The Subwoofer Integration Thread (1 Viewer)

[JohnRice]

Any update???

Holy Crap! They're both in the house, thanks to the hand truck and tie-down straps. One of them is unboxed and in the initial trial location. I took pics of how I got it done.

I genuinely hurt today. I'm older than I used to be. Crap I feel old.

BTW, I don't want to sidetrack this thread, so I won't be posting anything here about the new subs other than the process of integrating them into the room. I'll do a full write-up on the subs in two or three weeks, or once I get them integrated enough to truly evaluate them.

I will be placing them in opposing corners (front right, back left) as my initial setup. The room measures approximately 26' wide by 21 feet deep. Hopefully that will produce optimal enough results.

 

[John Dirk]

Holy Crap! They're both in the house, thanks to the hand truck and tie-down straps. One of them is unboxed and in the initial trial location. I took pics of how I got it done.

I genuinely hurt today. I'm older than I used to be. Crap I feel old.

BTW, I don't want to sidetrack this thread, so I won't be posting anything here about the new subs other than the process of integrating them into the room. I'll do a full write-up on the subs in two or three weeks, or once I get them integrated enough to truly evaluate them.

I will be placing them in opposing corners (front right, back left) as my initial setup. The room measures approximately 26' wide by 21 feet deep. Hopefully that will produce optimal enough results.

Congrats, John! I anticipated a post like this when you received those monsters. Neither of us are the same guys we were when we took delivery of those PB12 Plus/2's! Glad you survived. I've ordered these to make my life easier when I need to reposition mine.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I anticipated a post like this when you received those monsters. Neither of us are the same guys we were when we took delivery of those PB12 Plus/2's! Glad you survived. I've ordered these to make my life easier when I need to reposition mine.

I wonder though... do those supersliders make the subs a bit too easily moved, particularly from the subs' own energy/vibrations. IF so, that might reduce their performance a bit... OR do you only use them when you move the subs and then remove them when done?

_Man_

 

[John Dirk]

OR do you only use them when you move the subs and then remove them when done?

That.

 

[xx Brian xx]

Did you guys order the Isolation feet for your subs? I isolate both subs and all speakers on the floor.

 

[JohnRice]

Did you guys order the Isolation feet for your subs? I isolate both subs and all speakers on the floor.

Both my HT and living room have concrete floors under the carpet. So anything that goes through the carpet is all I really need.

 

[JohnRice]

After work yesterday I dragged the second new sub downstairs and got it into position and connected. I'm going with opposing corners (front right, back left) after suggestions and planning. I did some quick sweeps to gain match them and decided I should give them some break-in before digging into the weeds of integrating them.

This afternoon I spent a few hours... 1) Integrating each sub into the room. 2) Using the internal PEQ to flatten their individual curves as much as possible. 3) Integrating them with each other. 4) Integrating them with the L&R speakers.

The results are definitely good, but I've had my fill of tech geek stuff for today, so I'll try to post details, including lots of curves and explanations tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm watching a movie.

 

[JohnRice]

This is still very much a learning thing for me, and I guess I need to do my sweeps with higher resolution for them to be as useful as they should be. So I'll be back once I've done that. I'm more into enjoying the results at the moment, so maybe I'll do it this weekend. I've been watching The Hunger Games. The final installment will be today.

I can say this. Even though I need to double check and maybe fine tune what I've done so far, the results are still obviously much smoother than anything I've had before.

 

[JohnRice]

Well… @DaveF ?

 

[DaveF]

Well… @DaveF ?

Not yet. Fulfillment in process.

 

[DaveF]

Well… @DaveF ?

@Sam Posten
@John Dirk
@Dave Upton

 

[DaveF]

SVS accidentally sent me a pair of SB4000's. That took a couple of days to straighten out. While those would have been awesome, the 3000's are so much easier to physically wrangle. Cost mattered, but choosing a sub that didn't promise to land me back in the doctor's getting steroid injections in my back was a very real factor in my buying. And the 3000 at 50 lbs is so much easier for me to move and install than the 100 lb SB4000. I'll have to more to say in the coming weeks. I won't have time to connect them until this weekend at earliest, and maybe not until next week. I'll start a thread when I get going.

 

[JohnRice]

SVS accidentally sent me a pair of SB4000's. That took a couple of days to straighten out. While those would have been awesome, the 3000's are so much easier to physically wrangle. Cost mattered, but choosing a sub that didn't promise to land me back in the doctor's getting steroid injections in my back was a very real factor in my buying. And the 3000 at 50 lbs is so much easier for me to move and install than the 100 lb SB4000. I'll have to more to say in the coming weeks. I won't have time to connect them until this weekend at earliest, and maybe not until next week. I'll start a thread when I get going.

People will especially appreciate impressions of the new SoundPath setup.

I have to admit, I’m sort of coveting a pair of SB-3000s for the living room now.

 

[DaveF]

Visually, they’re the minimum box necessary to contain a 13” woofer. it’s so striking compared to the tower of my PC12.

 

[JohnRice]

SVS accidentally sent me a pair of SB4000's. That took a couple of days to straighten out. While those would have been awesome, the 3000's are so much easier to physically wrangle. Cost mattered, but choosing a sub that didn't promise to land me back in the doctor's getting steroid injections in my back was a very real factor in my buying. And the 3000 at 50 lbs is so much easier for me to move and install than the 100 lb SB4000. I'll have to more to say in the coming weeks. I won't have time to connect them until this weekend at earliest, and maybe not until next week. I'll start a thread when I get going.

I used to be remarkably strong. Not that long ago, it seems. There was a time when I actually could pick up and carry my 165lb. SVS PB12 Plus/2 up or down the stairs. I did it more than once, because it's been moved between systems a couple times. Those days are long gone, because moving the SB-16s, even with a hand truck, just about did me in. I was in actual pain the day after they arrived. The SVS site says it's 122 lbs, but Dave Upton's review says it's 20 lbs heavier than that. It genuinely feels heavier than 122 lbs.

 

[xx Brian xx]

You guys are killing me here. Because of these threads I have spent the last few nights looking at new subs for my system. I already have a Klipsh sub and a SVS PB2000 but am thinking about replacing the Klipsch with either a 4000 series or SB16.

I'm loving all the great info - keep it coming.

 

[JohnRice]

You guys are killing me here. Because of these threads I have spent the last few nights looking at new subs for my system. I already have a Klipsh sub and a SVS PB2000 but am thinking about replacing the Klipsch with either a 4000 series or SB16.

I'm loving all the great info - keep it coming.

I think I'll go ahead and post my initial setup procedure, even though I used too heavy a hand with the curve smoothing. After all, this is intended as a learning thread. So, I might as well post the entire process, including the initial curves. Besides, now the subs have had more breaking in, so when I run sweeps again with higher resolution, it might show something.

And yeah, this is contagious. I'd been trying to figure out what I was going to do for probably two years. Maybe longer.

 

[JohnRice]

OK, about 9 days into the new subs and I should probably finally post something about what I've done so far. I'll be writing about the subs themselves (dual SVS SB-16 Ultras) in a review thread, so this will be mostly general info that's not specific to those subs, except I will be showing the results of adjusting their internal Parametric Equalizers (PEQ).

The room is roughly 26' wide by 21' deep. It's in the basement in a '50s ranch style house, so the ceiling is a bit lower than most, at 7' 4". It's not a straight rectangle, but reasonably close, and is somewhat open on the right side, with a stairway and hallway. The floor, and front and left side walls back to concrete. This is a dedicated room for movies and video, so I'm fortunate to be able to configure it pretty much however I want. The front speakers are spaced about 8 feet apart and four feet from the front wall, for ideal imaging, with a 65" QLED and center speaker on a stand between them. So there's plenty of space to locate a subwoofer behind the equipment. Since these things weigh a ton and are difficult to move, I planned out what should be the best placement of opposing corners. The front right and back left. The prime viewing position is about nine feet from the monitor and has about 6 feet behind it. So, it's really an ideal setup for just two or three people at most, but it is ideal for surround sound with that few people.

The first thing I did was run some quick sweeps of each sub individually, to gain match them. The purpose of this is to make certain that each sub is contributing equally to the levels at the listening position. You could also do this with a regular test tone and an SPL meter by playing the tone to each individual sub and adjusting its gain until both produced the same level at the main listening position.

Then I did sweeps of each sub alone, both together and then the full system with the mains. This is with no EQ applied anywhere. Also, I used too much smoothing on these, so their usefulness is a bit limited. Live and learn.

Clearly some fixing is needed to smooth things out. Also there's some real problems in the crossover area between the subs and mains, but this is with my Emotiva XSP-1 two channel preamp, which has a rather archaic method of setting crossovers, so there's really no need for me to go into that, since nobody is likely to be dealing with the specifics of that system.

Next was to run sweeps on each individual sub and use the internal PEQ to smooth out the response.

Each sub has the option for up to three filters and each graph shows the response with no filter and then with the addition of each filter. Ultimately two for the back and three for the front. This was the best I could achieve with the limitations of the available settings. Using a MiniDSP they could be made much more flat, but I wanted to see what the SVS's filters could do. With more work, I might be able to improve on the response from the front sub.


Once I had done that, I gain matched them again, since their overall levels had changed somewhat, and ran final sweeps of each individual sub, and both together. This is where a major benefit of dual subs becomes clear. With ideal placement and adjustment, notice how the two curves almost perfectly complement each other to produce a much flatter overall curve.

Seeing that dip above 50Hz, I decided to see what would result from adjusting the phase on the individual subs would do. Adjusting one made it worse, but adjusting the other improved it significantly.

The difference in results from beginning to end are really significant. Even with careful placement of the subs to begin with, a few hours of work produced significantly flatter response, and the audible results of it are just as significant. It's the first time I've ever had bass response that was smooth, with no discernible high and low areas. I'm sure most if not all of you are familiar with there being certain frequencies that shake the room, which others seem to be missing altogether.

How long did this take? I did it last Saturday afternoon over about a four hour period. So, it takes some time, but the benefits are almost unbelievable. That time and the $110 for the MiniDSP Umik-1 microphone (assuming you already have a computer to run it all) is one of the best investments you can make in your system.

A little aside, this was all done when the subs only had a few hours of breaking-in time, and a week later, after several loud action movies and lots of music, they improved more. I was surprised how they improved. So, I'll have to check it all again. I swear their output and extension has increased, and not by a small amount. I've actually turned them down 6dB and they still sound like they're set too high.

 

[JohnRice]

...was it that bad?

 

[JohnRice]

There's a closet/storage area right next to the front subwoofer that has folding doors. I just ordered some door stops to try and keep them from rattling.