Sub boomy? What to do? - 12/16/05 03:56 AM
Hope this is the correct forum to place this. I’m posting this in hopes that it may save someone else, what little of their sanity they have left.
I've been loving my M22, VP150 & QS4's but was some what frazzled about my sub being boomy. First let me explain, I'm a bass player and have been for 30+ years and as a result I am very finicky about my low end. I’m not an expert and don’t pretend to be but I know what sounds right, meters and charts help but in the end, it’s up to your ears to decide. My sub is a Velodyne CHT12, 12” front firing and ported on the front. It’s always performed well with my old Klipsch KG5.2’s, which I have retired to the music room. The home theater is in a 13x18x8 tile floor room with real plaster walls & ceilings. Pics can be found here. I use to have the crossover set to 40hz and never looked back. Well after much testing I was getting almost angry at the fact that this sub just sounded to boomy crossed over at 80 and 100hz.
So I started to shop around, of course HSU and SVS were on the list but I was really after a REL or one of the Velodyne DD series. The REL was out of my price range, just couldn’t justify that kind of cash. So I was thinking Velodyne but why would I want a Velodyne to replace a Velodyne? So this is were I spent well over a month testing different locations, even tried crawling around on my hands and knees, every configuration known to man, I tried everything. I did as much research as I ever want to do on this particular topic and thanks to all the sound tests, there a few movies which I probably will never watch again, lol. I even tried damping the box, bass traps (home made) to no avail. Then I ran across a research paper on vertical vs. horizontal acoustics, sorry, I don’t remember where I it was on the net. Surely this couldn’t be the problem, could it? My sub sounded fine until I increased the crossover with the smaller M22’s but it’s a Velodyne, they have a reputation for a reason and this sub was going to work come hell or high water!
I ran out to my storage shed and found some packing foam that came with a Whirlpool A/C. It’s not styrofoam, it’s almost material like in texture but yet it’s still a very rigid foam. It’s kind of like the foam that comes with the Axioms but it’s much denser. Two pieces combined were 8 inches thick and 6 inches overall wider than my sub. So I shoved the foam under the sub, effectively elevating the sub 8 inches off the floor and giving the sub a solid foundation of this foam material. Again, it’s dense, so dense in fact that the sub has barely put a dent in it. I do not have any type of graph to prove my findings, the only thing I have are my ears, the boominess, is gone! My sub has never sounded so good! It’s tight and so accurate now, even better than before the Axioms. It even sounds good crossed over at 120hz but I set it to 80hz for movies and 100hz for DTV XM radio.
An added perk of this saga for me is I was always cynical about user reviews of audio equipment, what gauge wire, equal length of runs, power source, etc… Now when I see a review ripping apart a product, I’m 100% sure that the person is a moron and doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing or they just don’t have the patience to troubleshoot, no, they’re just a moron.
I really hope this helps someone else because I was honestly ready to throw away 1k on another sub and possibly never look at another Velodyne, thank god I’m stubborn.
I've been loving my M22, VP150 & QS4's but was some what frazzled about my sub being boomy. First let me explain, I'm a bass player and have been for 30+ years and as a result I am very finicky about my low end. I’m not an expert and don’t pretend to be but I know what sounds right, meters and charts help but in the end, it’s up to your ears to decide. My sub is a Velodyne CHT12, 12” front firing and ported on the front. It’s always performed well with my old Klipsch KG5.2’s, which I have retired to the music room. The home theater is in a 13x18x8 tile floor room with real plaster walls & ceilings. Pics can be found here. I use to have the crossover set to 40hz and never looked back. Well after much testing I was getting almost angry at the fact that this sub just sounded to boomy crossed over at 80 and 100hz.
So I started to shop around, of course HSU and SVS were on the list but I was really after a REL or one of the Velodyne DD series. The REL was out of my price range, just couldn’t justify that kind of cash. So I was thinking Velodyne but why would I want a Velodyne to replace a Velodyne? So this is were I spent well over a month testing different locations, even tried crawling around on my hands and knees, every configuration known to man, I tried everything. I did as much research as I ever want to do on this particular topic and thanks to all the sound tests, there a few movies which I probably will never watch again, lol. I even tried damping the box, bass traps (home made) to no avail. Then I ran across a research paper on vertical vs. horizontal acoustics, sorry, I don’t remember where I it was on the net. Surely this couldn’t be the problem, could it? My sub sounded fine until I increased the crossover with the smaller M22’s but it’s a Velodyne, they have a reputation for a reason and this sub was going to work come hell or high water!
I ran out to my storage shed and found some packing foam that came with a Whirlpool A/C. It’s not styrofoam, it’s almost material like in texture but yet it’s still a very rigid foam. It’s kind of like the foam that comes with the Axioms but it’s much denser. Two pieces combined were 8 inches thick and 6 inches overall wider than my sub. So I shoved the foam under the sub, effectively elevating the sub 8 inches off the floor and giving the sub a solid foundation of this foam material. Again, it’s dense, so dense in fact that the sub has barely put a dent in it. I do not have any type of graph to prove my findings, the only thing I have are my ears, the boominess, is gone! My sub has never sounded so good! It’s tight and so accurate now, even better than before the Axioms. It even sounds good crossed over at 120hz but I set it to 80hz for movies and 100hz for DTV XM radio.
An added perk of this saga for me is I was always cynical about user reviews of audio equipment, what gauge wire, equal length of runs, power source, etc… Now when I see a review ripping apart a product, I’m 100% sure that the person is a moron and doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing or they just don’t have the patience to troubleshoot, no, they’re just a moron.
I really hope this helps someone else because I was honestly ready to throw away 1k on another sub and possibly never look at another Velodyne, thank god I’m stubborn.
