Pulled The Trigger On An Emo Ultra 12

[sholling]

The two TSC T250s had to go so I ordered the Ultra 12 on Thursday with a due date of tomorrow and it got here a day early - gotta love FedEx Ground. I've only been playing with it for 2 hours but it's NOT going back.

The question is do I wait for the official Audioholics review and then add my impressions, or do I go ahead and post my first impressions today?

 

[GlocksRock]

Post your impressions now!

 

[j_garcia]

You didn't wait for the review to order it, so post now

 

[rnatalli]

Post some pics too

 

[sholling]

Okay here goes... First bear in mind that my home-office is a difficult room. I have two desks and shelving, a big safe and stacked storage boxes in a 13x13x10 room - roughly 1700cuft minus the junk. The mains are EMP E41 bookshelves crossing over to the sub at 100hz. My listening position is 3' from the mains and 2' from the sub. Keep in mind that I have not EQed the sub yet and I do not run Audyssey. A 10-100hz sweep showed two big holes that I blame on the room and not the subwoofer and I expect a bit of EQ to help a lot. I'll be picking up a feedback destroyer or equivalent this week and reporting back.

These are just preliminary impressions so don't read too much into them:

Chris Rea - Hafner Blue Notes: Chris Rea puts down the six string and showcases his skills on the bass guitar. What struck me was tight, articulate bass.

Gaudi - Bass, Sweat, and Tears: This album will give a subwoofer a deep deep deep bass test complete with subsonics. The Ultra 12 did very well and kept the bass clean right down to it's frequency response limits. It obviously does not go as bone shaking deep as my Hsu ULS-15 but it's none the less impressive.

Soul Ballet - Trip The Night Fantastic: This has a lot of deep, impactful and detailed bass. The Ultra 12 brought out every bit of that detail.

Master & Commander Blu-Ray: The bass goes deep in the way that sealed subs do. Deep without the 20hz impact of a ported sub.

 

[sholling]

I just spent the last 45 minutes listening to Marcus Miller M2.

I'm going to be chasing rattles in that room for weeks. It's shaking everything.

 

[Warpdrv]

can you post the sweep....

How low does it play...?

 

[MinusTheBear]

can you post the sweep....

How low does it play...?

Gene pulled some measurements off one and compared it to an JL, Axiom and Aperion model.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=775940&postcount=10

 

[sholling]

can you post the sweep....

How low does it play...?

Sorry no I can't post the sweep - yet. I'm just using a rat shack meter. I'll be picking up some hardware and software tools soon as I figure out what I need (suggestions welcome). I have the mic from my SMS-1 which should be good enough but no XLR to USB adapter to record the sweeps (suggestions?).

Again I've just done preliminary listening. Speaking purely subjectively it goes plenty low for 99% of music which is all that I bought it for but I do wish it dug deeper.

 

[Warpdrv]

Ahhh gotcha...

Minus, I was looking for his particular in room response to compare with genes measurements...

No biggie....

 

[Warpdrv]

I have the mic from my SMS-1 which should be good enough but no XLR to USB adapter to record the sweeps (suggestions?).

You really can't rely on that Mic for anything other then the SMS, as they likely did a batch build of the mic and used a calibration file in the firmware of the SMS. Not knowing how far off it measures and being unable to correct for it is not going to help you all that much...

I posted in your other thread about sub tools....

I'll be getting one of those Dayton OmniMic systems for myself, its a simple all in one package, but $300 to the normal user - will probably steer some people away. For what I have invested, it'll be a nice simple tool for me....

Not sure if it'll be worth it for you as the same price as the sub you just bought....

 

[sholling]

You really can't rely on that Mic for anything other then the SMS, as they likely did a batch build of the mic and used a calibration file in the firmware of the SMS. Not knowing how far off it measures and being unable to correct for it is not going to help you all that much...

I posted in your other thread about sub tools....

I'll be getting one of those Dayton OmniMic systems for myself, its a simple all in one package, but $300 to the normal user - will probably steer some people away. For what I have invested, it'll be a nice simple tool for me....

Not sure if it'll be worth it for you as the same price as the sub you just bought....

I think my rat shack meter will probably do fine. I ran REW tones and found that I have some serious elbow grease room correction (like moving the 2nd gun safe out of the middle of the room) to do before I even bother with a DSP. I also have about 2 dozen things in that office that the sub is rattling so I have lots of work to do.