subwoofer crossover- lowest is best almost always?


In my experiences with subwoofers, I have found that lowest setting has always given me the least colored bass response as well as the tightest.  I have found in almost all cases that anything remotely close to crossing over at the speaker frequency seems to overblow the bass almost every time and have a negative effect on the overall sound most noticible with digital.  It seems that any other setting is just trying to compensate resulting in sound that does not sound right. Albeit some may think that systems that do not crank the subwoofer as being thin sounding. Well, I think that depends ultimately on placement and setup of speakers and sub.  Just curious to what others think.
tzh21y

Showing 1 response by erik_squires

Sounds like you have a good ear. :) Your approach is pretty sound, but only some one with pretty good ear training would normally approach it empirically. 

You could be running into a couple of issues.  First is "room gain" The phenomenon that the room extends the anechoic -3dB point of the speakers and boosts the bass overall. Getting an extra 10-20 Hz bass extension  is not impossible.  The second is room modes. If you end up with a bass peak in just the right region it can also either extend the bass, or make it feel bloated and exaggerated. 

I would encourage you to measure and see. The Dayton iMM6 is under $25. Together with Room EQ Wizard (free) you'll get a much better idea. I use OmniMic but it's around $300, but it's very easy to use and, for my speaker projects, ideal. 

Measure, traps, miniDSP FTW! :)