the damping factor rule.

[PeterSt]

11 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

2 are better than 1 & swarm is better than just 2 (assuming you can afford them)

 

2 is infinitely more difficult than 1 and a swarm is undoable. This is because of cancellation (of each other) and you can't do that without thorough measurement. Now of course it *is* true that anyone with a more decent sub system (pun) also will have a nice measurement microphone and REW and the like. But ... 

[PeterSt]

Obviously everybody tries to help as best as he can. My advice would be not to go the "EQ" route because a. you are too keen in knowing the theories and b. you will thus hear what's all wrong with this method.

 

Any (bass) driver will start to roll off at best at 100Hz. This is compensated to some degree by the cabinet. The bass port also helps but is also a "tuned" factor (carefully tuned by the manufacturer).

 

Any speaker without DSP or very complex analogue filters will be a mess, especially at the lower frequencies. This is because it actually can't do it. You have bumps here and dips there. Again the manufacturer will have caused that this is sufficiently under control for the maximum rating the speaker has. And that for the price it costs, obviously. What I'm saying is that most probably e.g. bumps ate just not too high to be annoyingly audible. And now you're going to boost a few dB's on top of that.

 

The idea to throw some equalizing at it, would not be my idea of making it for the better. Never. It could be personal but equalizers for me are from ancient history. Think bass and treble knobs which also are from the stone age, by now.

It does not work like that inherently and it especially does not work like that to solve this whatever problem you have, of which I may claim you don't even know what it is, yet.

I think what was suggested, is to use the EQ as a trial. But already for the maybe unexpected reasons it fails because of what I said above: you know the theories too well and maybe your ears are also better than you like yourself.

 

A Parametric Equalizer (PEQ) is what you'd need in this case, *if* that is the way to go to begin with. And then 10 or so per channel. Or even better: DSP (which will contain 10 or so PEQ's in firmware). Btw, that too has its down sides, but let's say that for the few 100 $ it maybe costs, you'll have a device what fits your speaker, regarding the imposed quality. It always requires the mentioned measurement. There's no way around that.

 

One more IMO important thing: In the other thread you talked about the lack of bass with your new Hegel amp which replaced the demo amp which was fine, regarding the bass and your perception of it. Please consider the chance to be more than 50% that the bass you perceived at first was sheer distortion. This, while now with the new amp, this distortion is not there or is less. Also you should now that the distortion of about any speaker, but especially the not-so-low going like yours, is quite severe anyway. Now suddenly all is important and crucial, like for example too loud playing (and insufficient control of the amp - that damping factor).. But point is: distortion will sound lower in frequency (also higher at the same time but never mind that). It even will be lower in frequency because of the distortion behavior (diaphragm excurses more than should with a therefore unlinear behavior (it wobbles at a lower frequency than the signal depicts). You would incur for that even more with boosting the lower frequencies, as per the EQ suggestion.

Please consider this as something which might have been extra happening with the demo amp. And if so, the new amp is thus better, although it may not satisfy you more.

 

Regardless, listen to the files esldude is preparing for you. I think he knows what he is doing. But you must know how to judge it and with that, judge the viability of the route you may intend to travel. Hence this post.

 

 

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, STC said:

such as Genelac

 

@FlymanFor your Google input, STC made a small typo there. It is Genelec.

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, STC said:

When you say bass, I think you meant mid bass.

 

This could be very true and I would not ignore that. But supposed we could agree on this, then now there's a whole plethora of causes in order. Actually everything in the chain influences it. Btw, this is also how the difference in forward vs laid back emerges.

 

But true, assuming that such a speaker is not capable of showing any real bass at all (unless distorted which can be very very acceptable to many if not most because often you wouldn't know the difference with undistorted - not even for a low pipe organ unless you know the organ itself), it is very likely that STC is right. Thus, if the speaker can't show real bass in the first place, you can't be in lack of that suddenly (again, see your other thread). But the mid (maybe lower mid) is a matter of where the frequency emphasis is, and these days we know that a stupid configurable USB cable already can do that the most easily, hence the proven truth in that. And now you suddenly don't new speakers (or a sub) at all, but need again to find the culprit or find the tweak to get it right. Try different playback software, for fun. You will see how that alone makes a difference (stay away from EQ means). But the electrical behavior of your system is more important.

 

Anyway, I think that STC's idea of your problems is the idea of the day. I would put money on that ...

[PeterSt]

6 hours ago, Flyman said:

What do you mean saying "these days we know that a stupid configurable USB cable already can do

 

Start at the end and read back a little.

Btw, by no means I intend to say that this is thee solution for you, but it proves how much a USB cable can do in this realm. This is about bass, highs, flat sound, holographic sound (all or way more or way less) and actually what not. And in this case it is all about the same cable but different means of shielding (against incoming radiation but also against outbound radiation from the USB cable itself).