Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo What frequency is considered "punchy bass"?

I kind of have the same problem, it sounds like placement more than anything. I have the same SVS as you and I have a real problems with nulls. My problem is that when you are standing up in front of the couch the bass sounds good, but then when you sit down the volume of the bass cuts in half. I swear it is louder outside the house than in the "sweet spot". I have tried 3 different spots and only one worked pretty good, unfortunately now that the furniture is re-arranged I am screwed again. I guess i can jack up the couch a couple of feet with cinderblocks and tell the wifey that it is a new style or just chunk a stick of dinamite in there and be done with it once and for all. I am moving the system to another room someday, hopefully it will sound better in there. I have been waiting on a the funds for a new TV but looks like I will be waiting awhile. Has anyone heard any news about that newfangled digital amplifier Axiom was supposed to be coming out with the beginning of this year? I waited patiently through January, but we are into Feb. and still no word. Maybe the whole project went tits up.

I am sort of in the same boat as you, but worse off. I am still new to the HT game, so I purchased speakers and a sub that just doesn't "blend" well, this is obviously not your case! I have ity-bity satellite speakers with a HUGE SVS box sub.

I think the "punchy" bass is close to the upper end of my sub's frequency response, or in my case, way out of the range of my mains response. I say that because at work we use JBL control 5 monitors, and they are just a little bigger than bookshelves but they do have punch, with no sub. I do not have "punch" at the house for sure.

In my limited knowledge, I would concur with what has already been said, with the additional possiblities:

Are you used to an exaggerated mid/upper bass response? I am....err was. I didn't wan't "BOOM! BOOM!" when I bought my sub, but I did expect a little more "boom" than I was *initially* getting (read below) from my sub; was kind of shocked. HOWEVER, the quality from my sub is TOP NOTCH, so it stays! I actually enjoy the quality sound from it more now than I do with an exaggerated "boomy" sub.

As was already suggested, try different cross over frequencies, and set your mains to "small". Producing bass from both your mains AND your sub is gonna cause all kinds of headaches; let each one do their intended job and you will be much better off. As far as what cross-over setting to use, although 80 seems to be the norm, I would say that depends on your ears. If you like the quality of the mid-bass better from your mains than your sub, cross lower; if you like the quality of the mid-bass from your sub more than your mains, cross higher.

Finally, EQ. <----- In my case (YMMV) this was the one thing that gave me the most dramatic improvement in overall sound. All the speaker toeing and such of course made subtle changes, but I'm a "casual" listener, not a "critical" listener, but the EQ had the most dramatic effect in my case.

Lastly, pay attention to your sub's "phase" control. Although we think about the cross-over as a brick wall filter, it isn't. Its possible that the phase is incorrect, causing a "hole" at the cross-over frequency, which happens to be right in that area of the "punchy" feel.

I hope this helps...

-Alan

-EDIT- When I did a response graph from the sub, I found I had LOTS of room gain down low, exaggerating the 20-30Hz range. So like you, when I cranked the gain up on my sub, instead of getting more punch, I was getting more bloat, because it was just turning that really low end up even more (too much). Taming those peaks allowed the upper bass to come alive which elieviating that bloat.

Wow, not only did I find out you only have so much time to edit, but my latest reply dissapeared!

Meant to say above that I "didn't" have punch at the house [until EQing]. I still don't have the amount I desire, but blame the remaining lack of punch on my ity-bity main speakers.

-Alan

Yeah, I may need to look into getting an eq for the sub. It does sound like the really low stuff gets loud before it gets punchy when I turn it up.

Last night I turned the mains to small and sent the bass to the sub and forced myself to leave it that way. There is definately less bass this way, but I am going to try to train my ears to get used to it. I just can't force myself to listen to music with the sub calibrated at the same level of the mains though, it just sounds weak to me. Last night I had the sub at +5 and by the 4th or 5th song it was sounding pretty good.

I hear other posters from time to time talk about the kick in the chest feel from the kick drum, and I envy them. I wonder if you can only get this by cranking up the volume to well past 90db. I have some tinnitus issues so I refuse to go past 90 so maybe I'm just out of luck.

Any of you music lovers feel the kick in the chest when the volume isn't cranked?

Firebird, what kind of eq do you have?

BFD. I am new, but hope my info helps, but if your situation is anything like mine, I'll *bet* you have room gain causing the really LLLOOOOWWWW stuff (20-30Hz) to be loud, and the higher stuff (50-100) to be really weak. Tame those peaks, and I'll bet you get closer to what your looking for.

Also, don't forget about that phase control for proper "blend" of bass from your mains and sub @ the cross over frequency range.

-Alan

Okay, so I can get a little bit long winded sometimes...

But while I am think about it, I have done TONS of research, and one thing I thought of, but have NOT seen discussed ANYWHERE is calibration vs. EQ; specifically in what order to do it.

Based on my limited experience I say EQ first, then calibrate after. If your sub is not flat, when you calibrate with a wide-band pink noise signal, I would *assume* the meter would react to the highest peak, causing the frequencies at the peak to be calibrated correctly, while all others would be too low. In my mind, this would cause the sub to seem "not loud enough" with real world music.

That's just my own take on it though...

-Alan

Cameron, you and Alan have got SVS subs with pretty high output and yes bloated bass down low. They aren't that linear below 30hz. But you should both be getting much better sound. It still reads to me like you both need to dial them in better and practice weightlifting those big boxes around the room.

I have 4 subs calibrtated in total to the same level matched 75db of my small centre speaker. The bass is clean, distinct,omni-directional. Its not boomy.

You may have followed this procedure but I will write what I would do.

1. Shut off the sub and set all speakers to large.

2. With a RS metre and an AVia or DVE disk run test tones to each speaker and level them at 75db.

2. turn on the sub and level that at 75db. (You can raise it later if you want at the receiver but you should always know where 75db. With correction its more like 76.5db anyway.)

3. St the mains to small and cross at 60hz, (80hz with the monitors)

4. Keep running the sub test tone through the receiver.

5. Put the RS metre at your favourite spot and keep an eye on it as you move the sub around the room.

6. Leave the sub where you get the highest db reading.

7. Lean over the sub and flip the variable phase control between 0 and 180. Leave it at the setting which gives you the highest reading. If you get a higher reading in between move the sub a few inches at a time so you get the same reading at either 0 or 180.

8. Keep running the tone at the crossover point.

9. go to your receiver and to the delay control menu. and keep your eye on the metre.

10. Don't worry about the distance but keep increasing it until you figure out which setting maximizes the reading on the metre.

11. Play a bass heavey DVD like Master and Commander.

12. If it sounds boomy, change the crossover point and go back to 3.

13. Keep changing the crossover point until it sounds best to your ear.


Let me know.

Yup. Just like Real Estate it's LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. Sure you may also have some room modes causing problems, but your first step is to do the "sub crawl" and see if you can't find a better place for the sub. I would exhaust everything Jake recommends before playing with the EQ. And the "kick in the gut" feeling does increase with dBs. Really, do yourselves a favor and play with the other possibilities before trying to EQ things out. Another word of advice: If you can't resist and want to play with EQ, the proper way to do this is to find the annoying frequencies and bump them down. The advice I gave earlier is what I tell my "bass first and foremost" friends who could care less what everything else sounds like. So, if you are like them, boost away. If you really want to do it right don't boost, cut.

Not to hijack, but...

While I agree location is #1 on the list, in my case I have limited placement options. Doors on every wall in the corners except ONE. I tried the corner, and yeah, I got LOTS of bass, but the calibration was out of whack, so I ended up turning it right back down to match the mains. So the end result was same SPL (more headroom of course, but I don't listen THAT loud), but it really made my response get WORSE.

So, the previous location and EQing was the solution. Also, my other issue is MOST DEFINATELY too small a main speaker. When the manufacturer says it plays to 100 Hz, that is BEST CASE. When I turn off my sub, I HIGHLY DOUBT that figure, and a 200Hz would have been a better rating for my little tiny satellite speakers. In short, I have too little punch because I have a "hole" between 100 and close to 200 Hz. Only way to fix this is for me to get better (bigger) mains (which are coming soon), OR set my cross over frequency as high as possible, and jack up the gain on my EQ in the 100-200Hz range to "force" my sub to play higher in freq (it starts rolling off at the upper end of its range at 100Hz). I really don't want to force the sub into a range its not designed for, and would be able to "localize" it anyway if I did...

Also, one thing I disagree with jakeman about, is do NOT use DVE for sub calibration. There is tons of info on the net as to why not to use it, so I won't go there. I will say DVE, coupled with my origional room gain had me pulling my hair out.


-Alan