SUBFEST 2011-HuskerOmaha and Desertdome's Subwoofer Showdown - Page 7

I believe he was waiting for the new series to come out, which only arrived a week ago, maybe thereby avoiding all the "this is not the current production model" talk that would have ensued otherwise.


Thank all you guys for putting on this great effort. I think even most of the "arm-chair quarterbacks" appreciate what you have accomplished here.

Ah ... makes sense.

Thanks for picking up on that. I will endeavor to keep this in the collective conscience thoughout the thread.

I almost suggested that owners should not score their own sub to you guys. It is really hard not to prefer your own horse subconciously, try as you might.



I noted this same thing when Desertdome got the measurements added (Good job man). I have a very similar dip at 13Hz in my main room (4,100 cubic foot). I've seen something similar in other rooms too. Placement does not seem to matter in my case. Even with 4 subs dispersed around the room 2 mid wall and 2 in corners. I tried a bunch of placement options and it persists in all of them. It irks the heck out of me but I'm stuck with it until I move I guess.

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Tony, youd be the man! I think with your lower level there would be enough room in front of your screen where we could just put up a sheet to conceal the lower row and keep all the subs down there, that way we wouldnt have to constantly be running behind the screen Id offer myself if I had the room to fit, the new a-t screen is assembled and stretching out too btw

sorry, back on topic

Should be easy enough to tally an alternate scoring average with this taken into account.

Though it may be a waste of time if the Submersive was owned by no-one, it's score remaining the same, while Archaea's scores for his Cap's would drop making a larger gap between it and the SubM.

Actually, I think every other sub was owned by someone, and their scores I assume would be above the average... so in the end it would just separate the SubM from everything else getting shifted down.

It really is amazing how a single SubM showed up as a surprise and manhandled everything else. But as the response shows, it's the only sub that had anything majorly different going on with it's curve, that being it had useful response 15Hz and below.

Actually the DTS/Growler looked good in room, it's a shame it wasn't working for the listening tests:

Actually, it's no surprise to me at all. I've been touting the advantages of wider BW for a long time. The results also go a long way to reinforce a related opinion I've voiced as well, that the <20 Hz playback doesn't have to be stupid-loud vs the rest of the presentation.

Get your in-room FR as flat as possible to as low as possible and you'll be experiencing the playback as it was created, mixed and encoded. Nine times out of ten the preference will tilt toward the accurate presentation vs all others, regardless of the audience demographics.

In looking at your condensed scoring results graphic (thanks for that... nice work), I couldn't help but notice that the SM scored highest when the scene included strong <20 Hz content:



BTW, I agree that the GTG was very well done. Everyone did a great job and the subs auditioned and selected scenes were excellent choices.

Bosso

I wouldn't go as far as saying the submersive manhandled everything else. It did perform quite well though.

The owner not voting on his own sub is a valid one and we could have accomodated that, but without actually rerunning the numbers I'd bet BiGBADDABOOM is probably correct in his observation that it would have just pushed the SubM a bit higher. I wasn't a critical voter scorewise. I had lots of 10's and 9's and 8's and 7's for the top 7 subs. In regards to the top two finishers - I tied the Cap and SubM on a half dozen scores, placed the Cap above the SubM on eleven, and had the SubM beating the Cap on four. Most of my scores were 9/10 flip/flops for these two subs, and my vote as 1/6 of the votes was worth about .17 of a point in these instances. I was sitting in one of the better seats however so that also addresses the previous comment in that seats right by the mic probably did make many of the subs sound great! KC Nitro07 sat in one of the worst positions of the day and his scores were all relatively much much lower.

There are more variables to consider than just owner's bias. My biggest being of the sober judgement that if we had decided the volume could be variable - - those cap scores would have just kept climbing as the volume increased - with or without my vote...

Couldn't blind testing be done in many rooms (not husker omahas unfortunately - because of the shape) if the subs were placed behind the listening position and a sheet was hung from the ceiling placed behind the seats to prevent a backwards glance. 80hz crossover and two rear corners should work similar to two front corners in many rooms. Owner and brand bias thus eliminated. It doesn't conquer the max spl observations - but at standardized volumes like this meet it would have been a better path and in most rooms perhaps pretty easily done.


Bosso - in post 187 a couple posts above you aren't using the right chart to plot your point. This was discussed a bit on page three of this thread and actual result chart scores (rather than BiGBADDABOOM's chart) shows the opposite of what you just mentioned in your #187 post. In fact the Captivators won 4 of 6 scenes with the lowest notes based on the actual voter tallies. See this post...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...3&postcount=92

The next one of these I go to I want to have the meet be preformed blind.

Right on Bosso. By 'surprise' I meant the SubM itself showing up; if I'm hearing correctly it wasn't originally planned to be there (though some had a suspicion when they found out Mark was coming with Jeff).

It just kinda makes me laugh, this shootout with a great heavy-hitting lineup and Mark shows up with a Submersive to throw more variety in the mix and it walks out with the blue ribbon at the end of the day.

My chart that Bosso used is the same information (actual results), formatted to be easier to decipher quickly.

+ 1. I wasn't there of course, but it would appear to me that if you really wanted to go below 15hz THAT would be where you'd sway towards a SubM. How many do (or care) would be a another matter.

Seeing little music goes anywhere near 20hz (never mind 10) that's a borderline moot point to me and the fact that the Cap outscored the SubM on some serious low hz, known movie passages makes the matter even less cut and dry, AFAIC.

Both the Cap and the SubM appear to pretty linear with plenty of output and I'd love to see a bona fide blind test to see just how easy it is to discern/choose between the two.

At the end of the day the pair seem like a near dead heat to me and I can completely understand someone looking at a passive Cap and an amp to save $400 OR spending the $400 and to get the sub 15hz response.

Pick your poison to me, nice problem to have!

Edit: and heck, I guess I didn't even consider the Cap in 15hz tune (it was run in 20 for the GTG, right) perhaps some users could see decent 13-15 hz response in their room, no?

Respectfully,
James

Thanks for your kind words. With my wife having a baby on Thursday, staying up until 2 am Saturday morning with seat to seat testing and other stuff, I felt a little tired by Saturday when the GTG started. After hooking up the subs, making sure settings were correct, and EQing the subs my brain needed a little rest. I just sat down, sipped my root beer, and enjoyed the playlist once it started. I really didn't listen very critically except on a few clips. I also didn't take any notes. I was very impressed by the amount of notes and comments that others were making. I've decided that my time is best spent in explaining the process and showing all the graphs rather than typing my subjective opinions on all the subs.

For those wondering about dual vs single subs, this was first and foremost a GTG. This means it was a way for those that attended to have fun and enjoy some bass. It was like going to a racetrack and trying out various cars. You don't care what they cost or how much horsepower they have. You just go out and run a few laps with each and have fun. With that said, the BIC F12, Rythmik, and eD were listened to since they are currently available, we had access to them, and the owners wanted to compare to more expensive offerings. We did have someone in Omaha with dual Rythmik 15" sealed, but he was unable to attend on our date. All of the remaining sub setups were two driver setups. We had three dual 15" driver setups (Cinema F20s, Submersive, & Turbos), three dual 18" driver setups (CHT 18.2, CHT VS18.1, and JTR Captivator), and one dual 12" driver setup (Danley DTS-10).

I'm not sure how much success we would have had with a maximum SPL comparison in regards to sound quality. There was a ceiling down light that was rattling, a wall TV mount making noise, and other resonances around the room present even with listening at our standard volume level. I've found in my own house that these become even more pronounced and more items begin to contribute to the "noise" in the room that can make louder sound worse. A room that has been built from scratch as a home theater would make for a better comparison of maximum SPL.

I did have access to a GIK Acoustics Room Kit #4 with 8 Tri-traps, but HuskerOmaha's room wouldn't accommodate it. I'm sure this would have helped the sound out, too.

I'd agree that "manhandled" could be a bit overstated.

Having smaller woofers and 1/2 to 1/4 the box size of other entrants (with exception of the Bic, Rythmik and eD), I honestly went in merely aiming for "impressive and well composed" next to the big, industrial finished behemoths. Running the SubMersive after the pair of Captivators was not a choice positioning, but timing of everyone's schedules worked out that way.

My own impression was not one of owner bias toward their own subwoofer, but more a function of what they are used to and familiar with. I'd argue the relation is more than listeners past purchases were aligned with their preferences more than their preferences with their ownership. Our own experiences and exposure to different performance qualities along with our listening habits and interests play a big part in what sonic qualities we focus our attention on.

As an example, I'd expect that many who were thrilled with the louder low bass like in the Kid Cudi and similar tracks, as well as the loud explosion power would be all giddy over hearing an Orbit Shifter, despite their apparent preference for ported subs. One of the reasons I only planned on bringing a single SubMersive was that Jeff was planning to bring and Orbit Shifter had the drivers arrived in time.

Of course per my own tastes in sound, all the ported subs were tuned too high and lacking the visceral punctuation added by the VLF energy.

James, I'm glad I (I'm sure you are too) bought the Cap back when it was 300 bucks cheaper, that made choosing the Sumbersive a lot harder than it is now. I think some guys on here that bought one last year (I could be wrong here, but I though the original that was 15hz tuned was less than what I paid) got theirs for 200 less than we did! That's an unbelievable deal.

C'mon, man... you know I wouldn't stand a chance against those seasoned professional sub guys.

Bosso

Precisely. The price increase did take a bit of a poke at the insane value it represented.

Now it's just an unbelievable buy (lol)...just like the Submersive, no doubt.

James

Tuned too high at 15hz? tuning any lower kinda limits your choices I would guess!

If you care to tell, about how much eqing was needed to get the SM in line? Was there a LT added via the internal DSP? considering the dual opposed design, it would lead me to believe that while the EQing might not be as crazy as some other designs, the LT would make some great improvements on the low-end?

One thing I did notice from the results is that when the Submersive was preferred (higher score) it was preferred by an average margin of 0.6pts, when the Captivator was preferred, it was by a slimmer average of 0.2pts, just an interesting tidbit.

Submersive's best wins:

Cloverfield: +1.0


Master & Commander: +0.84


Captivator's best wins:

Transformers ROTF: +0.34


Flight of the Phoenix: +0.33

Cloverfield and M&C have significantly more ULF than TF3 (plenty of bass, but nearly completely lacking in ULF actually) and FOTP (has some ULF, but stronger peaks are 30-60Hz, here is the crash:

If in this bit you are describing me (and I think you are) I definately want to hear some orbit shifters now...

But sealed? grrr...there's just something hard to describe about it that I can't really fall in love with and I'd wager big money I could tell the difference in blind tests at the limits of similar quality sealed and ported subs -- The Cap and SubM for example. The sound is very different to me. I'd hope I wouldn't be proved foolish in a blind test here of of all preferences!!!

Where did/does WOTW fit into all this? Gotta be some serious LFE going on there.

Didn't really pour over the results yet, tbh.

Edit: nevermind just checked and it took it by a couple tenths.

With .2 seperating them after a dozen movie clips I don't know how much closer it could get- even throwing out the highs and lows. Very very tight.

James

Curious about BHD too?
EDIT: Just looked it up. on BHD, the SubM won by a a total of .17
On WOTW, the Cap won by .17 also. Pretty dead heat between those two clips anyway.....

Yeah I'd agree the SubM dominated in Master and Commander. I personally gave the SubM a 10 on that clip and the Caps an 8.

The Caps actually beat the SubM on War of the Worlds in the group average score 9.17 vs. 9.0. I personally rated both subs a 10 on that clip, but wrote in my notes that while both were awesome I preferred the caps on this scene because the subm seemed to kinda be nearing its limits a wee bit and putting out a just a tiny edge of that boomy/muffled/inflated sound that I personally disklike about sealed subs when they are being pushed too hard.

What demo scenes were used for M&C?

Interestingly "most" of the intense bass in M&C seems to be centered around 30Hz (Or are my eyes playing tricks on me, might be time for reading glasses... )

The violin playing scene, and then we skipped forward to the komodo dragon spotting scene. How magnificent!

You owe me a cup of coffee as my enjoyment of it was abruptly interrupted by my reaction to reading this post.

I meant as we listened to them. Everything we listened to was tuned in the 18-21Hz range, I believe most were right about 19-20Hz. Tuning any of them lower starts pushing the air flow limits if you are after more exciting playback levels.


The SubMersive HP used was exactly as they ship to every customer. The espresso cherry unit I brought was brand new with the amp loaded, sub tested and packed up on Thursday prior to leaving, just as they ship out to any customer. Technosponge took some pictures of us unpacking it upstairs I'll post on my forum later. There are two selectable response curves available to the user. Desertdome measured it in the original 19Hz anechoic mode, and we then quick switched the program, turned it off and back on to measure again. I suggested we go with the 2nd program (15-16Hz anechoic, same roll off shape) as desertdome's EQ would smooth the rise around 20Hz in Husker's room from this mode. The difference between the two curves is about 3.5dB below 20Hz which has thus far offered a fun option in matching tastes and rooms. Output limits at a given frequency are the same for each curve.

I don't follow how the dual opposed design would affect the EQ vs. front firing. I just introduced the SubMersive F2 variant which is fully front firing. The acoustic power output is the same for both versions.

There is no cannon fire at the time period indicated on page 1!


QUOTE:

"Here is the material played through the subs and the rough timestamps for those interested. Some of these were modified as we realized we could cut some material to make the GTG faster but still keep the majority of the bass content in each.

Movies

Master and Commander:Cannon 1:41 (1:36-3:17)"


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1#post21112311

Timestamp must be wrong - we used the scene where the guy shows his "hold fast" knuckles and the masts and everything are boom blasted with canon shells -- we watched to the point where the kid gets the wood splinters in his arm.