Shootout - Velodyne F1200R v EBS Shiva (1 Viewer)

[Stephen Dodds]

In a quest for real deep bass I recently bought an EBS aligned Shiva, being so far too clumsy and stupid to build one myself. Price was the equivalent of US $500. And very sexy it looks in its aluminium clad body, all 142 litres of it.

So I decided to try out out side by side against my current Velodyne F1200R, even though the Velo sustained some shipping damage when I moved back to Australia from the States.

So I plopped the Velo on top of the Shiva and let rip. I listened, and did measurments using the RTA in my Behringer Ultracurve, and also Smaartlive and True RTA.

I was expecting the Shiva, tuned to 18Hz, to be as deep as the Velodyne, but play louder and cleaner.

Well, it does play louder. I was testing at night so I couldn't really turn it up, but it went loud enough.

However, it did not go as deep as the Velodyne. The Shiva had a pronounced roll off under 30Hz and was around 7dB down on the Velodyne by 20Hz. This was when both subs were measured at 85dB on the RS meter.

I then tried to see the effect playing louder would have, but under the steady pink noise the Velodyne started shutting down at around 95dB. This may be due to the shipping damage as the amp has a few quirks.

Anyone have any thoughts on these results. I'm happy with the sound quality and loudness of the Shiva, but not with the lack of really deep bass. It seems to be well constructed, so is this normal? And would stuffing the port get me more extension.

I haven't tried EQ yet, but have the ability to do so.


Steve

 

[ChrisAttebery]

Steve,

The Velo was probably at its breaking point at 95dB. I'd be willing to bet it has some kind of bass boost around 25 Hz. The bass boost will eat up alot of headroom. Does the amp you're using with your Shiva have any boost in it? If it is one of the AVA/PE plate amps your can add a few dB of boost around 20 - 25Hz to fill in the low end. I'm planning on doing this to my Shiva.

Is your room fairly large? I noticed that the room size they used to model the box in LSPcad was a lot smaller than my room (5000+ ft^2). Adire counted on some room gain at the lower frequencies to flatten out the response.

Good luck,



Chris

 

[Kyle Richardson]

What would be very useful is if you could provide measurements at 1/6 octave spacing for each sub. Its much easier to see how a sub is performing when looking at a graph from 20Hz to 120Hz.

But off of the top of my head it seems odd that the EBS Shiva to be down 7db to the Velo at 20Hz since the Shiva is basically as flat at 20Hz as it is 60Hz when room gain is taken into account

 

[Anthony_Gomez]

On my website, I have linked 1/12th octave test tones that you can rip to a CD. They were intended for the BFD program, but should work great here!
click below
http://members.tripod.com/beyond_gomer

 

[Stephen Dodds]

The room is big, it is warehouse apartment shaped like a truncated pyramid, the dimensions are irregular, but the rear wall is 27 feet wide, the front wall is 18 wide, length is 20 feet and the ceiling varies from 16 to 20 feet.

Here are some measurements, ref 85dB at 80Hz, no EQ

Freq Velo Shiva

80 85 85
77 85 85
72 86 86
66 87 87
63 87 89
56 90 91
52 90 91
49 88 89
46 87 87
43 89 87
40 90 90
38 90 89
35 89 90
30 93 93
26 91 86
24 87 83
22 86 81
21 87 77
20 86 77

As you can see, the Shiva drops like a rock once it hits 30Hz, whereas the Velodyne seems pretty much flat all the way down, taking into account the room mode.

Steve

 

[Dustin B]

Sorry if this is obvious and you've done so. But when you ran these tests were the subs in the exact same position? In other words did you place the Vel for testing, then move it and put the Shiva in the same place when you tested it?

 

[Stephen Dodds]

The Velodyne was sitting on top of the Shiva, halfway along the long side wall.

Steve

 

[Bryan Michael]

i have a velo ct 120 and it so nice i dont have it corner loaded but it still hits is your velo a older moddle

 

[Stephen Dodds]

It was part of the top of the range series before the HGS ones come in. It is a servo vontrolled 12 incher, that, apparently, goes pretty deep.

Steve

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Stephen, when you say "on top" you mean is actually siting ON the Shiva?
I asume, "obviously" that the port and the driver are both in the lower face).
Interesting results, based on the multiple Shiva's experiences on this forum. My guess will be that your Shiva is tuned to 30Hz.
Is it possible for you to measure the port length and diameter?

 

[Geoff L]

Measure the Shiva EBS as suggested by Dustin in the exact same spot as the Velo...
Something looks wrong here with the Shiva rolling off this quick.
After the new measurements from the same place as the Velo Im sure there will be more questions.....
Also if you can, assuming the 142lt cabinet volume is "for sure", measure the port or ports for length and size.
3" or 4" etc, and if it, or they, are flaired on one end or both.
The large room will hurt the natural gain but something still don't smell right.
Geoff
Edit: Seems Manuel was posting the same thing as I at the same time..

 

[Stephen Dodds]

Yep, the Velodyne was sitting on the Shiva. SO I would actually expect the response to be worse giuven it was two feet in the air.

I'll check the port width and length when I get home.

Steve

 

[Isaac C]

Steve,
Based on your description of the sub, I take it this is the one from Griff -- http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showt...&threadid=5024
If it is indeed from Griff, I would check the amp first because the Altronics-brand plate amps are not particularly suited for serious sub duty. Altronics advertises, I think, 4 plate amps in their website and none of those had an extension below 40Hz. If it did come with the 150W Altronics amp, you might be interested in the amp data -- Link Removed
However, if it came with a good amp, next thing I would check is the vented-box's effective volume and tuning frequency (as was already mentioned).
cheers
Isaac

 

[Anthony_Gomez]

What if the amp running the shiva has a rumble filter at 25-30hz *L*

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Anthony,

That is a possibility. Perhaps its previous owner was looking more for the "chest type" of bass, right above 30Hz.

 

[Stephen Dodds]

It is indeed that sub and that amp. The link doesn't work and their site seems to be down, but I don't like the amp because of the aut on/off anyway.

I have a spare 400 watts or so of high grade muscle amp itching to be used, how hard would it be to bypass the amp?

Steve

 

[Bryan Michael]

prety easy for a tem try out just remove the woofer and run a wire up the port to the driver it is not the best but it will work to check if the amp is the problem

 

[Stephen Dodds]

The port is 4 inches wide with a six inch wide flare at either end, and 12 inches long. WHich is exactly what is prescribed on the Adire site.

Time to pull the driver out and bypass the amp, methinks.

Steve

 

[Jack Gilvey]

It is indeed that sub and that amp.

Ah, ok, that's what
this was all about.

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Stephen,
It will be interesting to see your results with another amp. I can't wait!