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bass overkill (1 Viewer)

Colin-H

Second Unit
Joined
Jun 25, 2002
Messages
391
Since I'm new at the whole home audio game, I thought it might help if you guys could play "bass doctor" for a second here...

Before watching FotR: EE the other night, I recalibrated my system. I used Sound & Vision to calibrate using DTS ES Discrete. That DVD tells you to adjust the bass based more on perceived volume than SPL, so I wound up juicing it quite a bit over what the SPL meter said I should. (I had my housemate come in and give me a second opinion, so I'm not entirely crazy.) It sounded fine in the S&V tests (like the frequency sweep), but when I played the DVD, it was way overkill, and this is with a track that people complained was light on bass. The male dialog came out so bassy and muddy it was incomprehensible at points.

Are these the symptoms of a bad room? My room is a moderately sized bedroom. It has hardwood floors with an area rug covering the area within the speakers. The AR sub is in the corner, but not on the rug. The room has plaster walls with a drop ceiling.

Is there anything simple and cheap I can do to help out my situation a little? I've seen some people put their subs on slabs of foam, do you think this would help?
 

James R. Geib

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Nov 7, 2002
Messages
105
By saying the dialog came out bassy and muddy, it sounds as if the settings you are using for your front speakers and/or center channel may need tweaking.

Are your front speakers and center channel set to small, allowing your sub to handle all of the low frequencies?

Additionally, there should be no dialogue coming from the sub. The crossover needs to be set to a lower frequency if you are getting any dialogue from the subwoofer. Adjusting your subwoofer level using a test dvd should not affect the dialogue.
 

Colin-H

Second Unit
Joined
Jun 25, 2002
Messages
391
I'm sorry, I think I described it wrong... It was less the bass in the dialog itself, but more the general high level of the bass consuming the dialog such that it was not understandable.
 

Dan Stone

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Nov 28, 2001
Messages
221
Are these the symptoms of a bad room?
I'd suggest starting with the above first, before jumping to conclusions about your room. If, after trying the above, you still feed the sound is lacking in some way then report back here so others may help you with room acoustics/treatments and/or other suggestions.

Hope this might help you out.

Dan
 

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