Subwoofers & DSP or nearly bye bye room

[HighFidelityGuy]

Thanks for the mini review Mark. Your findings seem to tally with others I've read on these particular DSP boxes.

Just out of interest, would you be able to list the crossover points you use with all your speakers and subs and where in all that you've put the DSP boxes? It would just help me to understand your setup a bit better. Cheers.

[Reid Malenfant]

Thanks for posting your experience with this device Mark, it's very interesting. I use a 2.1 set up for my system, for both films and music - well not really 2.1 I guess as that implies a dedicated, filtered bass channel, so I should really say I use 2 channel with bass augmentation.

The single sub is only set to very minimum output and a low cut-off point for music, just enough to excite the room. At this point the effect on presence and soundstage is huge and the projection into the room is a great contributor to the very live sound that I get. I turn the wick up a bit for movies but in either case, just tipping past this point gives me boomy bass, so there I stop.

I believe the reproduction of the lowest frequencies is essential to achieve "real" sounds. Even sounds that appear to have NO relationship with bass, say a triangle or cymbal. I'm sure it's just that our perception of "real" is based on the relationship to the full (or at least wide) frequency range and that deep bass does for high frequencies and imaging clues what a supertweeter does for tighter bass

I just recently found this unit on the BK site at the end of a surf run about subs, but I hadn't realised that you were in fact talking about the same bit of kit. I've heard Velodyne subs with DSP/ microphone compensation and the resulting effect was very clean, clear and desirable. As I'm commited to "2.1" I think one of these is going to be a finger slip away.



PS. Val has gotten to the stage where she sees me on AOS and immediately asks "so what are we getting now then?"

@ the last bit! If your output that you feed the sub amp with is line level & you then connect to a power amp & the speaker, or if you are using a commercial sub & the line level input - then yes you can connect up one of these

Thanks for the mini review Mark. Your findings seem to tally with others I've read on these particular DSP boxes.

Just out of interest, would you be able to list the crossover points you use with all your speakers and subs and where in all that you've put the DSP boxes? It would just help me to understand your setup a bit better. Cheers.

Dave, the 8033 is connected to the (what is called) bass output of the DC2496. I have these set to 6 way mono but i have 2 channels muted. So i have bass, low mid, upper mid & high. The bass output is set to roll off above 110Hz, so the 8033 is fed signals up to 110Hz & then the output of the 8033 connects to the power amp. It could be up to 150Hz but no higher

If i connected it prior to the DCX i'd get no mid or treble or anything over 150Hz..

So ARC MP1 pre amp - DCX2496 - 8033 on bass & then to pwr amp & from 2496 to pwr amps on all other channels.

Hope that helps m8

[Reid Malenfant]

I had a friend over earlier who is always keen to listen to any changes on my system just to hear the differences

As i have been living with these two devices for a while i decided to bypass them just to have a brief listen to how things used to be... So i pressed the bypass buttons on both units & the bass got louder & the room boom was overwhelming

It's simply stunning what these little boxes actually do, they eliminate the room effects below 110Hz in my case & the difference is absolutely astonishing! If i had known about these things previously & known what they would do i'd have happily payed full price for them & then some!

I know most people on this site don't happen to run active subs, that's a shame really as i in no way could live without what these things do now (you just have no idea of what you are missing!) I can't recommend them highly enough. You want natural sounding deep bass, these are the answer & you'll no doubt have to pay a good bit to better these

[John]

Its great to hear this works for you Mark
I now think for box speakers you have to go DSP to get the best out of the bass

[Reid Malenfant]

Its great to hear this works for you Mark
I now think for box speakers you have to go DSP to get the best out of the bass

You think, i know!

You just would not believe the difference John. I'm not going to say night & day but in all honesty if a lorry ran over your foot i think you'd notice it - a bit like this, it just can't be ignored as it's just immediately obvious

[John]

Nothing like clean bass I am pretty sure I do not need one due to the open back nature of my speakers. When Vic tried this approach he no longer had to use the DSP for room modes but still uses it to control sub-sonic frequencies
Anyway great to hear it works the bass you getting now must be awesome Mark

[Reid Malenfant]

It's clean & at the right level. Never heard such clean bass i'll be honest

What was masked by the room due to decay & reflections is now crystal clear, i don't know how to explain it other than i seem to not be in a room as far as the bass is concerned. There are no reflections, no long decays, it all happens so fast & clean. Every different note is easily discernable & the whole rig appears to make even deeper bass notes more easily heard, i guess that is once again due to them effectively getting rid of the room effects

Put it like this, when i first ran the calibration routine i turned the power amp way down. As the bass volume level was low i upped it some & recalibrated figuring it'd be more accurate. I did the same again as it was still in no way too loud. Each time i re-calibrated the initial 16Hz tone was heard as clear as if i was listening to you standing next to me whilst talking

[John]

Yeah I know what you mean its such an addictive listen having clean bass and also allows everything up top to shine through more

[Reid Malenfant]

Yeah I know what you mean its such an addictive listen having clean bass and also allows everything up top to shine through more

I'd go along with that Another thing i have found is that i tend to listen at higher levels than i used to. Not that much higher but higher none the less! The clean bass rather than the added room artefacts makes everything so much clearer (as you rightly point out), it's kind of difficult to describe actually without actually hearing it

I'm looking forward to Dave (Synsei) popping over & having a listen as you'll get a non biased second opinion. However, i'm sure he'll be as gobsmacked as i was earlier when i bypassed both units & listened to what the room adds

DSP4ME

Enjoy the rest of your weekend John, all the best m8

[synsei]

Firstly, I need to declare here and now that I don't understand the technical niceties of how all this works, which is probably a good thing if an unbiased review of the sound, rather than the electronics, is what is needed...

After I arrived at Marks he was very keen for me to hear what it's all about, so I settled down with a coffee and a ciggy while Mark threw on some tunes. We began the session with the Antimodes switched off, so as such, there was nothing new to hear over what I'd heard before. I'm not sure what Mark had playing, but it was his usual fare of dark synth chillout with seismic bass lines and ambiance aplenty. I thought it was all sounding pretty good until the Antimodes kicked in.

Before I go any further, I must state that Mark and myself employ very different approaches to system building, neither of which is right or wrong, they are just different routes to the same goal. I am an Old Skool audiophile: I try to choose each new piece of equipment for my system very carefully by attempting to match the sonic signatures of each component to achieve a homologous whole. There's a particular sound I like and I have a very awkward listening room which makes it problematic to achieve. It has odd acoustic properties that suck the life out of the bass response from most speakers. I chose the DM2's I have now after much discussion with various people and a couple of listening sessions to determine if they could be part of the solution to my bass problem, and they are. Ergo, one happy camper. Mark, on the other hand, has chosen to tackle his problem from another direction, employing an active rather than a passive solution, using additional electronics to shape the sound.

When the Antimodes were switched on - the effect wasn't subtle. I have to be honest and say that I wasn't totally convinced. Most of the low end information seemed to have got up, looked at us in utmost disgust, then exited stage left in a huge sulk because it couldn't play with the room anymore. I sat there rather embarrassed, nodding in all the right places but thinking, "how can this be?", "where did all the bass go?". Remember, at this point we were still listening to Marks CD's and I have to say I didn't think it worked well with bog-standard two channel playback (sorry Mark ). I was thinking that, with all the expensive equipment gathered in the room, I should be hearing more. I believe it is a setup issue and that with some fine tuning it could be brought back from the brink.

The reason I think it IS a setup issue is because we then sat and watched the Blue Ray, directors cut of Avatar on Marks huge projection screen. Now we're talking!!! Now the Antimodes made sense!!! I could enthuse about the picture quality, natural saturation levels and every other picture based superlative you can think of for ever and a day, but it was the sound that topped it all. As I said to Mark when the film ended, it had been a better all round viewing experience than when I went to see it at my local Odeon, and that's saying something. The whole aural experience was as tight as a Gnats arse. Every little detail, every gut wrenching explosion, the sound of powerful engines ripping through the air, it was all there. When the missile assault was launched on Home Tree, I almost ducked as they tore through the air over my head, and I reeled as the shock wave hit me from multiple explosions as the missiles ripped into the tree and chewed it up. Watching the tree slowly topple I found myself anticipating a huge effect as tree met ground, and I wasn't disappointed. Part of my brain must have been expecting my body to be thrown all over the place because as the thunderous, cataclysmic racket of the collision reverberated through me, I found myself feeling a little disorientated and nauseous. That is not a bad thing btw

So, to sum up: I'm not entirely convinced that the Antimodes work so well on stereo playback as they are set up just now. However, they are absolutely the Bees Knees when used in multi-channel movie playback and work exactly as Mark describes. I'm at a loss as to why I don't feel so enthusiastic about their effect in two channel format, but there you go.

I'm sorry if that isn't entirely what you wanted to hear Mark, but even so, Avatar really rocked on your system...