Just EQ'd my sub (why does my wife not enjoy it as much as I), and I have a question. (1 Viewer)

[Steve Stogel]

When EQing, I know you really don't want to boost the valleys, that you want to lower the peaks (saving valuable amp power). Well, in EQing, I wanted to boost a couple of frequencies. If I drop the Main down 3dB, am I okay boosting up frequencies that much? It would wash out, wouldn't it?
Here is what I did:
20Hz...+3
25Hz...+2
31.5Hz...+3
40Hz...-11.5
50Hz...-6.5
63Hz...+1
80Hz...-3.5
MAIN...-3
So should I be okay as far as not losing any amp power? BTW, from 15-80Hz I'm between 84.0 and 89.5, so +/- 2.75dB. From what I've read, I think that should do. Here's the pre-EQ/post-EQ numbers:
HZ PRE POST
15........88.0dB...........87.0dB
17.5......88.0dB...........87.0dB
20........84.5.............84.5
22........85.5.............85.5
25........86.0.............84.0
28........84.0.............84.0
32........85.0.............85.0
35........94.0.............86.0
40........99.5.............85.5
45........96.0.............85.0
50........94.5.............86.5
56........90.5.............84.5
63........87.5.............87.5
71........92.5.............89.5
80........91.5.............88.5
I'm so anal, I think I'm going to try to EQ that little hump out of 63, 71, and 80. If I can get them below 87 and above 84.0, I'd be +/- 1.5dB . I think it may be a waste of time, but I thought it was fun playing with the EQ (my wife did not have the same enthusiasm, however ).
So am I okay boosting 3dB if my Main is down 3dB? They cancel out. Correct?
Steve

 

[Ned]

I don't think it would cancel out. You're just lowering the overall input by 3db but you still have to use X amount of power to reach a certain volume. It's ok if the amp doesn't clip. I wouldn't worry about getting the low bass so flat. Most people have much worse linearity.

 

[Rick Radford]

Steve,
A few questions to satisfy my curiosity:
1) What size room? Sub in corner?
2) Are those RS spl corrected or uncorrected numbers?
3)By Main:-3dB do you mean the sub trim is -3dB from your un-EQ'd setting?
You may have already done this, but if not, go to this link and get the Excel Workbook linked there and graph your response curves.

 

[Steve Stogel]

Hey, Rick.
1) Living room is about 20 x 16 but goes right into "breakfast nook" and kitchen. So, total, it's about 30 long and 16 deep in the living room. In the nook/kitchen area, it's about 25 feet deep. A rough guess of the total area, I guess, would be 20 x 16 plus 10 x 25, so 570. Throw in ten-foot ceilings and the hallways (which lead to the dining room/second living room), and it's probably in the range of 6000 cubic feet.
2) Corrected, using this site http://216.150.71.139/audioinnovation/rsmeter.html .
3) I'm using a Behringer DSP 8000 (looks kind of old to me, but that may just be the style). My brother-in-law had it sitting around and is letting me use it. Instead of Main, I should have said Master. That's how the Behringer has it. So it's got little electronic sliders from 20-20K, and then at the far right it has the Master slider. That slider I put to -3dB (this was two-fold: I wanted to boost 20, 25, and 31 a bit, but more importantly I thought I may need more than 16dB to tame that nasty peak at 40Hz. Turns out I only used -11.5dB at 40, so I guess I could just put the Master back to 0 and drop all my readings by 3dB, huh? I hadn't seen that link. I just graphed my response with pen and graph paper I had lying around. I'm pretty much winging it. I've never EQ'd anything in my life. Just played with it this weekend. I love this stuff.
All I have for my receiver it an older Technics AC-3 ready receiver and a technics DD decoder (didn't even have DTS on it yet). So I'm just throwing this EQ in between my subwoofer output of my receiver and the amp going to the sub. I figured that's where it should go, and it seems to have helped a lot. I did have to recalibrate, as I had to boost the bass by 8-10dB (I guess because the VE sub tone is a wider area, so I was really just calibrating my peak to the fronts and not the overall sub response).
So, long story short, I guess I need to bump the Master back up to 0 and drop all my frequencies 3dB, and that may be my safest bet to protect my amp (seeing as I only have 150W) power. Thanks again.
Steve