Is this normal?

[davidpollock85]

I recently received and hooked up my new DD-12 subwoofer. I ran the initial EQ through the setup and after letting hte auto setting run for a few minutes, the frequency response looked like it was fairly flat from about 25hz to 80hz, but as the tone got higher and neared 80hz it sounded to me like it got much louder. I trusted that the mic and frequency response chart were more accurate at reading sound levels than my ears but after listening to music and movies I can really tell that there is a spike in the 60-90hz range. I understand that lower bass is felt more than it is heard but is it normal after equilizing your subwoofer that you hear a consistent increase in volume from 25hz and up? If anyoen recommends it I will just run the equilizer manually and lower the volume at the higher frequencies to my liking. Thanks for the help.

 

[j_garcia]

Run it again and see if it comes up different or dial it in manually once it has run.

 

[jliedeka]

In the REW forum on Home Theater Shack, they talk about setting up a house curve for bass. Basically a house curve increases the volume somewhat as frequency goes down. The curve plateaus at some frequency. It's something that needs to be worked out for your particular room.

Part of what's happening is that the human ear is fairly insensitive to lower bass frequencies. Technically we can hear down to 20Hz but signals at that frequency have to be a lot louder to be audible. Flat below a certain point is probably not what you want.

Jim

 

[j_garcia]

This is a sealed sub as well, and having heard the DD-15, the bottom end is not quite as extreme as a vented sub, especially with the SMS engaged. As mentioned, flat response may not exactly sound ideal for your personal tastes since the lowest frequencies are more difficult to hear. At the same time, you should probably listen to it flat for a while as there is always the possibility that what you were listening to before was inaccurate.

 

[Warpdrv]

Take a snapshot of the screen response with a camera and post it up here to let us get a look at what its looking like.

 

[caper26]

the bottom end is not quite as extreme as a vented sub, especially with the SMS engaged. As mentioned, flat response may not exactly sound ideal for your personal tastes since the lowest frequencies are more difficult to hear.

Of course not as the port is probably tuned to the lower freqs. As stated earlier, the human ear loses sensitivity in the extreme of the freq spectrum of human hearing 20Hz and 20 kHz, for example, you probably wont hear a sound at 25 kHz, even at 100 dB. Everyone is different. Same goes for low end stuff. As you approach your personal hearing limits, the sounds become less loud as the freq changes, even though the sound intensity (dB) remains constant. My sub, the Monitor Audio RS-w12 has a 4 dB boost at 21 Hz to "counteract" this phenomenon, so that the really low stuff seems "as loud" as the higher stuff, even though the intensity (dB) is higher.

 

[gmichael]

Hence the smiley face that many used to end up with on their EQ settings.

 

[caper26]

Hence the smiley face that many used to end up with on their EQ settings.

OMG!! Since I was a kid, I always set my EQ that way!! High on the ends, tapering down in the middle, like a smiley. Always sounded best to me. It took me 2 reads to figure out what you meant there. Too funny.