JTR Captivator - Page 101

Admittedly, I'm assuming I'm missing something here.

You want to individually EQ these, correct?

I will go back a bit here and perhaps have a better feel for what's goin on here, sorry.

EDIT: ok it seems you're looking to send the left and right stereo channel in addition to the LFE so I'm assuming there's no Audyssey/newer room EQ going on that simply allows you to do so internally (within the AVR/PREPRO)?

If so, I got ya and you're correct, the xs wouldn't be a good option for ya.

James

So I definitely did not get lucky.....

I've had my two passive captivators for a few days now and done some fiddling. The lucky comment refers to my wishful thinking that they wouldn't need eq in my room. Nope. Not even close.

Thus far I am not as impressed as I hoped to be, but I'm sure most of that is attributable to the subs not being "dialed-in." I also was not able to do a sub crawl as WAF dictated that the caps could only be in the front corners

What is the main issue? Lack of output? Sound quality? what amp are you running and what settings? Port plug in the caps? Phase settings? Pics of your room?

Do you have an rew graph to post?

Edit - saw youre running an inuke 3000, correct? Which avr and what sub settings? Are you using RCA to Xlr connectors?

To add to that, dimensions of your room?

P.S. Gorilla, where are your own REW graphs?

I order a cap 1000 and my room is 12x15x9 open on one side. I have a sealed 18" now and hopefully I can integrate them together nicely. If one cap is enough and would fill up my space, then that would be great. I had dual subs before and would be hard to give that up. The sealed 18" is great but would like some lower stuff.

I know, I have been slacking and working on some electrical stuff in the house. I need to go untangle that mess of wires in the cabinet that is my rew setup, lol.

Main issues are boominess and lack of extension. The perceived lack of extension is surprising because I know my Empires had no steam below 20Hz either but they seemed to go deeper....

iNuke 3000 2 ohm stereo via RCA/XLR via Yamaha v663 as a pre-pro. I've gone back and forth between 15 and 20 Hz tunes (the no-plug config being matched with a 20 Hz HPF on the iNuke). Both subs 0 degrees phase adjusted.

The room is challenging to say the least:



The red rectangle represents the "theater area." It's not a dedicated room and is open to most of the rest of that space. Length of the red box is approx 25 ft, width 13 ft and height averages 12 ft (upward sloping, 9 ft from exterior wall to approx 14' at highest point).

Sry for low light....crappy iphone pic

you clearly have a setup problem...perhaps you need an art cleanbox or samson s convert. The captivators would have no problem filling up a gymansium with sound. Your space, even though large, is small potatoes compared to the capability of a couple caps. Perhaps someone with a Yamaha pre-amp avr setup can speak up. If you bought the inuke with DSP you might need to buy a omnimic or learn REW to figure out what your FR looks like.

Jeff might have some advice to offer too. Don't get frustrated..when you hear how good these things can sound you'll laugh at this moment.

That's what i'm thinking also....if uncle sam & my cpa are good to me, i may just bite the bullet and pick up an XT32 AVR and let that clean it up.

Ummmmm...assuming the height you listed for the red area is typical for the balance of the space and "GRU" is sealed off from "BAS" you would have more than TWENTY THOUSAND CUBIC FEET to fill with bass (and even if the balance of the room is the typical ~8 ceiling height you're still talking 15,000+).

Ok, not a gymnasium, but positively ginormous nonetheless and filling a space
with "sound" and palpable sub 20hz bass are totally different things.

All this is a bit out the window if indeed you were seeing deeper extension with Empires, but I guess we'd have to start with that assumption and then begin to check off differences between the two arrangements.

Understanding that a 3 car garage is roughly 3500^3 of volume, you can begin to understand how cavernous 20,000 is.

Wow, nice problem to have I guess.

James

I felt pretty much the same as Avarice whenever I got my single cap - amongst other things, my mfw-15's seemed to go lower. But I'm sure I had to have something wrong in the chain. I do have a denon 4311 with xt32. Unfortunately, I haven't got around to getting everything hooked back up for months due to other ht changes and the loss of my father. Hopefully I'll get it back up and going soon. I'll give Jeff a call if something is still weird. Or if that doesn't work, I may have to try hitting up the other cap professional, (Archaea) hehe! Wish I could come to the meet though. Is there still room for another? I probably can't anyway, but without looking, I think that would be about a 6 hour drive from Norman, OK.? Minus crappy gas prices, I'm sure it would be worth it.

If my rough layout were aligned on cardinals, the southeast portion of the room is reasonably sealed....so I rough calc'd about 13k^3 ft. It's a miserable problem to have as a home theater enthusiast I'm on the west coast of FL and not far above the water table; so I don't have the luxury of a light-controlled basement like many folks.

This downstairs floor is an eclectic, Frank Lloyd Wright-ish design that I absolutely love....for everything but sound reproduction

It'll be worth it!

If you want to come just pm me and I'll give you my address. Mark's attending afterall and sending us a couple Seaton Submersives to play with and Jeff has already told me he want's to play with the volume levels (after the blind voting) and let his products flex a bit. hahah....

That, my friend's, is something to experience!!!! Bring your ear plugs for that section! -- it's a blast!

This whole thing will be a blast! Any of you guys potentially in the market for subs? Bring your pocket books - Occassionally there are deals to be had at these get togethers, both by owners and vendors.

James you are correct.


The Lyngdorf TDAi has a roomperfect module.
http://www.lyngdorf.com/content/view/76/35/
Does delay as well.
So for 2 ch listening this only powers the mains and all below 80 Hz,in my case, goes to a pair of subs.
2 inputs needed there.

For HT I use a Pioneer receiver, just for processing, which is connected to the Lyngdorfs inputs for fronts and another Lyngdorf , SDA2175 poweramp, for surrounds.
LFE out goes to a pair of subs after passing through a Behringer FBQ2496 for EQ.2 inputs on subs needed there.
The Behringer might be avoided using EQ on the amps but this is something I'll have to try since Roomperfect is active in 2 CH as well.

EDIT
I made my choice and the XTi2 Crowns will power the Caps.
Reasons:
less conspicuous exterior (no LIGHTS)
quality
warranty
available (iNuke DSP is continuously on backorder here)
adjustable fan
speaker binding posts
this ,plus all the features I need.

Thanks to all for your input !

You may have seen my comments a few pages back regarding my Yamaha receiver. I did wind up using a Cleanbox with my RX-V1065 as the default signal was rather weak. Have you run YPAO with yours yet? If so, what did it set the sub signal at? It's funny, the YPAO setting for the sub without the cleanbox was +1 or +2 (can't remember exactly) but even when calibrated to be even with the other speakers, it still sounded MUCH weaker than when I ran the cleanbox and it set the signal at -12. Even after setting both of them about 2-3DB hot, the cleanbox setup sounded SO much better. It's like without it, the subs were barely moving, even at near reference volumes. I originally had planned on returning the converter box (as it was a gift for Christmas) thinking that I wouldn't need it, but after hearing the difference there is no way I'm going back.

Have you tried experimenting with phase settings? My phase at 180 resulted in a 3-4DB increase overall, which wasn't insignificant. Do you have access to a RS SPL meter or similar? After you get all this sorted out and optimized, then we can talk about adding more power. We both have relatively large rooms and could benefit from all the power/output we can get.

It's funny that you mention you have issues with "extension" though - From the sound alone (I haven't run any sweeps with these yet) it sounds to be that these are the deepest digging subs I've owned, and I'm coming right from a dual 18" sealed sub setup. Again, this is just what I'm hearing - the low 20hz range sounds awesome and plenty powerful. I'd imagine your perception will change once we get this figured out.

That's interesting re: the Cleanbox....with the iNuke attenuators approx. 3/4 up, I have the sub trim set at -3 in order to level match the speakers (I am using an RS meter).

I would think if there is enough voltage to get the signal up high enough such that it falls within a range where I can level match (or even run a few dbs hot) that it wouldn't matter. Is this flawed thinking?

I usually have my amp gain (EP4000 right now) set around 80% as well. I did the same as you, confirmed the sub settings using the RS SPL meter and it didn't make sense to me either why it sounded a lot stronger when both were level matched with the mains - but it did. Maybe someone on here will have some explanation as to the why/how.

Does your 663 have 2 sub outputs as well? Try summing them together with a y cable and going into 1 input on the amp - bridge the input across both channels. See if you can gain some input resolution by doing so - I had it run this way with my Chase subs and seemed to work well.

Also - Let me know your results when experimenting with phasing. It makes a significant difference in my room. Not that this should be a huge difference, but what crossover are you using also?

The passive Captivator needs a fair bit of time to break in and it does require eq'ing for optimum sound. The Captivator is nearly 10db more sensitive 60hz and above verse 20hz. That extra output on the top end makes it sound like it has less low end. You'll need either a high shelf filter or a wide parametric with a low pass to pull the top end of the response down to match the low end. Otherwise, Audyssey or other auto room programs should tame the top end.

The 2012 Captivators now come with a grill that is 25% lighter and machined so that cabinet and grill magnets are closer together.

Hey, Jeff, thanks for the input! Definitely not giving up on them by any means...just chomping at the bit for proper eq now. Love the look and feel of the Caps for sure. The industrial finish is perfect for me, what with a toddler in the house

I know it's my room that's the difference, but I didn't have near that much difference between 20 hz and 60hz and up. In fact I had to turn 20 hz down a lot on my sms-1 just to get a house curve. I had to turn down 60 and up as well, but not near as much as I turned down the low end.

One thing I have found, my Cap doesn't have near the output in the left front corner as it does in the right front corner. If I put both of them (getting my 2nd Cap this weekend) up front like that, it would seem to me that the max output would be neutered because I would be limited by the output of the sub in the left front corner if I want the volume of the subs to be even. That's why I'm thinking about (and going to try it for sure) putting each sub directly to the side of my listening position along the side wall which would be 3/4 or more back from the front wall.

Each sub driver would be roughly 6.5 feet from me. That should kick my arse, no?

Did some VERY rudimentary measuring w/ the RS meter, correction tables, and test tones....

Measurements @ 5hz increments between 20-80hz. Flat as a roller coaster



Hello "mother of all nulls" @ 40hz! Hmm...what an appropriate acronym: MOAN

That's a very tough room. Look at that null and that peak! Terrible! You have to move those subs somewhere else. Screw WAF if it sounds bad where you're at. Do a sub crawl or something.

You can play with distance settings in the receiver to try to even that out a bit, but I'm not sure it'll solve anything if your location is just that bad.

I've always heard this can damage your signal source or avr?! Those outputs aren't meant to be tied in together I thought???

People sometimes take one single Sub Out and split it into two cables to feed to both left and right input on a plate amp (red and white inputs) and get a little extra gain, but I don't think you should be able to combine sub1 and sub2 out into one output and not run into problems?!?!? It'd be like tying a left and right channel together on a source with two actual sub outputs.

Moot point with the 663...though it has two sub outs, they're not truly separate channels. It's essentially an internally mounted y-splitter.

78dB to 107dB within the nominal subwoofer frequency band of 20hz to 80hz.

~30dB variance? Perceptually 3 times louder at certain frequencies?

nice....

If you have the patience and turn the subs sideway it'd be interesting to figure out how that compares. It helped in my room. See this link...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1383925

Anybody want to trade rooms??

Question: I made the graph from a spreadsheet set up to incorporate the RS meter correction factors into my direct measurements. Was this the proper thing to do?

In other words, are the correction factors only meant to be used with a specific source, e.g. sine waves or pink noise? The test tones I used were the ones linked previously by Archaea from the Deaf Boys audio site, or something to that effect.

With the onboard iNuke DSP, I should think it would be pretty simple to cut those peaks down to size as Jeff alluded would be necessary.

That 40hz null, however....nothing but placement experimentation is going to remedy that, no?

Email me some pictures of the room and I'll see if I can come up with anything. That 40hz null could be from a reflection from the back wall or far corner. If which case a 40hz tuned bass trap would solve your troubles.

http://www.diy-home-theater-design.c...rap-build.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz_resonator