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Anti-Mode 8033S-II for dual Cap 1400s?

3K views 34 replies 7 participants last post by  chucky7 
#1 ·
I recently ordered a pair of Cap 1400s and got a shipping notification that they're arriving on Monday! I want to make sure I can get them sounding as good as possible, so I was wondering if it would make sense for me to get an Anti-Mode 8033S-II. My room is pretty rectangular (with a hallway leading away from it) and there's a null for certain frequencies (around 40hz?) right around the seating position. Unfortunately, the seating position can't be changed for now. My room is 25' D x 18' W x 7.8' H for a total of approx. 3500 cubic feet. It's not a dedicated theater (I have bookshelves and a desk with a PC in the back of the room) but when we're watching a movie, we treat it like one.

My preamp is a Bryston SP3, which does not have any automatic room correction functionality. I have an SPL meter and WAV, and although I've never used WAV, I'm up for trying. (For my other stuff, I just adjusted the SPL at my seating location to make sure each channel was the same, and then input the distance info into the SP3. No EQ beyond that.)

I know that the Cap 1400 has an LF Adjust dial on the back, but I'm not sure what it does and whether it would be sufficient to get the best sound. I'm reluctant to add additional electronics in the mix, but if it will make a significant improvement, I'd be up for it.

Has anyone tried the Anti-Mode 8033S-II with Cap 1400s? How does it compare to tweaking the LF Adjust dials on the back?

Thanks!
 
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#3 ·
For $100 more you can get a fully customizable miniDSP DDRC-24 with Dirac Live.
 
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#6 ·
I just looked over the manual, and most of the setup guidelines seem to be focused on stereo + sub integration. My primary use of my HT is movies, not music, so I'm not sure I need the stereo integration stuff. (Though I could be wrong on that!) Does this do a good job just with the subs?
 
#7 · (Edited)
All miniDSP small boxes (miniDSP 2x4, 2x4HD, DDRC-24 and 2x4 balanced) have stereo inputs and 4 outputs. Each output is independent so you can either send full range stereo signal then use two outputs to EQ you main speakers + two outputs for the pair of Cap 1400s or just use the four outputs for 4 subwoofers. In your case just send the LFE mono signal out of your Bryston SP3 then use only two outputs, one for each subwoofer.
 
#8 ·
Are you happy with how your satellite speakers sound without any sort of EQ? If so, great...if not, no amount of sub EQ is going to fix that.

I am firmly in the camp that believes all rooms will benefit from EQ and I'd be willing to bet that if you heard your system with room correction you would be quite impressed.

I would recommend the MiniDSP DDRC-88A so you can EQ your entire system with Dirac. Probably more than you were intending to spend, but I believe the benefits would be worth it.


there's a null for certain frequencies (around 40hz?) right around the seating position.
If this is a true null, no amount of EQ is going to fix it (be it Antimode, Dirac, Audyssey, whatever). Nulls are black holes...they suck frequencies out of your room and they cannot be EQ'ed back in. The only cure for a true null is 1) move the sub 2) move the MLP 3) add more subs.
 
#9 ·
I would recommend the MiniDSP DDRC-88A so you can EQ your entire system with Dirac. Probably more than you were intending to spend, but I believe the benefits would be worth it.
If this is a true null, no amount of EQ is going to fix it (be it Antimode, Dirac, Audyssey, whatever). Nulls are black holes...they suck frequencies out of your room and they cannot be EQ'ed back in. The only cure for a true null is 1) move the sub 2) move the MLP 3) add more subs.

Yup, definitely getting a bit pricey. :) I'm also a bit reluctant to introduce additional analog to digital to analog processing for my mains. I think what I should do first is just set up the subs as best I can with REW and the LF Adjust and see how flat I can get the curves.

A lot of my thinking on this comes from the one time someone helped me measure frequency response in my room, and there was a dip in that frequency range. I don't know if it was a true null or just needed some boosting. It's definitely noticeable - when I stand behind my seating while listening to music with a steady bass beat, I can move my head out of the bass and back into the bass by leaning in and back out. (Not sure if that's easy to visualize. :))

But like I said, that measurement was done a while ago. Although the room hasn't changed much (I put in one acoustic panel at the front of the room but that's it in terms of treatments) a lot of the other stuff has changed: new preamp/amp, new speakers, and now new subs.

I'll see if I can take some measurements with REW to see how things are before making a decision about adding in another device. I figured it was much easier to do for subs, since the additional processing probably wouldn't distort the signal too much, though my thinking on that could be wrong.
 
#12 ·
^^^

Well, you know that it is a null, so the answer to your original question about whether or not the AM would help is still "no". :)

You know what you got to do.


BTW, using the sub crawl to set up dual subs is most likely not going to end in the best integration...you're on the right track with REW!
 
#13 · (Edited)
I have updates!

1. My Cap 1400s arrived last week. I gain matched them, set them up, and watched something but was disappointed that it didn't have the oomph that even my PB13 Ultras had. I played around with the LF Adjust and Delay settings, but nothing worked. (I suspected it wasn't the subs' fault, since I could feel the air moving - I just couldn't hear certain frequencies that I could with the PB13Us.) The only difference in how I had these subs arranged was that the PB13U I had in the back of the room was pointing toward the left wall, whereas the 1400 was pointing toward the middle of the room. I decided to rotate that sub 90 degrees, and everything started sounding great again. Strange...

2. I also got a UMIK-1 and downloaded the latest version of REW. I followed your (Alan P) guide. I *think* I got everything right, but I'm not 100% confident. Here's what I came up with:

[Edit: I tried to include the pic here, but it came out as garbled text. I attached the screenshot - see the thumbnail below.]

Again, I'm not 100% sure I did it right, but it looks like at a minimum, I don't have a null anywhere. Here are my takeaways, but I'd love everyone's feedback:

a) I have a peak at around 45Hz. I currently have my crossover set for 40Hz. Perhaps I should raise it to 50 so I don't exacerbate the problem?
b) It looks like the subs must have been playing even when I was testing just the LCR/surrounds, since they all were going fairly strong even down to 15Hz. I can't remember if I mentioned, but my speakers are Paradigm Signatures (pair of S8s, a pair of ADP3s, and a C5 - all v. 2). They have woofers but shouldn't be that loud that low.
c) The subwoofer appears to be running quite hot. If I'm reading this correctly, I need to turn down the subwoofer level at the preamp by about 20dB to get it to be flat with the other frequencies about 80Hz. I currently usually listen at -21dB, so if I were to turn the subs way down, I could then turn the whole system up to reference to get the same oomph from the subs. Again, not sure if that's the right conclusion I should be drawing.

Any thoughts on these graphs? Anything I could tweak on my own, or is this the kind of thing I'd really need a MiniDSP DDRC-88A to see improvement on?
 

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#14 ·
I have updates!

1. My Cap 1400s arrived last week. I gain matched them, set them up, and watched something but was disappointed that it didn't have the oomph that even my PB13 Ultras had. I played around with the LF Adjust and Delay settings, but nothing worked. (I suspected it wasn't the subs' fault, since I could feel the air moving - I just couldn't hear certain frequencies that I could with the PB13Us.) The only difference in how I had these subs arranged was that the PB13U I had in the back of the room was pointing toward the left wall, whereas the 1400 was pointing toward the middle of the room. I decided to rotate that sub 90 degrees, and everything started sounding great again. Strange...

2. I also got a UMIK-1 and downloaded the latest version of REW. I followed your (Alan P) guide. I *think* I got everything right, but I'm not 100% confident. Here's what I came up with:

[Edit: I tried to include the pic here, but it came out as garbled text. I attached the screenshot - see the thumbnail below.]

Again, I'm not 100% sure I did it right, but it looks like at a minimum, I don't have a null anywhere. Here are my takeaways, but I'd love everyone's feedback:

a) I have a peak at around 45Hz. I currently have my crossover set for 40Hz . Perhaps I should raise it to 50 so I don't exacerbate the problem?
b) It looks like the subs must have been playing even when I was testing just the LCR/surrounds, since they all were going fairly strong even down to 15Hz. I can't remember if I mentioned, but my speakers are Paradigm Signatures (pair of S8s, a pair of ADP3s, and a C5 - all v. 2). They have woofers but shouldn't be that loud that low.
c) The subwoofer appears to be running quite hot. If I'm reading this correctly, I need to turn down the subwoofer level at the preamp by about 20dB to get it to be flat with the other frequencies about 80Hz. I currently usually listen at -21dB, so if I were to turn the subs way down, I could then turn the whole system up to reference to get the same oomph from the subs. Again, not sure if that's the right conclusion I should be drawing.

Any thoughts on these graphs? Anything I could tweak on my own, or is this the kind of thing I'd really need a MiniDSP DDRC-88A to see improvement on?
Good lord thats way too low. Even if you have full range tower speakers you want your crossover set at least at 80.
 
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