Emotiva Ultra 12 Subwoofer Review

[Protostar1]

Yes, it is necessary (unless you are going to use it as an end table) - however, there is nothing required other than playing it.

I just put on Lord of the Rings and ran it boosted louder than I have it running now (I put the gain dial on both - I got two Ultra 12's - at the third hash mark) and let it play at a pretty loud volume. Loud enough that I didn't really want to be in the room basically for about 25-30 minutes. I would guess from the sounds alone that the break-in took less than 5 of those, but during that time it did audibly get deeper and smoother in the bass.

After that I calibrated both which called for reducing the gain by 2/3 what I had it at... and the sound hasn't changed. Bascially all you're doing is getting it a little warm and working the surround. After it's broken in during the first few minutes... the rest is just for fun anyway.

Great! I have just been thumping music through it for the past two weeks. It has been working great (way more sub than I need with my wuss Canton bookshelves). Much improved over the tiny 8" Canton sub paired with the MXII speakers.

I did have a very bizarre and loud rattle in what sounded like the front baffle of the driver on the sub. I lifted the sub up and gave it a light shake and put it back down and no further noise... A little disconcerting but the thing is brand new and has a solid warranty I suppose.

I have set up the sub to the best of my ability (I have an SPL meter but am not sure how to run a pink noise calibration on my RX-V559...) and I am getting some serious standing waves in my roughly 12x12' room with one wall solid concrete, one open to a kitchen, one drywall, and the other all glass windows. The bass booms at about 3', 7', and like 12' from the sub. Is this a function of my room or is there a way I can smooth this out? I have the sub volume down to only about 1/4 of max because the speakers are simply over powered any higher. The lower volume marginally alleviates this issue but not totally. Higher overall volumes still produce a bit of the boom at those radii. Any advice?