Glen_L
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2000
- Messages
- 86
My 25-31CS+ pair and Samson S1000 setup arrived Friday, and I spent a good part of Saturday and Sunday wiring, calibrating, and setting up my system. I previously had only a pair of nOrh 4.0 speakers up front connected (no sub), so I had my work cut out wiring my second pair of Le Amp monoblocks and 4.0 surrounds, Behringer Feedback Destroyer, and S1000 amp. I've an unsightly tangle of wires behind my rack, even though I tried to keep it neat.
Anyway, on to the meat of the story. I played with them a bit this morning during calibration, but couldn't open them up at all since the parents were still home. I went to a friends house for the super bowl, and the parents went to my brothers. When I got back, I finally had the house to myself. It was time to play
.
I turned up the volume and played some Tool, then Gorillaz' Clint Eastwood. It seemed to sound pretty good, but of course I wanted more. I threw on a CD called Illegal Bass, that has some really deep stuff on it. And cranked it. Wow, it was really pounding the crap out of the room, but it seemed like something was wrong. The bass level (which was calibrated) seemed a bit overpowered by my mains. I walked over to the corner and felt the two subs--one was shaking all to hell, and the other was doing nothing at all. A quick check revealed that one of the speaker wires had come loose when I moved the subs to their present kitty corner positioning.
So, I powered off the system and hooked the wire back into the binding post, then tried the disc again. The jawdrop smilie
doesn't convey the level of bass I was feeling. My HTPC (on which my system is based) is in a small ~12x10 foot room. In the closet on the other side of the room I was measuring SPL's in excess of 120db, and I know the system could have gone louder if I had pushed it. A good thing I didn't, as I had done enough damage as it was.
When I left the room to walk down the hall (with the bass still pounding), I noticed a picture on the ground that had fell off the wall. The pictures that were still clinging on were visibly jumping off of it to the beat. Before I could run back into the room to turn it down, I heard a loud crash in our family room. After I turned it way down I went out to assess the damage. A wooden shelf holding 4 pictures and a glass encased butterfly knicknack had vibrated right off the wall. The glass case was broken, but at least the four pictures survived unscathed.
Well, I guess I learned a lesson. I was a bit too eager to "see what they could do"; I didn't think to secure the house first. As for most sane people (which I'm apparently not), I wouldn't worry too much about destroying your house. I was really asking for it. Pretty foolish of me in retrospect, but at least I've found out that my system is now fully reference capable.
My first impressions on how they sound--awesome. The pair are sort of behind and to my left relative to my listening position. They're not localizable to my ears (80Hz crossover on my Integra 6.2)--the bass could just as easily be coming from my mains if I didn't know any better. With the system properly calibrated, everything blends very nicely.
I still think there is room for improvement however, as I haven't taken any steps with the BFD. I think there may be some peaks where I sit that I can EQ down, and unfortunately a null that sucks out the really deep stuff. That's certainly not a fault of the subs (my cube-ish room is the culprit), and may have been a non-issue if I had more sub/key seat placement options. I'm done spending money on HT items for now. It's clear that I need to save up for my own pad.
Tom and Ron, thank you both for fielding all my questions, the 20% off discount (I probably would have ended up with one sub without it), and especially for designing such a kick ass subwoofer system.
Here are some pics, still a work in progress. I really need to figure out a better way to elevate my surrounds.
Anyway, on to the meat of the story. I played with them a bit this morning during calibration, but couldn't open them up at all since the parents were still home. I went to a friends house for the super bowl, and the parents went to my brothers. When I got back, I finally had the house to myself. It was time to play
.I turned up the volume and played some Tool, then Gorillaz' Clint Eastwood. It seemed to sound pretty good, but of course I wanted more. I threw on a CD called Illegal Bass, that has some really deep stuff on it. And cranked it. Wow, it was really pounding the crap out of the room, but it seemed like something was wrong. The bass level (which was calibrated) seemed a bit overpowered by my mains. I walked over to the corner and felt the two subs--one was shaking all to hell, and the other was doing nothing at all. A quick check revealed that one of the speaker wires had come loose when I moved the subs to their present kitty corner positioning.
So, I powered off the system and hooked the wire back into the binding post, then tried the disc again. The jawdrop smilie
When I left the room to walk down the hall (with the bass still pounding), I noticed a picture on the ground that had fell off the wall. The pictures that were still clinging on were visibly jumping off of it to the beat. Before I could run back into the room to turn it down, I heard a loud crash in our family room. After I turned it way down I went out to assess the damage. A wooden shelf holding 4 pictures and a glass encased butterfly knicknack had vibrated right off the wall. The glass case was broken, but at least the four pictures survived unscathed.
Well, I guess I learned a lesson. I was a bit too eager to "see what they could do"; I didn't think to secure the house first. As for most sane people (which I'm apparently not), I wouldn't worry too much about destroying your house. I was really asking for it. Pretty foolish of me in retrospect, but at least I've found out that my system is now fully reference capable
.My first impressions on how they sound--awesome. The pair are sort of behind and to my left relative to my listening position. They're not localizable to my ears (80Hz crossover on my Integra 6.2)--the bass could just as easily be coming from my mains if I didn't know any better. With the system properly calibrated, everything blends very nicely.
I still think there is room for improvement however, as I haven't taken any steps with the BFD. I think there may be some peaks where I sit that I can EQ down, and unfortunately a null that sucks out the really deep stuff. That's certainly not a fault of the subs (my cube-ish room is the culprit), and may have been a non-issue if I had more sub/key seat placement options. I'm done spending money on HT items for now. It's clear that I need to save up for my own pad
.Tom and Ron, thank you both for fielding all my questions, the 20% off discount (I probably would have ended up with one sub without it), and especially for designing such a kick ass subwoofer system.
Here are some pics, still a work in progress. I really need to figure out a better way to elevate my surrounds
.
That's true, Bob.
