How to control long decay of B&W woofers ?

A drum does not go silent suddenly. It has a decay time, perhaps increased by the recording venue. Maybe what you hear is true.

Hi Richard,
Yes, I have changed the polarity when removing the passive crossover network of the woofers. I was looking for KRELL KBX crossovers but those are no more made or available as you have mentioned already. But the crossover is not the problem here.
I have tried with good analog crossovers. I have experimented with different crossover frequencies, crossover slope, volume levels, even adding a subsonic filters as the KRELL KBX crossover provides. Still I hear the continuous background sound from woofers after the drum beat was hit on some CDs. It is definitely not the room reverberration. The woofers are really vibrating for extended period (though at a lower intensity than the sound of first drum hit) after the drum beat.
I don't know if this is acceptable to many audiophiles, but it is not acceptable to my ears. I feel very annoyed if woofers continue to make sound and do not exactly follow the drum beats. The most surprising thing is that with some CDs the heavy and deep drum beats are extactly reproduced with clean, heavy and deep bass. I have observed that about 95% (or more) of the CDs make the abnormal continuous sound from the woofers and only 5% (or less) do not. Moreover, in a particular CD some tracks do make that bad sound and some other tracks do not. By the way, I listen to pop, rock, jazz, metal, classical, and anything except rap. I am extremely puzzled that if something is wrong with the system setup, or the woofers, or the crossover setting, or associated electronics or the room, then why some tracks on some CDs can make very clean deep and heavy bass sound ?
Is it possible that 95% of CD makers did not record the bass correctly ? That is very hard to believe.
Thanks for your help
-Sunny

2nd thought:

Did you change the polarity of the woofers when you removed the low pass filters? You should have.

Richard

My set up is the same as yours, I think. I do use the Krell KBX that was set up by Krell especially for the 800's and includes the bass alignment filter. Unfortunately, they no longer make the unit and I don't think they will make the board (but you can ask them, if you find a used unit).

I have had no such problem.

Fell free to contact me directly if you have any further questions.

Richard
[email protected]

yeah...if the woofer is still moving,it's on the recording.

I agree with Newbee. It's gotta be the recordings. The fact that some recordings sound very controlled and tight means that it's not the speaker because it's proved that it's capable of stopping when "told" to.

Remember: When the B&W Matrixes came out, they immediately became the monitors of choice at Abbey Road Studios and also at Telarc; no doubt they found their way into several other studios as well. The thing is, the B&W Matrix was immediately received as a new standard in playback accuracy.

So I'd say if you're getting excessive bass overhang on some recordings and not on others ... it's the recording.

Hi Newbee, that is an excellent point. I was also thinking on the same line what you have just pointed out. Otherwise there is no explanation. I was very much puzzled by this observation. I tried so many different ways to make the sound clean but failed. I changed amps, changed crossover charactersitics, added subsonic filters, but nothing made the sound any better.

I highly doubt that it is the room problem. Because I can feel and hear (by standing near to the woofers) that the woofers are still vibrating and producing sound long after the drum beat was hit. I believe that the symptom of the room problem is that you can hear the sound due to room reverberation (by standing waves) after the speakers have already stopped producing any sound. Am I wrong or correct ?

Probably I have to test those CDs on another system to know if it is the problem of the recording or not.
Thanks for your thoughts.
sunny

Perhaps it is nothing more than the quality of the bass reproduction on the recording. One of the most frustrating realities of putting together an excellent system is the creation of an expectation that the sound coming out of the speakers will be of similar quality. 'taint so but knowing so doesn't always help much.

Listen to those errant recordings on someone else's system if you can and see if it is your equipment, room, or just the recording.