Need help with choosing a budget subwoofer - some used options included

Which one?


  • Total voters
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Auditor55

Auditor55

Audioholic General
It sounds fine to me, I just wanted to see if my subwoofer meets the expectations I had when I was building it. It looks like the -3db point with this sub in my room is at 14.5hz, which is cool.

I used a USB extension cable to place the microphone where I sit to watch movies/TV shows. The new measurements can be seen below The blue graph is with Audyssey XT set to ON, and the purple graph is with Audyssey XT set to OFF.

Notice that the dip at 50hz is gone when Audyssey is OFF, but then I get more peaks at higher frequencies. I think that it's best to keep Audussey on, and try to fix that dip at 55hz with software. I assume it would be easier than trying to fix the multiple dips that occur when Audyssey is off.



Now here are the same measurements, with 1/3 octave smoothing. This demonstrates what I said above, that the FR (up to 200hz, which is all I've tested) is overall better with Audyssey being enabled.


Overall, though, the FR is still far from flat (which I assume is not necessarily undesirable).

Lastly, a graph of a 0hz-22khz sweep, with 1/3 octave smoothing applied (RED - Audyssey enabled; BLACK - Audyssey disabled):


Again, it's not flat, but it sounds good to me.
Let me know if I should upload other graphs.

Edit: So after spending this entire Saturday on messing with measurements and stuff, I ended up installing the trial version of Dirac Live. It was as quick and easy to set up as Audyssey, and the result is a much flatter response (which you are able to tweak to your own preferences). I did lose a lot of overall volume (7db) and audio sounds more "tamed" and less explosive, but the bass is more even now and not "bloated". That dip at 55hz is gone, by the way. I definitely wouldn't spend the ~$600 it costs, though. It's just an insane price to pay for such software.
You need a second or 3rd sub.
 
Y

yonyz

Audioholic
@yonyz Did you ever give a look at Equalizer APO?
Yes, and I wasn't able to get the graph to look any flatter. Whenever I tried to fix a peak, it created another problem.
Last night I watched The Man Who Knew Infinity. This isn't an action movie by any means, but there was this scene when Cambridge University was bombed by a zeppelin and the impacts sounded so good, I'm certain my sub never sounded this good before.
 
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