Dry bass

[mcdn]

Lower mids seems like it's connected on the opposite right on the 500Hz x-over point,it's huge.
Are you sure you have connected the drivers the right way?

I was about to say the same thing, something looks very wrong around the woofer to midrange xo point

 

[ZolaIII]

This chart is not an FR,it's the RT60,people must have been confused by it.

One can see the FR roughly in the waterfall posted but other than that none.

What I suspect (and I know nothing about the rig) is that is a 2-way with subs and as most of them suffers in mid-bass.
Most of the people complaining about impact,tactile feeling,etc have similar rigs.

I think he really needs to show us independent REW measurements for bass and full range no smoothing to 1/6 smoothing, with RT60 decay times, perhaps clarity.
I also think he should take better care on that 47 Hz and uper to that hot spots on waterfalls they could be masking regular decay around so it sounds dry.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

This is actually an interesting thread as I had the same experience with a small(er) 3-way speaker vs. a much larger 4-way speaker. Until (I thought) I found the reason. -Maybe there's more to it than it seems. -I just EQ'ed my way to it by experimentation.

 

[Trdat]

I have two seperate systems that alleviate the problem I had which I think you have....

1. Compression Driver/horn with a 15 inch main that overlap with dual 12inch subs(RSS315HO), essentially the 15inchers play down to around 50hz at -6db and the subs play up to around 120hz. I use Audiolense for crossovers. The cabinets are big using every technique either myth or science to get the bass as dry as possible and boy does it kick. It packs a powerful punch and works specifically with certain recordings.

2. My second system is tied in with an AVR with 4 typical standard subs 2 SVS1000 with the other two very similar, 2 on the left channel and 2 on the right. They are all time aligned with mains through the receiver and again with Audiolense but there is no seperate time alignment between all 4 subs. This creates a touch of reverberation as I am sure they all arrive with slightly different times to the LP and with the sub itself not as powerful as with the above system so perhpas slighlty more boomier(only in comparison not boomy at all), it feels like your in a hall so it is great for other unique recordings that need added ambinece for the bass. I think Geddes recommended this for envelopment it works and its still great bass in terms of time alignment or if we want to use the word tight it just doesn't have that dry kick.

So from this circumstancial evidence I can tell you that dry bass is not the reason for the lack of kick in your system.

What I can guarantee is that both the bass on these systems are so different and should be easily identifiable in A/B testing. They are so different that I can't say which one is preferable but at least I have the two options depending on the recording.

My recommendation if tweaking with your DSP subwindow cycles doesn't get results is
1. Get a 15 inch main that rolls of to at least 50hz
2. Make sure your sub is powerful at least in the sense of the BL and a heavy duty cabinet not a entry level like SVS1000(I know there are theories around QTS, LE, BL but not sure if that is the reason for the kick in system 1)
3. Overlapp your mains with the sub, with the sub at least till 100hz.

You just have to differentiate and be aware what you want dry kick or a slighlty more reverberated bass. Now, not sure if this is too subjective and if i can show this in the measurements.

Lastly to confuse things more I am convinced its the RSS315 gives the kick because this subwoofer was tied in with system number 2 prior being add to the 15 inchers/CD and I got a kick but now combined with the 15 inch it provides even more kick.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

And to further add to the confusion by my own experience, after I've dialed in the EQ (Dirac Live) to my Kappa 8.2i's I've never experienced more "physical bass" from speakers excluding PA stuff and serious car audio.. So I'm certain its achievable by pushing into EQ. Given that speakers and amplifier is able to perform.

 

[Trdat]

Viscreal bass is above the subwoofer range. Not feeling the bass is more 80-300Hz.

I second that, hence why a 15 inch as your main is crucial.

Bass og lydkvalitet – Diskusjon – Audio

The F105 Loudspeaker – Audio

There was another article perhaps in his forum that described bass int his region with measurements comparing smaller with larger systems.

 

[Keith_W]

Lower mids seems like it's connected on the opposite right on the 500Hz x-over point,it's huge.
Are you sure you have connected the drivers the right way?

Those huge dips? I suspect that's the room, not the crossover. I realize that the x axis markings are a bit difficult to see. Acourate does not boost dips, it only cuts peaks. I chose not to cut the peaks too much because (as you can see from the depth of those dips) I would lose a lot of volume. And yes, the drivers are wired up correctly. Here is the set of crossovers, with driver correction, time alignment, phase correction, and room correction baked in. Overlaid on top (black curve) is the sweep.

 

[Spkrdctr]

I am not sure where the blame lies. For those systems that have impactful bass, they were all using much bigger subwoofers than mine - one guy has four 15" subs, and another has two subwoofers, with each subwoofer containing 3x 12" drivers. So I am not sure whether my result is due to using smaller subs, or whether it is because my bass is too dry.

Taking into account the above, I think you have a couple of issues going on as many others have mentioned. First off you have to EQ the subs a little (or a lot) hotter than what your graphs show. Also, many times when subs are pushed to the limit, they can become a one note sound. So, since the room size that you mention is large with the subs you have. I would say your lacking in size and power. Get much more powerful subs as you have to pressurize the entire room. This can be done in pretty much any scenario with enough money. So with your large window letting some pressure out you just have to kick it up a notch. How to do this cheaply? I don't think you can. Large rooms require large powerful subs to get the required pressurization. I would check Sweetchaos (I think that is his name) sub rankings and look to massive output from 25 to 50hz. Also look at ported subs, most sealed will not give you want you want unless you spend even more money! So, you want to get a kick in the chest, crack paint on the walls and destroy light bulbs? How much money do you have?

All in all it can be done. You just have some large room issues with that large window port lowering your pressurization ability. I would fiddle with it until you know your subs are just not keeping up and then make a decision to replace all of them for much bigger, more powerful subs. Good Luck and let us know if you "crack the code" without buying new subs. We all learn from someone actually doing it.

 

[Keith_W]

ah OK, sorry; I thought that you would download the Waves plugin
The UAD plugin is supposed to be even better actually

I did download the Waves plugin. As you can see in my earlier post, I couldn't get it to work with JRiver. This is why I downloaded the UAD plugin. It is too late now for me to play music and tweak the settings. Before I switched the system off, I had gained some and lost some - gained much more midrange punch, still don't have bass impact, but unfortunately added some reverb which smears some notes and takes away clarity. Not bad for a few hours of tweaking by listening only, it would be even better if I knew what those knobs did and I was able to somehow measure it.

I am not familiar with Acourate but essentially you would just need to add a boosting low shelf filter with Freq = 75Hz with a Q value bigger than 1 (try Q=1 then Q=1.2 then Q=1.41, etc.)
and listen how it sounds (it should change the bass perception considerably). Boost shall be up to taste but I would start with 6dB
And needless to say you can also play around with the frequency (try 80Hz, 85Hz, 90Hz, etc.)
You will see it is pretty fun and you can customize your bass sound literally in an unlimited fashion

Thank you again. That is pretty easy to do with Acourate's target curve designer. I will try that tomorrow.

I have read and re-read your post #16 in this thread about resonant filters and using two shelf filters on the same channel. I think I am starting to understand, the overshoot from the overlap of the two curves will somehow cause the sub and the woofer to resonate more, which will "wetten" the lower frequencies, thus creating bass punch? Or am I wrong here?

I think with Acourate, I would have to create two shelf filters with the desired amplitude, Q, and resonance, and load them as prefilters in Macro step 0. I plan to create the resonance by using a modified VBA method (copy-paste impulse, then add delays and decrease amplitude, repeat 5-6 times). If there are Acourate experts here, please feel free to chime in. I am reasonably proficient in Acourate, but I do not consider myself an "expert".

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I did download the Waves plugin. As you can see in my earlier post, I couldn't get it to work with JRiver. This is why I downloaded the UAD plugin. It is too late now for me to play music and tweak the settings. Before I switched the system off, I had gained some and lost some - gained much more midrange punch, still don't have bass impact, but unfortunately added some reverb which smears some notes and takes away clarity. Not bad for a few hours of tweaking by listening only, it would be even better if I knew what those knobs did and I was able to somehow measure it.



Thank you again. That is pretty easy to do with Acourate's target curve designer. I will try that tomorrow.

I have read and re-read your post #16 in this thread about resonant filters and using two shelf filters on the same channel. I think I am starting to understand, the overshoot from the overlap of the two curves will somehow cause the sub and the woofer to resonate more, which will "wetten" the lower frequencies, thus creating bass punch? Or am I wrong here?

I think with Acourate, I would have to create two shelf filters with the desired amplitude, Q, and resonance, and load them as prefilters in Macro step 0. I plan to create the resonance by using a modified VBA method (copy-paste impulse, then add delays and decrease amplitude, repeat 5-6 times). If there are Acourate experts here, please feel free to chime in. I am reasonably proficient in Acourate, but I do not consider myself an "expert".

If you actually read that slowly it boils down to that you probably just need to boost your low frequencies..

 

[Spkrdctr]

I am drawing a blank on two companies that make massive subs that go in the home. Can anyone help me? I looked at JL Audio but they are still not the company I was trying to find. I need you guys to jog my memory! Thanks.

 

[Keith_W]

I am not sure where the blame lies. For those systems that have impactful bass, they were all using much bigger subwoofers than mine - one guy has four 15" subs, and another has two subwoofers, with each subwoofer containing 3x 12" drivers. So I am not sure whether my result is due to using smaller subs, or whether it is because my bass is too dry.

Taking into account the above, I think you have a couple of issues going on as many others have mentioned. First off you have to EQ the subs a little (or a lot) hotter than what your graphs show. Also, many times when subs are pushed to the limit, they can become a one note sound. So, since the room size that you mention is large with the subs you have. I would say your lacking in size and power. Get much more powerful subs as you have to pressurize the entire room. This can be done in pretty much any scenario with enough money. So with your large window letting some pressure out you just have to kick it up a notch. How to do this cheaply? I don't think you can. Large rooms require large powerful subs to get the required pressurization. I would check Sweetchaos (I think that is his name) sub rankings and look to massive output from 25 to 50hz. Also look at ported subs, most sealed will not give you want you want unless you spend even more money! So, you want to get a kick in the chest, crack paint on the walls and destroy light bulbs? How much money do you have?

All in all it can be done. You just have some large room issues with that large window port lowering your pressurization ability. I would fiddle with it until you know your subs are just not keeping up and then make a decision to replace all of them for much bigger, more powerful subs. Good Luck and let us know if you "crack the code" without buying new subs. We all learn from someone actually doing it.

I have money, I just don't like spending it! You may be right, but I prefer to exhaust all free options first, before I move on to cheap options. The last step is to take the expensive option.

As you can see from the curves, I can get the bass really nice and flat, and I can turn up the bass until the house starts to rattle. But even though the volume is loud, it still lacks physical impact! Have you guys heard Wilson speakers? Now, I wouldn't say I am a fan of Wilsons, but one thing they do very well is punchy, physical bass. Wilsons hit you in the chest, and they do it with smaller drivers than my subwoofers. I have no idea how they do that, so if someone knows, I would be all ears.

 

[Spkrdctr]

Free to cheap and last to expensive is ALWAYS the best way to go. Free is always for me! If you can fix it with what you have I will be very impressed with your room tuning abilities. I am now watching this thread like a hawk. Very interesting questions and answers. Tickling my brain cells....

 

[Keith_W]

If you actually read that slowly it boils down to that you probably just need to boost your low frequencies..

Yeah, sounds simple right

If that program had knobs that said "Hz", "dB", "Q" ... I would understand it and know how to use it. But ... "low frequency CPS 20-100"? "Atten Sel"? Add to that, twiddling the knobs don't exactly result in audible changes that I expect.

Tuning by ear is hard. It takes me a long time because a change that sounds good with one piece of music doesn't sound good with another. There is nothing objective about this, it's all taste and preference so there is no real goal for me to work towards, only a vague fuzzy goal of wanting more bass impact.

(EDIT) AHA!!! Barely a few minutes after I made this post, I did another search and found this little video on Youtube:

Something to try tomorrow!!

 

[ppataki]

I did download the Waves plugin. As you can see in my earlier post, I couldn't get it to work with JRiver. This is why I downloaded the UAD plugin. It is too late now for me to play music and tweak the settings. Before I switched the system off, I had gained some and lost some - gained much more midrange punch, still don't have bass impact, but unfortunately added some reverb which smears some notes and takes away clarity. Not bad for a few hours of tweaking by listening only, it would be even better if I knew what those knobs did and I was able to somehow measure it.



Thank you again. That is pretty easy to do with Acourate's target curve designer. I will try that tomorrow.

I have read and re-read your post #16 in this thread about resonant filters and using two shelf filters on the same channel. I think I am starting to understand, the overshoot from the overlap of the two curves will somehow cause the sub and the woofer to resonate more, which will "wetten" the lower frequencies, thus creating bass punch? Or am I wrong here?

I think with Acourate, I would have to create two shelf filters with the desired amplitude, Q, and resonance, and load them as prefilters in Macro step 0. I plan to create the resonance by using a modified VBA method (copy-paste impulse, then add delays and decrease amplitude, repeat 5-6 times). If there are Acourate experts here, please feel free to chime in. I am reasonably proficient in Acourate, but I do not consider myself an "expert".

No, you just need 1 filter to begin with
I have two to further tweak the lows to my taste but you shall just begin with one, for example:

Freq = 75Hz
Gain = 6dB
Slope = 12dB/oct
Q = 1.6

You see the resonance is there since Q is >1

If you can do something similar to this in Acourate then give it a try - it shall make your bass punchier

You can then use a second filter - if you wish to further fine-tune the sound

 

[sigbergaudio]

It's pretty hard across written text on a forum to understand what people are missing in situations like this. It could be 30hz or it could be 100hz depending on how people describe things. But based on what you've said so far I suspect your problem may be in the 80-200hz area rather than in the subwoofer area.

 

[Zapper]

How is "dry bass" defined in terms of measurable frequency and phase response?

What qualities of pro PA systems and bass amps give them so much punch? I've been at club shows with loud rock bands where the bass was physically painful. I believe these systems have limited deep bass but very high efficiency. Bassist often prefer 4x10" cabinets over 1x15" for faster, punchier sound. That might support the previously discussed idea that punch depends on mid-bass.

 

[sigbergaudio]

How is "dry bass" defined in terms of measurable frequency and phase response?

What qualities of pro PA systems and bass amps give them so much punch? I've been at club shows with loud rock bands where the bass was physically painful. I believe these systems have limited deep bass but very high efficiency. Bassist often prefer 4x10" cabinets over 1x15" for faster, punchier sound. That might support the previously discussed idea that punch depends on mid-bass.

One pretty cruicial difference is that they play WAY WAY louder than you do at home.

 

[ppataki]

eah, sounds simple right

It is, actually let me explain:

You only need to use the bottom plugin called the EQP-1A (program equalizer)
Set the Low Frequency to 20Hz then adjust the Boost knob
That's all!

If you want to further tweak it you can change the Frequency and you can combine the Boost and Atten knobs

 

[Keith_W]

How is "dry bass" defined in terms of measurable frequency and phase response?

It isn't. It is defined by the RT30/RT60, and spectrogram and waterfall plots. Or a long bass tail at the end of an impulse response.

For quite a long time, I believed that "dry" bass sounds "tight", as in - after a transient kick like a bass drum, the note ends and decays into nothing. This was why I chose Rythmik subwoofers. But lately I have been struggling to understand why my bass lacks impact, and I was wondering whether its dryness had something to do with it. Hence why I started the thread.