Please help me tame the bass beast

I don't know what you could do acoustically that wouldn't take a lot of trial and error on your part. But you could probably fix the problem easily via a digital processor like the low-cost Behringer 8024, or a more expensive TacT product like the RCS 2.0. If I were in your shoes, those are the options that I'd be considering. Good luck!

I wonder what stands do you use if any. I have Totem Forest speakers that are standing on the 3/4"MDF platform with their original ball-feet and the platform is placed on the vibrapods. That setup brings more natural bass and eliminates floor resonance.

The floor resonance might be your problem.

I agree with Plate. In my mind, you have 3 options:
1) Get a Tact room correction unit. It works exactly as advertised.
2) Try positioning the speakers along the opposite wall they are on now (ie if on short wall now, put them along the long wall).
3) If they are ported, try stuffing the ports with something like dacron, etc
As an aside, I am sure Mr Joseph could help you out as well. Best of luck.

Musicmannj

From your room dimensions it appears as though you might have a standing wave problem. This occurs when 2 dimensions of the room are equally divisible (usually the parallel walls in-front and behind your speakers). Standing waves create bass 'hotspots' where bass frequencies are in phase, and pockets where bass frequencies are out of phase.

If your listening position seats you 'in' or at the high point of in-phase standing wave you hear double the volume of the effected frequency(ies). Conversely if you were to seat yourself at the low point where the standing wave is out of phase you would likely hear very little or nothing.

Your room isn't that large, so its my guess that you're getting a 'sympathetic resonance' from the drywall in your listening environment - a singular bloated bass region. And that THIS is probably a product of an in-phase standing wave.

What height is your ceiling in the room? ...If this too is divisible by the same common number you are unfortunately trying to make music the acoustic environment from hell.

If I'm correct the only practical thing (that I'm aware of - aside from digital room correction) is to calculate the standing wave frequencies, and see if you can eliminate them with bass tubes or other similar absorbers. Another (although less desirable IMHO) is to find the offending frequencies and modify your crossovers to compensate for your room issues. This could be done by the speaker mnfr.

Any one else have a different diagnosis/suggestions...?

Good luck with it,
Mike

I suspect that you have a room resonance problem. To find the approximate frequency at which a room will resonate divide 565 by the room dimension or in your case 565/18 = 31.5Hz and 565/12 = 47Hz. By taking multiples of these fundamentals you get overlapping modes at about 94Hz and again at about 190Hz with several other close modes between these frequencies. This could account for what you are hearing in the mid bass. You can determine if this is the problem by placing a 1/3 octave band equalizer between the preamp and poweramp and notching out frequencies at the overlapping resonances. If you like the results you then know what frequencies you are trying to treat or you could leave the equalizer in place. Just remember that the least equalization is generally the best.