John,

With my Yamaha, I can either set the bass out to subwoofer, front, or both. At the moment, it's set to subwoofer out. All speakers set to small, 80hz crossover.

I also just checked the rest of the channels, and they are all on 0 (subwoofer level on -6. So I've made no adjustments yet.

--Sincerely,

 

[Mike^S]

I think pants flapping occurs more around 25hz-30hz not 20hz and below.

 

[Clinton McClure]

20Hz and below is more butt cheeks flapping.

You'll eventually get it figured out Vaughan. I've had a Paradigm Servo 15 for over three weeks now and still haven't gotten it tweaked out yet. It's located between my right main and the RPTV but I think I'm going to move it this weekend to the far left corner between the left main and the wall and see how that affects response. Right now I have a slammer of a null at my listening position so I'm running the sub pretty hot (see below).

It's calibrated and equalized out so it's flat down to 12Hz. At reference volume (75Hz from my mains) I'm getting a tad over 100dB at 20Hz and about 90dB at 15Hz. Instead of running it about 10dB hot like most subs, I'm running it roughly 25dB hot. You don't realize it's there until the soundtrack hits something really low and the walls and windows vibrate a little.

Currently my favorite LFE is the opening scene from Flight of the Phoenix (2004). The twin-engine plane flybys sound and feel like a C-130 is landing in my living room. :wink:

 

[MikeyWeitz]

I am still trying to figure out why you would think gain @ 50% and receiver level @ -6 would be high.

What is high about it?

Turn the gain up to 70%, up the receiver to 0 on the sub setting, then see what happens and calibrate from there.

Amazing you thinking your setting is on the high side when both settings are half or lower of max!

 

[Jeff Gatie]

This is probably what is happening. It is the old "40-50Hz bloat" factor, where every little thing goes "boom-boom". It happened to me when I first got my SVS. I was used to a sub that went to about 30Hz and had the standard hump between 40-50Hz. A quality sub in the home will not sound like the inside of a car with 2000W of subs punching out at 40-50Hz. It is much more subtle and will only play when the material calls for it. But when it does, watch out! You will never listen to a bloated sub again after you get used to real flat, deep response.

 

[BrianWoerndle]

Thanks for the kind words John, it brought tears to my eyes.

I remember the pants flapping debate. While it is hard to measure how much my pants move, I can say that DVDs have a way of walking themselves off the shelf. And they are on isolation pads, so vibrations are controled.

Vaughan,

You described the size of your room, but what is the architecture like? A sub on carpet covered concrete will be much more dead than a sub on a 2nd floor wood joist floor. A lot of what you feel is the vibrations of the room. If you have a really sound apartment with concrete all around (good for your neighbors), then that will limit the sub a lot.

 

[Vaughan Odendaal]

Mikey,

I thought that my settings were high because I've read in other threads that people have had their subwoofer gain levels on 35-40%, and use a lower subwoofer level that I do, and they are practically shaking the room.

Apparently, my settings are not high? The thing is, yesterday, I set my subwoofer level at 0, using a 50% gain, and the subwoofer seems a bit boomy. Especially on music (using DSTV broadcasting).

I just watched Hellboy yesterday, and I was amazed that almost every scene sounded exactly the same with the low bass. It just droned on and on. I couldn't feel any bass either. But it was deep, though.

I haven't tried the "crawl test" yet as far as placement is concerned. Perhaps I should do that.

Clinton,

Interesting. I was always under the impression that the pants flapping bass was subsonic in origin. But, if, as the other poster alluded to earlier that that kind of bass is in the 25-30hz range, then my subwoofer should have absolutely no problem with it. Right?

Also, I just wanted to know Clinton, you said that you run your subwoofers around 25dB's hot; does the bass sound at all boomy? Are there times where you think it's more of a one note kind of bass?

--Sincerely,

 

[Vaughan Odendaal]

You described the size of your room, but what is the architecture like?

Well, it's rectangular in shape, laminated wood floors. Subwoofer is placed in front of my main speaker, with the driver facing sideways. Directly behind the subwoofer is a big couch.

That isn't where I'm seated. My seating position is approxiately a meter away from that couch.

--Sincerely,

 

[Victor Ferguson]

Is the subfloor of the room concrete? There are so many room variables in subwoofer setup its hard for any of us to tell you exactly what to do. As far as you being so worried about not feeling alot of bass... get a SPL meter. Get a test disk and set the sub up correctly. Without using those tools I am fairly certain your no where near where you would need to be to have it set up correctly. Also consider that a single 10 inch sub is only going to move so much air and you've got alot of air to be filling. Have you checked phase? If the sub is trying to work against the mains the whole time your bass response is not going to be right. Do some research on subwoofer setup and get the tools you need and you'll be alot happier with your purchase. One more thing on the "not feeling the bass" thing. Most stuff isnt supposed to be shaking everything all the time. If your more worried about how much its shaking things than how it sounds with your other speakers your not going in the right direction. Are your mains even good enough to keep up with the sub without being lost?