Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Velodyne SMS-1 Sub Eq Results

Hey all,

Just got the SMS-1 yesterday from amazon and tonight I had a chance to play with it. It's really a fantastic tool for the money. It has made a big difference in my room. I never realized what I have been missing.

The bass in music is much more defined, even my wife noticed it. I can now hear the bass notes being plucked. Response is quick and tight. Everything is more even now.

The cool thing is it's all in real time, you can move the mic around the room, or the subs (I have 2 subs) and see in real time what effect each move/location has. Just press one button on the remote and you can hear with / without eq. There's so much more to dig into...I have only scratched the surface.

Below are the before and after pics, as you can see from the before pic, my room has some serious issues, peaks and dips galore. This was alot cheaper than room treatments and I don't think the wife would tolerate huge panels and bass traps in the main living room.

Once I eq'd each sub separately, I then eq'd them together. Then ran MCACC and did some final tweaks. So far I'm thrilled with the results.

Before:



After:

Very nice

WOW I've had my SMS-1 for a while now and I feel like an idiot for never thinking to move the mic around the room while it was sweeping to see what the response was at other locations.

Yes, in my room (wood floors) it makes a difference. I had the mic at my main listening position, even when I stood up with the mic, I would get a little more bottom end around 30hz.

It was funny too, I looked like an idiot standing in the middle of my room with mic cranking some Robin Trower...

Very impressive!

Need video of the mic/Trower thing, though

Thanks,

I always wanted some kind of sub eq. but when I was looking into it a few months back they seemed way too expensive.

Then recently I started looking at reviews and such on what was available and @ $354.00 for SMS-1 and comparing it to other models I think I made the right choice.

I was very close to getting the Anti-Mode 8033 for $350.00 since it has standing wave/time correction. But my Pioneer has that.

The reviews seemed really impressive on the Anti-Mode, just wasn't nearly as flexible and no on screen/real time display as well.

I give the SMS-1 a great recommendation for the price, but if you already have room treatments and/or a good acoustic friendly space, then you wouldn't really need one at all. In that case, any eq won't make a big enough difference to justify the money spent...IMHO.

Gee, that's a really good price. Didn't those used to be ~$600?

Retails for $749.00, but online you can get them for way less, Amazon has them for $364.00 now, Vann's is 10 bucks cheaper but they are out of stock now...FYI

Dduval,

I was looking over your results which look good, and thought I'd offer a suggestion. I see that you have boosted 3 of the filters 5-6db. Despite how it looks, boosting nulls is rarely beneficial and such large boosts can add ringing, and make for very uneven bass outside the sweet spot. You may get better overall results by restricting your boosts to no more than 3db. In other words you may get better sound across the room by giving up some linearity at the microphone placement.

Also I note that the EP350 rolls off at 28hz anechoic so boosting below at 20hz doesn't give you much output for the cost of additional harmonic distortion. An alternative would be to keep experimenting with placement to see where you can get more output in the low bass then equalize.

SMS is a terrific tool for the price, even though there are now newer products which supposedly address time domain (ringing) as well as frequency response.

Yes John,

All your points above are correct. One of the "warnings" velodynes gives is to try to restrict boost to +3db on any fq. However, this mostly applies when you attempt "stacking" of fq. But again, you're right, going above 3db is not ideal at all.

After more experimenting, I did back down the 20hz boost to +2db for the exact reason you state. I was worried about forcing the sub amps beyond their capabilities on both my subs, PL-200 and the EP350, to prevent damage to the subs.

Tonight I am going to try to eliminate the boosting as much as I can. As you suggest, I need to move the subs around some.

I'll try to get some more results posted soon, so let me know what you think then.

This thing is so much fun, I can't stop "fiddling" with it .

Oh, one of the things I couldn't figure out is why it boosted 100hz so high when the xo is set at 80hz. Even when I backed it down, it didn't hurt the flatness of the curve much at all. Thank goodness this thing has full manual control.

Dana

I know what you mean. I must have run sweeps for months and moved subs around, until I figured out just how my room influenced bass response.

The SMS adjusts filters above the crossover point because there is still output above the crossover point albeit declining by some 12db/octave (or more depending on the sub design). As you get more used to the device, I'd suggest manually adjusting all the filters rather than relying on the automatic feature since you can then move the filters by frequency and also adjust their breadth or Q. It will give you more flexibilty.

However neat it is, I've found the best approach is location, location, location for the subs then apply equalization as sparingly as you can, saving your biggest adjustment for those pesky peaks.

Ok, here are some new tweaks. Not as flat as it was, but kept the boost to 3db.

This was all manual adj. I can see where I could get totally addicted to adjusting this thing. There's alot to it, but man it's fun.

Before


After

Am I the only one that thinks the before response already looks pretty good?

Maybe I just have sqaure-room-envy...

That EQed response looks very good to me.

No, I thought the same thing.

Dana, I'd reconsider the concept of limiting the boost at the expense of not achieving the best correction. Whatever the capability is, use it.

The before response is not too bad, and I know it's hard to tell from the pics, but I have 9db spread from the high peak to the lowest dip, this is unacceptable. Believe me, when I hit button on the remote to listen to before and after, the after is much, much better.

Dana

John, I think you are correct. Could be my ears are burnt out from all the testing, but it seemed to sound better to me when I had the 5db and 6 db boost.

I'll have to give myself a break and come back to it.

Dana

Sounds like both of you have two or more subs. Do you need one of these for each sub or at least each sub channel or can one EQ multiple subs?

One SMS-1 can eq up to 3 subs. You can also daisy chain multiple EQ units (one for each sub), But unless one has more than 3 subs, I really don't see the need for having more than one SMS-1...IMHO

Dana

it can't eq the subs seperately, unless they have redesigned them.

Hence the statement..."You can also daisy chain multiple EQ units (one for each sub)"

Aw...crap....... $364 for one of this things?? That's it? I knew I shouldn't have read this thread.....

Yeah, but if you have more than one sub, you apparently need a chain of daisies. The watering alone would make that solution incontinent... I mean, inconvenient.

Plus, I'm thinking that if you are in the market for buying a new sub and you are wavering on the decision that a DSP controlled sub is worth the extra price, you could save a few hundred by buying the non-DPS version (350 anyone) and then put the money towards this item that does both the EQ function and adds DSP control.

Great, now I really, really want to buy stuff.

I like the manual control you have over it with the SMS-1. I kind of wish I had some control over the SVS AS-EQ1. What I really want more than manual control, though, is one that can handle four subs and use XLR connections. I know balanced cables aren't supposed to do anything for me at the distances my cable runs will be, but I like the way the connections click in versus RCA's less elegant approach, plus it would leave the RCA out on my preamp free for use with the Buttkicker LFE kit, if I end up getting that. The AS-EQ 1 can handle four subs, of course, with splitters, but it would be nice if each sub was corrected individually. Still, I want all of this, plus manual controls, all as part of my preamp's native processing. And the unit should be less than $2000, of course.

Murph,

What's priceless is the ability the SMS-1 has to output the graph on your big screen in "realtime" It's really cool and tells you the real story of what's going on in your room at "any" position you desire. It also eliminates me having to do the "subwoofer crawl"

Put the sub in the LP and walk around the room with the mic, and there you go! Instant frequency response Graph!

Now just go buy one already!

That is definitely a cool feature that the AS-EQ1 is lacking.

Oh my, I think Murph has just been tripple dog dared!

I should post a screenie of my SMS-1 to see what you guys think of my curve.

Please, I would like to see it...

It's getting a little hot in here.

I sure hope they are talking about frequency curves....

Guys I'm kinda shy, so we took this private

How do you hook this thing up? I'm still refusing to download the manual..... Is it another input / source and you just select it when you want to play with the graphs?

I don't own an sms-1 anymore, as following Ian's and Dr Toole's recomendations about placing multiple subs around the room correctly, and having room treatments gave me great results, with no EQ.

Under the assumption that room treatment will be beneficial rather than making more issues (or different issues), and most importantly, that the optimal placement is in an aesthetically acceptable location.

If we were to do something like this in our media room, equalization is likely the only option we have. I'm still trying to figure if there is any way to squeeze a second sub into the room but that won't happen until we move our cd/dvd collection into a different wall storage unit and can shift the media tower from the left hand side wall to the right hand side wall of the same corner to accommodate another sub.
The only other option for moving the subs would be to the rear of the room next to the seating area but we would lose the endtables space.
Not a good thing.

End tables? We don't need no stinkin end tables!!!






.... Unless they're end tables that vibrate!

I need a place to set down the beer when i stand up.
And i hear vibration isn't great for beer, unless its over carbonated like Peter's homebrew.

Zing!

Perhaps the vibration could eliminate the need for the Vinturi on your wine, though.

Hey! The bottle of IPA I opened was perfectly carbonated, thankyouverymuch...

That's excellent Randy, nice job!

Dana

Actually there is another "gadget" out there which is a magnet wine coaster that markets the idea it can age wine. For every hour the bottle sits on this magnet it says it ages the bottle 1 year.
Considering the subwoofer is one LARGE magnet, i guess i could age all my bottles in an afternoon and more than one at once!

But the sub is magnetically shielded, so it actually makes the wine one year younger for every hour. Leave it on long enough an you'll be tasting grape seeds.

Hey no one said the application of the idea was easy.
It is just a hypothesis at this stage, looking for some poor newbie sap to give it a subjective try.
I did have a friend who was sold on the magnet coaster though.

That's probably why you have to spit out the seeds during wine tasting.

So... LOL I'll try to post a screenie tomorrow.

That should do...

Nice...LOL

Now u guys make me wanna get this...:(

Yeah, tell me about it. No fair, guys.