Subwoofer calibration quandary...


Is there a generally accepted axiom for a target room response?
ie: is it better to achieve a flat, but significantly elevated lowbass response, or a flatter overall bass balance with large peak/valleys?
snickelfritz

Showing 1 response by flrnlamb

Briefly scanning over your post (I'm tired), it appears you have problems with getting your speakers/sub to couple between 80hz-125/160hz). You NEED TO make sure your speakers play solid at these critical bass frequencies, which are likely played through your mains from what I gather. Your Servo play well upto 80hz, or wherever you cross over. I recommend starting at 80hz, and work down if you like your music played lower through the mains.
The mains should be setup, from the listening possition, to couple flat down to the crossover ideally...same for the sub upto the crossover.
Without figuring your room dimmensions/setup, you should start by figuring where better places are for either your seating possition(s) or your speakers, so they couple at 80hz-160hz strongly! Looks like you got either the seats or the speakers sitting in some dips at 80hz,100hz,125hz, etc. You need to adress that.
If you have a single seating possition, and it's equi-distant from the sidewalls (center spot), I'd like to see you place the sub NOT DIRRECTLY LINED UP INFRONT OF YOU ON THE FRONT WALL! Either get it at 1/4 spots in the room conversely, or put on sidewall in middle. Never the less, if you place the sub were your final listening possition(s) is,where your ears will be located, you can play bass steady music and test tones through the sub, while you move around the room and listen! Where it sounds/measures the flattest/best, you can place the sub there! This works well.
In a smaller/medium sized room, I personally like to have a slighly lower response bellow 40/50hz, to compensate for the lack of bass absorption and excesss bass reverb in such rooms. It seems to make a better balance. In larger rooms, where there's enough bass absorption, (6000cu/ft or better), I prefer a more flat response down to 20-30hz range. That's my prefference for you.
So how big is your room?