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New dual sub setup - boomy


DeCruelz

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Hey guys!

 

About 6 months ago, I finally bit the bullet and upgraded from my puny Yamaha entry level HT system. I've had this system for over 10 years now from when I was a student, renting a 1 bedroom unit.

 

I now have Klipsch RP-280Fs, RP-450C, RP-250Ss, two R-110SW 10" subwoofers and Yamaha NS-IC800 in ceiling speakers connected to a Yamaha Adventage RX-A1070 to complete my 5.2.2 setup.

 

I love my movies and music and to this day, I'm still in awe with this system and am slowly rewatching everything from my collection especially those now available in 4K and Atmos or DTS-X audio.

 

In the past 6 months, I have been tweaking on and off and I think I have it now at a level I am truly satisfied with. I recently rewatched "Hans Zimmer - Live in Prague" and I had tears running down my cheeks :) If you love his work, please do yourself a favor and go get the Bluray.

 

Now the issue. With certain tunes at certain volumes, I get a somewhat unpleasant boomy sound with a bit of a rumble with it. Unfortunately, that's the best way I can think of to describe it. If I increase the listening volume, this boomy sound is more pronounced too. It also tends to come on and off abruptly.

 

A few things I have tried to mitigate this with varying success:

 

1) Switch the phase on one sub to the opposite. This helps reduce the boominess but takes a significant punch out of the bass. Increasing the gain helps but I lose the punchy, tight bass.

 

2) Swapped cables. Swapped left sub to right - no difference.

 

3) Reduce the bass trim in AVR, increase gain in subwoofer. No discernible difference either.

 

4) Added sound treatments for both high and low frequency. I had pretty bad echoing before and got same bass traps while I was at it. Echoing is gone but can't tell if bass traps helped.

 

5) Tried SVS sound isolation feet and regular rubber foam from the cushion store. I have floorboards and this seems to have helped reduce overall vibration but not the boominess.

 

6) Currently I have the subs flanking the front left and right speaker on the outside. Angling them inwards towards the center seat seems to have a very slight difference. Could it be bass bouncing off the walls at certain frequencies causing the boominess?

 

7) I'm thinking of replacing the entertainment console with a narrower one, so I can place the subs on the inside instead, next to the center speaker. Angled inwards. I'm thinking due to the relative position of the subs being closer to the center seat, I can drop the gain a little and perhaps eliminate the boominess? This is of course going to cost more but I'm keen to hear everyone's thoughts first before I make this change. 

 

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention that turning off one sub completely eliminates the boominess. Then again this of course defeats the purpose of going dual :)

 

Other than this boomy sound, I am extremely happy with everything so far. If I could get rid of this one niggling sound/issue, I would have the perfect setup - to my ears at least :)

 

Added a picture for context and who doesn't love setup pics!

 

Thanks in advance everyone!

IMG_8489.JPG

Edited by DeCruelz
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A few approaches to try.

 

  • Subwoofer crawl. Flanking subs look nicer but are often not optimal.
    • try positioning at least one of the subs behind you (nearfield sub). This should be relatively immune to room modes
  • Make sure your mains and centers are set to small and tweak the x-over frequency higher or lower
  • Try turning on "extra bass on your yamaha receiver" - . This will allow your mains AND sub to produce bass , potentially distributing and evening out the bass response
  • Look at what YPAO is doing to your EQ. I've seen it add in a bass hump around 60 Hz. In general, cutting EQ is preferable to boosted EQ.
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Thanks for all the replies and suggestion guys.

 

So it looks like the boominess is purely due to the subwoofer location? I may be able to leave the front right sub as is, then move the front left sub behind my seating position, although I may be limited by the cable length now.

 

As far as crossovers go, the lowest I have set are for the towers at 80Hz. I'll try tweaking this to see if it helps.

 

I do have "Extra Bass" already on as I like the extra "fullness" it adds to the output.

 

I just checked my EQ and I have this set as "Through", which I believe does not alter the output?

 

As for the subwoofer crawl, I came across this while researching setups but unfortunately given my current living area, furniture placement, etc, I'm quite limited with what I can change so I skipped this. That being said, I have crawled around the living area and the boominess is still apparent everywhere :(

 

I'll try to move the front left sub and place it as far back on the left and report back.

 

Thanks again guys!

 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, DeCruelz said:

Thanks for all the replies and suggestion guys.

 

So it looks like the boominess is purely due to the subwoofer location? I may be able to leave the front right sub as is, then move the front left sub behind my seating position, although I may be limited by the cable length now.

 

As far as crossovers go, the lowest I have set are for the towers at 80Hz. I'll try tweaking this to see if it helps.

 

I do have "Extra Bass" already on as I like the extra "fullness" it adds to the output.

 

I just checked my EQ and I have this set as "Through", which I believe does not alter the output?

 

As for the subwoofer crawl, I came across this while researching setups but unfortunately given my current living area, furniture placement, etc, I'm quite limited with what I can change so I skipped this. That being said, I have crawled around the living area and the boominess is still apparent everywhere :(

 

I'll try to move the front left sub and place it as far back on the left and report back.

 

Thanks again guys!

 

 

 

 

Start pulling your subs 6" from the rear and back walls at a time.   Lower your crossover Freq as much as possible, the lower the better according to Cory, the klipsch Subs are HIGHLY colored above 80 hz....   65hz may be best... Boominess usually due to too high of an over Freq and or too much boundary reinforment IMO... 

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34 minutes ago, Westcoastdrums said:

Start pulling your subs 6" from the rear and back walls at a time.   Lower your crossover Freq as much as possible, the lower the better according to Cory, the klipsch Subs are HIGHLY colored above 80 hz....   65hz may be best... Boominess usually due to too high of an over Freq and or too much boundary reinforment IMO... 

 

I just tested dropping the crossover to 60Hz (not much difference in boominess but less "fill") and down to 40Hz, which did reduce the boomy sound a tad but also way less "fill" and the output isn't as pleasant anymore. 60Hz I can live with I suppose but it didn't make much of a difference.

 

12 minutes ago, Peter P. said:

Is it possible yours is a case of TOO MANY subwoofers?

 

Wouldn't hurt to try shutting one off and performing all your experimentation with just one sub to see what the results are.

 

What are your room dimensions?

 

I have tried turning off either subs and the boominess goes away but there is less "fill" again and isn't as immersive. 

 

I'm not sure what the dimensions are but the area is a shared living and dining area so kinda like a rectangle, with the HT on the left side and dining area on the right (as per the pic).

 

I'm starting to think the issue is possibly bass echoing, if there is such a thing, where certain frequencies meet and combined, creates the boomy effect. 

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EDIT: Almost forgot to mention that turning off one sub completely eliminates the boominess. Then again this of course defeats the purpose of going dual [emoji4]
 



I've dealt with exactly the same thing in my room in the past.

Start out with only one sub. Do the subwoofer crawl or whatever it takes to determine where one single sub sounds best in your room. Once you get the one sub dialed in to your liking you can then start experimenting where the second sub is going to work best.

After you get one sub dialed in at the right location consider just putting the second one right next to it or stacking them if they are identical. You'll have headroom up the ying yang. Compare that to experimenting with the second sub in various locations.

Bass cancellation can be deceiving when separating the subs for better coverage. The bass might sound cleaner or tighter when in fact it's actually the subs cancelling each other. An spl meter would come in handy.

It's important to get one sub dialed in first.....it'll save you some headaches. Good luck.





Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

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I haven't had a chance to move the subs around but I did take a look in the Yamaha's Parametric EQ settings. I currently have it set to Through.

 

Then when I had a look at YPAO: Natural, I noticed something veryyyy interesting. It had the following set for the subwoofer:

 

Band #1

Frequency 31.3Hz

Q 2.000

Gain -3.5db

 

Band #2

Frequency 31.3Hz

Q 1.587

Gain -1.0db

 

Band #3

Frequency 39.4Hz

Q 2.000

Gain -0.5db

 

Low and behold, upon switching this over and listening to my test tracks again, the boominess is completely gone! The general output for non-LFE frequencies also sounds like it had "opened up" more with an added clarity and smoother bass overall. In comparison before, it sounds like the lower frequencies were muddied (hence the fullness) and have smoothened out a bit but I'm not quite sure I like it completely. Perhaps it is just a matter of getting used to it now.

 

I'm still not sure if this is the right path to eliminate boominess but it appears the YPAO calibration from before identified those frequencies above and altered the db output accordingly? Very keen to hear what everyone's thoughts are now! :)

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1 hour ago, jason str said:

 

Do the sub crawl, reposition and re-calibrate.

 

Thanks Jason, I'll give this a go over the weekend as I will need longer cables. I'd be keen to see how it performs with the sub on the rear left.

 

As for the Bands 1-3 above, does that effectively cut off/reduce the db at those specific frequencies? I think this is what @zobsky was referring to before which in my case, eliminated the boominess? Therefore in theory I could still return to the "Through" EQ by going "Manual" and only altering what was in Bands 1-3 to return to my current setup, without the boominess?

 

Thanks everyone!

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Correct

Take a photo of the settings before tweaking .

 

Also, don't forget to look at what eq is being applied to the mains 

 

Before trying any of these , listen in "straight" mode - which maintains EQ settings but switches off DSP surround effects 

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