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Originally Posted by
Madaeel 
That being said Bosso, when referring to our statement that the CS 18.1 sounded better than the 450, brought out the discrepancy in the FR and then said we were unable to make subjective comments in that regard. Which while I don't agree with, and never will, that you need a flat FR to hear differences in the SQ I understand why he said that. It does play a part I just don't feel it's entirely dependent on that. Now he is using it to show the rolloff of the sub below 25hz.
There are 2 very different points being apparently confused here (not by yourself, but by the poster who brought me into this thread to clarify). One is that subjective comments regarding subwoofers that give wildly disparate in-room responses are subjective comments about the room much more so than the subwoofer.
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I don't disagree with him using it for reference there either. What bothers me is so does the eD, and every sub in the shootout, and Bosso NEVER brings that up. I think it's more of a result of a null in my room than the subs considering even the ported subs dropped off pretty good. Whatever though it's pointless arguing with since it almost always has more to do with it being associated with Craig then anything else. Its just sad that AVS is just more pointless debates, between parties who would never say they are wrong anyway, than full of informative threads anymore. Especially when some of the people bickering have knowledge to help others, including myself, and yet use it to disparage others.
Oh well what else is new.
Then there is the objective value of your posted single frequency connect the dots graphs for each sub.
Of course the room has a null. That's obvious. The room may also have (probably does have) several additional nulls and/or peaks that were missed because they fell in between the the frequencies selected to create the posted graphs.
The point is that all of the subs were subjected to the same room influence and the posted graphs show the trend in responses. Yes, all of the subs fell into the null, but they did so in a relative manner.
The ported subs have a native roll off of 4th to 6th order whereas the CS sub is said to have a 2nd order roll off. So, how would the same null affect the 2nd order roll off more so than a 6th order roll off? It wouldn't. That's not an opinion, it's simple physics.
You can clearly see the trend. The CS sub has the least output below 25 Hz and the highest output above 40 Hz at the LP. Objectively, that means that it will register high peak numbers on a Radio Shack meter, while not accurately reproducing the effect because the meter is C weighted and the rumble tone used to calibrate levels is 30-80 Hz.
As you mentioned the ED, subjectively speaking, as I said in the beginning (and please let me be clear, I've been here for 8 years and I am not the first person to make this observation, as it's been said thousands of times... because it's a simple truth. I meant no harm by stating the obvious and I apologized for the assumptions in making it.), there is little to no value in subjective comments when the FR is not flat and calibration is not carefully matched.
To try to illustrate, here are the in-room responses of the ED and CS, as tested, that is, the CS with boost and the ED without, smoothed and assuming no missed peaks/dips:
A simple exercise may be conducted wherein you EQ one sub to have both of these FRs by switching the EQ in and out and you will positively get different subjective comments on performance, even though it's the same subwoofer. The 2 responses are simply too disparate not to notice it subjectively. If you're honestly looking for me to say that I'm wrong in this opinion, it's not going to happen because facts are facts.
In fact, Craig used this simple fact to trick a group of listeners at his house. We (Jax, Ray, myself among the group, so feel free to ask them to co-sign) were told we were listening to 2 different subs and to evaluate them subjectively. They were actually the same sub. One listen with flat response, the second listen with a +5dB bump at 25 Hz. Every person on the panel heard the difference. I remarked that I thought one was a sealed sub (that was supposed to be included in the session but secretly was not) and the other was the ported sub (which it was). Others simply remarked that they liked the (heavier, fuller... insert adjective here) bottom or that they disliked the (bloated, muddy... insert adjective here) low end, etc., but every person there heard it as 2 different subs. The whole point was to prove that 2 slightly different responses draw a slew of like/dislike subjective comments, but have very little to do with the actual sub listened to.
And, the difference in FR between the CS and the ED (and the other subs) is far more disparate than what we listened to. Forget the roll off for a moment and look at the top octave. You're hearing a 12dB average difference from 60-80 Hz! Maybe it was a phase adjustment issue or a delay setting issue, dunno, but a 15dB difference at 80 Hz is going to draw some subjective comments while it most certainly does not reflect the actual performance capabilty differences of the subwoofers.
Hopefully everyone can agree on these 2 points. They are not my opinions. They're simple facts and can be verified in repeatable exercises.
Objectively, we already know the roll off of the Hsu and the Rythmik. If Josh ever gets a CS to measure, then we'll be able to compare roll offs to a certainty, and I'll match the true differences to your posted in-room differences. Then, if I have been mistaken in my assumptions, I'll gladly admit I was wrong.
Also of note is that fact that, despite the disparate responses measured, the ED still posted equal to higher dBSPL on the RS meter during the selected scenes. That's one I'll leave open for someone to explain.
BTW, as I've mentioned earlier in this thread, please PM me if this post is in any way offensive or something you just don't want in your thread and I will gladly remove it.
Bosso
I actually would love to hear their A7-350 and 450. Those things have got to move some serious air!
