Fine Tuning Vandersteen 5s An offer gone missing

4yanx,

I have the 5As, and have set them up personnally along with a number of other similar hi end 5 or 5A systems in the area. In doing so, I have used a number of approaches including the RS meter, a Behringer RTA, and laptop SW called "Room EQ Wizard".

First, in my opinion, these speakers offer tremendous performance if set up properly. They can be totally coherent across the 4 drivers such that you can not hear the speakers, and you can not hear any cross over effect between the drivers, including the subs. I believe you would be doing yourself a great disservice if you tried to do this by ear.

That being said, I don't know what penchant you might have for aquiring the equipment and knowledge to do it yourself versus getting a professional to do it.

Currently Richard Vandersteen is recommending a procedure for how to do it with a RS meter in the instructions that go with the Quatros, and it would apply equally to the 5As. It is very straight forward, and if your room is not particularly problematic, it could get you quite an acceptable solution. However, I have found that real additional improvements can be made with either the RTA or Room EQ.

The RTA provides real time measurement in typically 1/3 octave bands and you can adjust each sub while playing pink noise while looking at the display. It is best to use an RTA plus a good quality calibrated microphone (total about $350). However, the nature of pink noise is such that the amplitudes of all bands are continually varying, make any precise setting an averaging at best.

Room EQ is shareware SW running on a PC augmented by a USB external sound card driven by a RS meter as the microphone. This combination is only a little more expensive than the RS meter alone ($50 for the sound card assuming you have a laptop). It works by calibrating the sound card and microphone and then sending a sweep into the room and capturing the response. A measurement can be taken in a couple of seconds and saved as a plot to the disk (unlike most RTAs). This method is very precise and very repeatable, and is capable of showing the difference in response when moving a speaker by as little as 1". It also reveals those very narrow peaks or dropouts that an RTA cannot see. There are other similar SW products that will do this as well, such as ETF version 5 etc.

I have gone into rooms where dealers have "set up" 5s and made noticable improvements with the Room EQ approach. It is very obvious to me that getting the bass right affects the mids positively every time. I have shown graphs of this approach (before and after) to Richard and hope to have more dialogue on this with him during the upcoming HE 2006 in LA.

I hope this is helpful and not discouraging. A little patience and extra effort here is well worth while. Let me know if I can be of further help.

I am more than willing to assist you in the SW/laptop approach, and I'm sure it can be done coast to coast, via email, or depending on the interest, here online. Another AGON member recently assisted me in a rather complex AC system of dedicated lines and isolation tranformers, and this would be a way of passing on the favor. Feel free to contact me.

Warble tones are useful for two reasons, and apply equally well to any type of speaker. At low frequencies you lesson the chance of measuring directly on top of a specific room resonance and overcorrecting in that region. At high frequencies you lesson the chance of measuring directly on top of a specific comb filtering narrow peak or valley and again overcorrecting. While the phenomina are different, the result is the same.

Using pink noise for measurement can also be useful because it excites all room resonances simultaneously, including those harmonics which add together at any specific frequency. If you have an RTA, play a single bass note down around 63 hz on your test disk, and observe the resulting frequency distribution on the RTA. It will be bell shaped from 31.5 to several hundred hz, due to a combination of the instrument harmonics and the room resonances that are excited.

4yanx,

OK, I am listening to your plea, and despite my better judgment, and the admonitions not to do this in the 5A user manual, lets give a try at a very simple “by ear” setup (Richard, please forgive me). I will leave out all of the complicating iterations, rationale, subtleties, and second order effects, to make it as simple and straightforward as possible.

Some of you with lots of test experience may be horrified by the compromises and potential inaccuracies in the approach below. I am trying to respond to 4yanx, so please don’t attack like vampires. If he tries it and likes the change, then he is better off! If not, no harm done. Let 4yanx be the judge.

All you need for this procedure is a test CD with 10 test signals from 20 to 160 Hz, and your ears. Recognize that determining audio levels across test signals by ear is a challenge and potentially frustrating experience – just do your best. All listening is to be done from your normal listening position. Also, following this procedure will not optimize the subs in your room; only potentially improve their performance in the current location.

“By Ear” Procedure

1. Set the low-frequency contour controls to minimum, the bass levels to “0”, and verify that all 11 room compensation bands are set straight up for both speakers (12 o’clock).
2. With both speakers playing, set the volume at a comfortable listening level for music you enjoy.
3. Listen to each of the 10 CD test signals on both right and left speakers individually, by moving the balance control back and forth. Try to determine if one side sounds “on the average” louder or softer than the other. If so, boost the bass level on the sub amp for the weaker side, or reduce the stronger side, or both until they sound the same. If it is not obvious, leave the bass levels at “0”.
4. Center the balance control, and disconnect the right speaker at the amp.
5. Starting with 160 Hz as a reference, play each test signal and take notes on whether it sounds louder or softer than the reference. A code like zero, one, or more +’s or –‘s for each band is a good approach. Pick the one signal you determine best represents the middle level (some louder, some softer). That signal is your new reference.
6. With this new reference, repeat the step above recording the number of +’s or –‘s for each of the other bands. You now have a rough profile of the sub performance over the 10 test signals, and are ready to adjust the 11 room compensation controls. These adjustments are meant to reduce, not eliminate the variation. A complete flattening of peaks and valleys may cause a non musical result. (Note, the 11 room compensation control frequencies do not match up to the 10 standard 1/3 octave test signals on a test CD.)
7. Pick the highest signal (most +’s), find the closest control and reduce its setting to 9 AM. If it is between controls, adjust both to 10 AM. Take the 2nd highest signal and reduce to 10 AM, and the 3rd highest and reduce to 11 AM.
8. Pick the lowest signal (most –‘s), find the closest control and increase its setting to 3 PM. If it is between controls, adjust both to 2 PM. Take the 2nd lowest signal and increase to 2 PM, and the 3rd lowest and increase to 1 PM.
9. Now reconnect the right speaker, disconnect the left speaker, and repeat steps 5 to 8 above. It is very likely that the sub profile and corresponding room compensation control settings will be very different for this channel, depending on the non symmetries in your listening room and its decorations.
10. Reconnect the left speaker and set the low frequency contour control and each speaker to 7. Play a CD with a good bass track moving up and down through its range, and centered on both channels. Adjust the low frequency contour controls jointly to your preference. Up will make it bigger and boomier, and down will make it tighter.

Listen to a variety of music and see if the bass is better balanced and more uniform, whether the mids have cleaned up, and whether you can hear more detail etc. If it is worse, just back out the changes, and appreciate the difficulty of what you have attempted, and the potential value of more rigorous test methods using RS meters, RTAs, and acoustic SW.

Good luck!