Sanity check: Bad Sub ? (REW Sweep results)

[lovinthehd]

Yeah, though trying combinations of speaker settings AND combinations of positions is difficult, so I was measuring at the sweet spot seat.

I think I'm done for now, at least until I decide if I am going to buy Dirac Live. Or I guess Multeq-x, but DL seems more appreciated generally?

Anyway, it was a useful exercise. I found two rattles around 50-70hz, one a foot on the Q11 I had not tightened, and the little sub has hard feet on a hard floor, and literally was vibrating up on one or more feet and clacking.

From that position this is the combined subs sweep going through Audyssey (I was surprised, it tested each sub individually when it ran, this is the in-AVR versinon). Much flatter than I started. Not flat, but better.

View attachment 76759

I'm not sure if this is a valid test or not, but it's a stereo only output sent to it thru L+R with multi-channel on (which I think does a lot of processing to split it up and send it to various speakers). Not sure if it's good or bad, but it's also kind of sort of flat-ish for all 7 speakers combined.
View attachment 76760

Probably more importantly I played some movie clips with interesting sounds (like the first Stranger Things opening at the elevator, or various pieces from Star Trek's (Chris Pine versions). They all sounded good, and I think better than before I started messing around with it.

Whether someone with better ears, and more experience, would think it horrible or fair I don't know. But I have old ears and little experience and I'm happy so far.

You may be overthinking things . There's reference, then there's preference. Might check this out in any case https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/the-moving-microphone-method-mmm-for-dummies-using-rew.51333/

 

[Linwood]

I hate YouTube videos, mostly because I hate video vs text based information. Too many videos are people rambling, repeating things from other people, or in one I watched last night reading off a ChatGPT summary of a topic. Information rate low, not searchable... I hate videos.....

All that said, most topics seem only covered there, so I've been watching them a lot, and I finally hit one that taught me a LOT on this subject, and makes sense out of some comments people made. For anyone else confused on bass and subs I recommend this:

It's LONG (90 minutes) but very amenable to playing at 1.25x or 1.5x, but has a good thorough discussion on room size, standing waves, and why bass is a different problem than all the other frequencies.

So off to think about this and take a few more measurements, but at least I understand better those weird, extreme dips that started this discussion.

 

[everettT]

I hate YouTube videos, mostly because I hate video vs text based information. Too many videos are people rambling, repeating things from other people, or in one I watched last night reading off a ChatGPT summary of a topic. Information rate low, not searchable... I hate videos.....

All that said, most topics seem only covered there, so I've been watching them a lot, and I finally hit one that taught me a LOT on this subject, and makes sense out of some comments people made. For anyone else confused on bass and subs I recommend this:

It's LONG (90 minutes) but very amenable to playing at 1.25x or 1.5x, but has a good thorough discussion on room size, standing waves, and why bass is a different problem than all the other frequencies.

So off to think about this and take a few more measurements, but at least I understand better those weird, extreme dips that started this discussion.

It took me close to 20 years to come to a good understanding of the room and bass, I was just too busy listening to music. It wasn't till the of advent lfe, that I actually started paying attention. I really missed out on a lot during those years because I thought having great gear was the only solution and it wasn't until I started reading Toole and Linkwitz did I really start to become educated. I as I stated I was just enjoying the music but Toole changed my outlook on that and I highly recommend your wife buy you his 4th edition of his book for Christmas

 

[ski2xblack]

I'll second the recommendation for Toole's book. The latest edition covers bass more comprehenssivly than the earlier ones.

 

[lovinthehd]

I hate YouTube videos, mostly because I hate video vs text based information. Too many videos are people rambling, repeating things from other people, or in one I watched last night reading off a ChatGPT summary of a topic. Information rate low, not searchable... I hate videos.....

All that said, most topics seem only covered there, so I've been watching them a lot, and I finally hit one that taught me a LOT on this subject, and makes sense out of some comments people made. For anyone else confused on bass and subs I recommend this:

It's LONG (90 minutes) but very amenable to playing at 1.25x or 1.5x, but has a good thorough discussion on room size, standing waves, and why bass is a different problem than all the other frequencies.

So off to think about this and take a few more measurements, but at least I understand better those weird, extreme dips that started this discussion.

Yeah prefer written myself, but Grimani has worked with Audioholics a few times on videos too.

 

[Linwood]

So in reading and thinking about this, am I correct that, given the challenges in this room:

Adding Dirac Live without bass control will probably not be all that different from Audyssey and using REW to adjust some bass issues with its alignment tool.

Adding Dirac with bass control would do the latter easier and faster, but (assuming I really put the time and research into it) probably not better.

Adding Dirac Art however, has a good chance of significantly improving the sound given the challenges of the room (and in particular lack of practical places to reposition the subs).

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

So in reading and thinking about this, am I correct that, given the challenges in this room:

Adding Dirac Live without bass control will probably not be all that different from Audyssey and using REW to adjust some bass issues with its alignment tool.

Adding Dirac with bass control would do the latter easier and faster, but (assuming I really put the time and research into it) probably not better.

Adding Dirac Art however, has a good chance of significantly improving the sound given the challenges of the room (and in particular lack of practical places to reposition the subs).

I think DLBC has a lot of potential, and shown some good results. Physics however, are physics, and there’s no way to boost a room induced null(or LP null) by much more than a couple DB. It just eats up all the headroom.
Thats why we always preach about location, location,location. Positional eq is the best remedy. But our rooms are what they are sometimes.
Congrats on the new speakers. Saying you upgraded would be an understatement.
One tiny thing on REW. You should set your vertical limits to 45 and 105(or somewhere close for a 60db window). It makes comparing notes easier, and shows what you’re hearing a little better.

 

[Linwood]

In for a penny, jump in head first without looking, or whatever the analogy is....

So I got ART, and also gave away my old sub so right now experimenting while waiting for another same type sub. I'm convinced in this room it is easier to tune with two than one.

I've been experimenting. I don't know what I'm doing but it looks neat. This is from a single location with 'focused' used. The red is a careful run with Audyssey on, the blow is with DL Art on, with a sweep played through all speakers together (via L+R output and stereo multichannel, which I think does what I want and play them all).

There's the big base dips (red) with Audyssey, and they are largely gone from about 20 up (though not sure why I lost 10-20, need to look).

The other dip near crossover (I'm not sure how ART does that, I don't see a crossover in the AVR with Live) is also missing at about 130hz is also gone.

Now while this looks better, to me the ART playing 5.1 sound tracks sounds quieter, I need to turn up the volume a bit. My first run it sounded flat, but I enhanced the curve on the base about 4db and the high end about 1db up instead of down, and cranked up the midrange on the center in the dialog range a bit. Sounded much better. The two curves lined up better on the high end also, Audyssey must be cranking that up more than ART does by default.

Not sure it sounded "much better" than Audyssey, somewhere just a bit north of a tossup on sound effects and music, perhaps, though much cleaner dialog (maybe because my old ears benefited from a bump in the vocal ranges in the center).

I have no idea what I'm doing really, but it's a neat tool, and I have higher hopes for it with a second matching sub.

I'll read up about it while eating ramen soup and popcorn for the next month.

 

[TLS Guy]

In for a penny, jump in head first without looking, or whatever the analogy is....

So I got ART, and also gave away my old sub so right now experimenting while waiting for another same type sub. I'm convinced in this room it is easier to tune with two than one.

I've been experimenting. I don't know what I'm doing but it looks neat. This is from a single location with 'focused' used. The red is a careful run with Audyssey on, the blow is with DL Art on, with a sweep played through all speakers together (via L+R output and stereo multichannel, which I think does what I want and play them all).

There's the big base dips (red) with Audyssey, and they are largely gone from about 20 up (though not sure why I lost 10-20, need to look).

The other dip near crossover (I'm not sure how ART does that, I don't see a crossover in the AVR with Live) is also missing at about 130hz is also gone.

Now while this looks better, to me the ART playing 5.1 sound tracks sounds quieter, I need to turn up the volume a bit. My first run it sounded flat, but I enhanced the curve on the base about 4db and the high end about 1db up instead of down, and cranked up the midrange on the center in the dialog range a bit. Sounded much better. The two curves lined up better on the high end also, Audyssey must be cranking that up more than ART does by default.

Not sure it sounded "much better" than Audyssey, somewhere just a bit north of a tossup on sound effects and music, perhaps, though much cleaner dialog (maybe because my old ears benefited from a bump in the vocal ranges in the center).

I have no idea what I'm doing really, but it's a neat tool, and I have higher hopes for it with a second matching sub.

I'll read up about it while eating ramen soup and popcorn for the next month.

View attachment 76764

What is your crossover frequency, this looks as if it could well be a phasing issue.

 

[Linwood]

What is your crossover frequency, this looks as if it could well be a phasing issue.

I haven't figured out how to tell yet, it didn't seem to show on the setup in the AVR afterwards like it does for Audyssey, it must have been on one of the target/filter screens. I just took the short path through all those screens for the first pass. Tomorrow I'll look at all the settings, try to find if there's an actual manual with advice on how to set things, recommendations, etc., but really I'm killing time until Wednesday when the 2nd sub should be delivered. Then all these measurements have to be thrown out and start over anyway.

I was just happen in a very quick run through to see it do something positive.

What I haven't seen (and a bit surprised) is anything in the Dirac software for validation -- it doesn't seem to take post-correction measurements at all?

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

What I haven't seen (and a bit surprised) is anything in the Dirac software for validation -- it doesn't seem to take post-correction measurements at all?

FWIW, the post audyssey graphs are just predictions, not measurements.

 

[Linwood]

FWIW, the post audyssey graphs are just predictions, not measurements.

Yeah, I realize that, since they come up immediately. I'm surprised they don't (especially at those prices) include an available validation run as well.

I mean I can see WHY they don't want you to know (all those messy support calls), but from an engineering standpoint it seems like the right thing to do.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Yeah, I realize that, since they come up immediately. I'm surprised they don't (especially at those prices) include an available validation run as well.

I mean I can see WHY they don't want you to know (all those messy support calls), but from an engineering standpoint it seems like the right thing to do.

I totally agree.

 

[everettT]

Yeah, I realize that, since they come up immediately. I'm surprised they don't (especially at those prices) include an available validation run as well.

I mean I can see WHY they don't want you to know (all those messy support calls), but from an engineering standpoint it seems like the right thing to do.

I agree! That's part of the reason I recommended REW, the ability to double check the built-in software.