Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater EP800 experiences

I had some time to really tweak the new system last weekend. The addition of the EP800s changed the sound of my system more than I expected. But, one thing I noted from the beginning was that there were less peaks and valleys with the EP800s than I had with the EP500s. After thinking about it, I wondered if doubling the amount of drivers helped to smooth out the room response even more. Not sure though.

I did a REW sweep of the room, and I was not surprised to see the readings backed up my manual readings with the sound meter. When I did a clean sweep with no BFD filters, REW only suggested one filter (I think about -3db at 72 Hz). I tried it and it basically sounded the same to me. At this point, I decided to try the unthinkable...Taking the BFD out of the loop and try different settings using only the sound meter and re-adjusting my crossover points and sound levels.

In the end, I changed my 80 Hz across the board receiver XO to:

M80s - 60Hz
VP150 - 80Hz
QS8s - 90Hz

and adjusted the levels independently with the sound meter. In the end, I wound up setting the EP800s at about 11-11:30, and the gain to +1.0db in the receiver (actually all channels wound up being set within +/-1 db in the receiver).

The end result was a stunning sound. The perceived bass was MUCH tighter while listening to music, and the LFE/Bass test I used was the fishbowl scene from "Finding Nemo". Although my wife and kids had seen that scene many times before, it was like watching a totally different scene. The room shook, and they all were startled. It was that much of a difference.

A final sweep of the room shows me +/-3db from 14Hz to 100Hz. I think I am going to keep the BFD out of the loop for now and enjoy what we have. My wife agrees that this is the best the system has sounded to this point.

Ok I'll show my ignorance here... what is BFD?

This question comes up once a year. lol

It's a Behringer Feedback Destroyer. It's a parametric equalizer that can be used to smooth out the low frequency response in your system.

Yeah right, it stands for Big Fxxxx Deal, ha ha lol

Ya know, when I have been watching Kung Fu Panda, I always wish I had an EP800. I bet the EP800 would be mighty impressive throughout that entire movie.

Oh, yes I do recall seeing the Feedback Destroyer mentioned on here before, just didn't recognize the abreviation.

Ok so with everyone with new EP800's on here talking about plotting this graph, or doing that sweep, or hooking up this B.F.D. so n so, I'm wondering if my system will sound like absolute dog shit since I know none of these techniques? In my old HT I did go into the amp and set all the delay's for every speaker. And I did play with the crossover on my sub (I think I had it set somewhere around 60 hz). But that was IT!!! So when I get my Epic 80/800 (whenever the EP800 is available) bought/shipped/and installed, will it sound any good at all before I hire an audio expert to come it and tune my system for me?

Or should I just try to have the guy show up the day my system arrives?

Very deep rumbly dog shit if you get an EP800!!

No it won't. A lot depends on the room. In my room, even two EP800s would not give me an even response. That written, my EP350 sounded very good before I picked up a BFD and started tweeking.

I would expect that with and EP800 you would be starting with very good sound with the possibility of making it better with treatments/equalization.

I lucked out, my EP600 sits in about the only place I had room for it and it sounds great.

Hi SRoode,

Thanks for the detailed feedback on your EP800 experiences. I'm just writing a piece on the EP800 and may quote you in the Axiom AudioFile newsletter.

Interesting as well that you took the BFD out of the loop and got such excellent room response. Incidentally, on the abbreviation front, what is REW? (In another era, that meant "Rewind"!)

Regards,

Room Eq Wizzard Alan, it is free software you can get from Home Theater Shack to graph your room response, and apply filters, etc.

I see Rincewind is expanding his activities.

My understanding is that it's the separation between drivers (or between driver and port) which helps to smooth out the response. A bit like having two subs in slightly different parts of the room.

I suspect this is why the SVS cylinder subs seem to sound a bit smoother than their response curves would indicate; the ports are about three feet away from the woofer...



Wow...

I think that's what I was getting at. Since there are now 2 drivers in each enclosure instead of one (each about 14" apart on center), and since the drivers are now significantly higher than the EP500, I'm wondering if that helped to smooth the response out.

Alan,

Randy is correct. It's a piece of software to help expedite the tuning process.

Please accept my thanks for helping to turn out such a wonderful sub. Please FF my comments as you wish to the newsletter!

Steve

Well I'm a little late to the party because the first sub was damaged pretty badly in transit (thanks Fedex) and had to be replaced, the replacement arrived yesterday. I find the amount of bass to be quite smooth yet dramatic even in our fairly large room (admittedly with limited seating, one couch), I suspect the two drivers may be a help there but we've never had a sub before so that's just a guess. I have to say I'm glad I only ordered one because my wife's comments so far have been "it's too intense" and after the first sub stopped working she expressed relief, "It was like an earthquake in the living room, I thought I'd never get used to that rumbling."

Well fortunately human nature is adaptable and I suspect/hope that after she grows accustomed to the sound she will begin to enjoy its musicality, however, in the interim my daughter and I love the sound and to me it indicates that a single EP800 can be capable of quite an impact in a fairly large room (7300 cu ft) such that many users may find themselves quite satisfied with only one, I mean on DVD or Blu Ray the LFEs have been simply spectacular ("like an earthquake in the living room") with no particular sense of unevenness or excessive boominess.

Have you calibrated it yet with a RatShack meter?

Your wife might be right (gasp!) and you might find that you're running your sub +15dB hot.... as many first-time sub owners do.

It really shouldn't be thought of as a seperate source in it's intensity...but rather an extension of your mains.

That said, many (myself included) DO run subs 3~5dBs "hot" because we simply like it better that way!

Ditto that. I'm all for "encouraging" the wife to adapt before turning the sub down.

Jason

So far I went with the Audyssey calibration and I would actually prefer to run it a little hotter because it seems a bit tame (although it also seems pretty accurate and balanced, sounds quite good), but now might not be a good time. When you calibrate with an spl meter to calibrate the system, don't you have to run tones at a lot of different Hz? Still haven't explored the whole manual calibration thing in much detail.

just bump it up a couple of db on the settings menu, don't worry too much about a meter at this point, Audyssey does a pretty good job of level matching, but most prefer a little more to their bass.

You simply need to use the test tones in the receiver.

I certainly did. Part of that was the nasty peak, but even before I picked up my bfd I had already turned the sub down.

Turned down your sub???


Baha ha ha aha ha... what a kidder!

I always use the Rat Shack meter for adjusting the levels of my mains, center and surrounds but I use my ears to adjust the sub. You will probably find that after a couple of weeks of listening, you will turn down the level of the sub to smooth things out.

Nope, single tone for each speaker including the sub. It is a fast process, especially if done after running Audyssey, which has always been within 1 dB either way for each of my speakers. The only "big" adjustments I make post-Audyssey are to bump the center by a few dB to help with dialogue intelligibility and the subwoofer by a few dB to help with the rumble effect. All in all it takes about 5 minutes.

Jason

Fast??? I need a new AVR. My old Denon does not have the fancy functions you speak of. So I got the RealTraps download and started plotting by hand. Wow, that takes a long time.

And it must be broken, my graph looks like an OJ Simpson lie detector test. Clearly bad test tones...right?

I thought I'd add something in this thread rather than start a new one. I just wanted to mention where I am with my EP800s. So far JC, Brent, and now Debbie have contacted me by phone to touch base with me. I have to say I'm happy with the communication through this unfortunate process. They've been very good about reassuring me that I'm being taken care of, and they want me to have two perfectly performing and looking subwoofers. In my brief conversation with Debbie today, she wanted to see if I wanted my second replacement sub shipped right away or if I wanted to wait for the v3 amp which they're almost done with. She said there would be a very, very slight difference in sound, besides just the removal of the thump on turn-off. I wonder how this will be reflected in the frequency response.

Anyway, I have to cut this post short, as I have to head to work, but I thought it was interesting enough to pass on.

What was wrong with your first 2 800's?

v3?

Ep600 amps(this is what they use in the 800) would be on or listed as v2, this latest one could then be considered v3.

I had shipping damage. One of them was only cosmetically compromised, but it would have bothered me. The other's volume knob was knocked, so it would have snapped off at some point, I imagine. At first I agreed to them sending me pieces instead of full subs because I wanted to save them money, but I ran into difficulties, and then we decided to go with two new subs completely. I'm waiting until everything is working properly before shipping anything back, so for a little while I'm going to have a ton of sub-like presence in my room. When I get my second replacement, there will only be three functioning EP800s, but five enclosures. The thing I'm not looking forward to is packing up everything that's going back.