Amber soundbar configuration

[Wuaysi]

Hello

I have an AMBEO Max soundbar paired with a REL HT1205 MKII sub.

I am trying to set it up and have done the following:

1. Set crossover to max on the REL sub per the AMBEO manual.
2. Set gain to 60% on the REL sub.
3. Ran the AMBEO sound calibration.
4. The sub can only go in one position unfortunately due to room aesthetics.

This is quite a large room, 6x6m with 6m ceilings. I fully expect not to get the greatest sound experience but to me the sub needs to be louder. I couldn't put a ported sub in there as I don't have the space (ironically lol).

1. What should I be setting the AMBEO soundbar sub gain to? From memory it goes from -12dB to 12dB (app not in front of me at the moment).
2. Is it safe to increase the gain on the REL sub to get more out of it? Is there a limit on what the gain should not exceed? I'm not to fussed if the sub lasts 5 years instead of 10 years, or 10 years instead of 15 years.
3. Am I doing anything else incorrectly?

 

[TLS Guy]

Hello

I have an AMBEO Max soundbar paired with a REL HT1205 MKII sub.

I am trying to set it up and have done the following:

1. Set crossover to max on the REL sub per the AMBEO manual.
2. Set gain to 60% on the REL sub.
3. Ran the AMBEO sound calibration.
4. The sub can only go in one position unfortunately due to room aesthetics.

This is quite a large room, 6x6m with 6m ceilings. I fully expect not to get the greatest sound experience but to me the sub needs to be louder. I couldn't put a ported sub in there as I don't have the space (ironically lol).

1. What should I be setting the AMBEO soundbar sub gain to? From memory it goes from -12dB to 12dB (app not in front of me at the moment).
2. Is it safe to increase the gain on the REL sub to get more out of it? Is there a limit on what the gain should not exceed? I'm not to fussed if the sub lasts 5 years instead of 10 years, or 10 years instead of 15 years.
3. Am I doing anything else incorrectly?

The first thing to try is to increase the volume to the sub.

This may not solve your issue. Soundbars are very Low-Fi contrpations with puny speakers and can not possibly produce good sound. So the sound bar will produce no heft at all.

Bass actually extends out way above sub range to at least 500 Hz.

So even under the best of circumstances there will be a significant gap between a sound bar and a sub.

I can't imagine you don't have room for decent speakers and subs in a room that size.

I never understand this aesthetic nonsense. Speakers do not detract from the aesthetic of a room any more than a couch or table. In fact many speakers look a lot better than most room furniture. There is so much interior design BS about this that it is enough to overload any sewage system. Done right, good sound systems do not detract from room aesthetics but can and should enhance it.

I know what does detract, and that is a puny soundbar stuck under a big screen TV is a large space. That looks and is stupid.

By the way, I think you mean Ambeo sound bar. Those a very expensive. You could have bought a decent system for that money. You pretty much flushed money down the toilet.

 

[lovinthehd]

For a best performing sub I certainly wouldn't choose Rel. However, you don't want the sub trim level in the soundbar to be -12 as that simply indicates you have gain on the sub set too high and need to lower it let alone raise it.

 

[privateeye]

Hello

I have an AMBEO Max soundbar paired with a REL HT1205 MKII sub.

I am trying to set it up and have done the following:

1. Set crossover to max on the REL sub per the AMBEO manual.
2. Set gain to 60% on the REL sub.
3. Ran the AMBEO sound calibration.
4. The sub can only go in one position unfortunately due to room aesthetics.

This is quite a large room, 6x6m with 6m ceilings. I fully expect not to get the greatest sound experience but to me the sub needs to be louder. I couldn't put a ported sub in there as I don't have the space (ironically lol).

1. What should I be setting the AMBEO soundbar sub gain to? From memory it goes from -12dB to 12dB (app not in front of me at the moment).
2. Is it safe to increase the gain on the REL sub to get more out of it? Is there a limit on what the gain should not exceed? I'm not to fussed if the sub lasts 5 years instead of 10 years, or 10 years instead of 15 years.
3. Am I doing anything else incorrectly?

It’s been a while since I last worked with an Ambeo (we used to sell them), but I can tell you a few things with confidence. First, the sound quality should be top-notch, and you should hear true surround sound—as if speakers were hidden in your walls, with the sound not seeming to come directly from the soundbar itself, assuming your room has no large openings. The bass response should also be impressive, even without a subwoofer, since the Ambeo can actually reach down to 30 Hz. If you’re not experiencing any of this, you might have a defective unit; quality control on the Ambeo can sometimes be hit or miss.

 

[TLS Guy]

It’s been a while since I last worked with an Ambeo (we used to sell them), but I can tell you a few things with confidence. First, the sound quality should be top-notch, and you should hear true surround sound—as if speakers were hidden in your walls, with the sound not seeming to come directly from the soundbar itself, assuming your room has no large openings. The bass response should also be impressive, even without a subwoofer, since the Ambeo can actually reach down to 30 Hz. If you’re not experiencing any of this, you might have a defective unit; quality control on the Ambeo can sometimes be hit or miss.

Pure fiction. The physical laws of the universe are immutable. No 4" speaker is going to reach 30 Hz now matter how many you have. Adding speakers only increases sound output and not bass extension. Our brains are not fooled and will know where the sound is coming from no matter how you point and configure the speakers.

 

[privateeye]

Pure fiction. The physical laws of the universe are immutable. No 4" speaker is going to reach 30 Hz now matter how many you have. Adding speakers only increases sound output and not bass extension. Our brains are not fooled and will know where the sound is coming from no matter how you point and configure the speakers.

It absolutely can, though, as it uses four 4-inch long-throw woofers. People have measured it, and virtually any—and I do mean any—professional review will validate this claim. Is it surprising? Yes, it's very surprising, but at the same time, it's legit. I won’t die on this hill, as I’ve never measured it myself, but the bass output is so good that it’s uncanny. Is it as good as a dedicated subwoofer? No, not a good one at least, but it digs down way deeper than you would ever imagine possible just by looking at it.

 

[privateeye]

Pure fiction. The physical laws of the universe are immutable. No 4" speaker is going to reach 30 Hz now matter how many you have. Adding speakers only increases sound output and not bass extension. Our brains are not fooled and will know where the sound is coming from no matter how you point and configure the speakers.

I need to touch on one more thing. There are soundbars that use sound projection technology, where you absolutely cannot tell the audio is coming from the soundbar. It literally sounds like the audio is coming from your far left, right, and rear walls, and I mean this in the most legitimate way—it sounds like there are hidden speakers, with no sense that anything other than the center channel audio is coming from the bar. This technology has been around; check out Yamaha Sound Projectors. Pioneer originally developed this technology using speaker arrays, just like Yamaha did. Ambeo, older Bowers & Wilkins models, and maybe a few others use this technique, and it is extremely convincing—it’s legitimate surround sound, provided you’re in an ideal room.

 

[TLS Guy]

It absolutely can, though, as it uses four 4-inch long-throw woofers. People have measured it, and virtually any—and I do mean any—professional review will validate this claim. Is it surprising? Yes, it's very surprising, but at the same time, it's legit. I won’t die on this hill, as I’ve never measured it myself, but the bass output is so good that it’s uncanny. Is it as good as a dedicated subwoofer? No, not a good one at least, but it digs down way deeper than you would ever imagine possible just by looking at it.

It will be some sort of false bass. There is no way a 4" speaker is going to have a resonant frequency anywhere near 30 Hz, and you can not drive a speaker below Fs. I know darn well it will not sound as if the sound is coming from side, rear walls or ceiling. We all are ruled by nature's physical laws.

 

[privateeye]

It will be some sort of false bass. There is no way a 4" speaker is going to have a resonant frequency anywhere near 30 Hz, and you can not drive a speaker below Fs. I know darn well it will not sound as if the sound is coming from side, rear walls or ceiling. We all are ruled by nature's physical laws.

Of course, this is just the opinion of someone who has neither heard, owned, nor done any research on these soundbars. Maybe it would be worth doing some actual research before forming an opinion. But hey, maybe you're right, and all the owners and professional reviewers who've tested these units are just wrong.

 

[TLS Guy]

Of course, this is just the opinion of someone who has neither heard, owned, nor done any research on these soundbars. Maybe it would be worth doing some actual research before forming an opinion. But hey, maybe you're right, and all the owners and professional reviewers who've tested these units are just wrong.

Yes, the users are mislead. I can find no hard data on the measured performance of those units, nor meaningful specs. All that is out there is anecdotal, and subjective opinion which is of minimal value.

What I do know after 70 years of working with drivers, designing and measuring speakers, is that no unit with 4" drivers is going to get to 30 Hz with any useful or meaningful output. If it did we would all be clamoring for that technology and the professional engineering press would be buzzing with it. It is not.

 

[highfigh]

The specs in the manual show "Frequency Response 38-20KHz ±3dB"- being able to measure 38 Hz is very different from being able to hear 38Hz from it and they didn't show the environment where it was measured. However, that's moot because subwoofer crossover is typically set somewhere between 60Hz and 120Hz.

It might be helpful to use a visual display of the response when setting the levels and crossover frequency- download an RTA app and look at the subwoofer's response as you adjust it, but leave the soundbar off. Then, look at the response for the soundbar without the sub and you should notice that the <60Hz range isn't great, so raise the crossover to 60-80z, wherever it's smoothest. Then, set the sub's crossover frequency to a similar point with minimal overlap before raising the sub's level to meet the level of the soundbar. If you see a hump in the response, you can lower the sub's crossover frequency until you see a dip, then raise it to make the response smooth.

 

[privateeye]

The specs in the manual show "Frequency Response 38-20KHz ±3dB"- being able to measure 38 Hz is very different from being able to hear 38Hz from it and they didn't show the environment where it was measured. However, that's moot because subwoofer crossover is typically set somewhere between 60Hz and 120Hz.

It might be helpful to use a visual display of the response when setting the levels and crossover frequency- download an RTA app and look at the subwoofer's response as you adjust it, but leave the soundbar off. Then, look at the response for the soundbar without the sub and you should notice that the <60Hz range isn't great, so raise the crossover to 60-80z, wherever it's smoothest. Then, set the sub's crossover frequency to a similar point with minimal overlap before raising the sub's level to meet the level of the soundbar. If you see a hump in the response, you can lower the sub's crossover frequency until you see a dip, then raise it to make the response smooth.

This is worth watching if you're interested in learning about this tech;