KC High End Subwoofer Blind Audition Interest Thread - Page 9

Mark,

Here's what I was thinking -- (but I'm still open to any suggestions or modifications!)... Run Audyssey between subs and use a tripod with taped spots on the floor showing exact placement for every measurement. I can run up to eight positions with my calibration. If the number of attendees is high (which it appears it will be) I will likely use folding chairs/kitchen chairs rather than my four recliners and have taped spots on the floor for each of the chair leg positions too. Put the subs in the back of the room behind a blind I'm making, and the subs up front will be behind blinds on both sides of the projector screen. Everybody will have to go upstairs and be quiet during the Audyssey setup which will be the most difficult part I'm quite sure!

Otherwise DesertDome is intending on coming and has that fancy pants JRiver software that he used in Omaha. If he's up for the task we could do a similar set of EQ setups on each sub in that manner he preformed in October, but that may be more trouble and stress for him?...

We can get max SPL peak readings on the omnimic as an overall note for each sub (with these high class subs I don't expect it will vary much) and nobody will have to monitor the SPL meter readings live which is also a frustrating task.

Before the meet and starting tonight I will be grabbing omnimic readings of my room with Audyssey off, and on to show what my room does between the two. I'm playing with the caps in 15hz tune and 20hz tune so I can run it both ways and show all the results with the omnimic and thus attendees can have a pretty good idea of how my room is affected by Audysssey that way - we can also see how consistant it is.


As host I'll not be participating in the blind auditions but rather setup/teardown/ and measurements between subs. For each sub setup we'll take and save omnimic FR graphs --- obviously only shown to the attendees post meet since we are having the audience judge SQ and preformance blind to what is actually playing. I'll likely need another volunteer or two to help with this process and a couple of guys said they would be willing to do so if needed - any absolute volunteers at this time? You'll lose some of the fun in blind listening, but for those who just want to hear this awesome lineup and aren't necessarily in the market to purchase new subs it's not that big a deal.

For me - I do believe I like ported sound best --- a year ago I didn't know which I liked better ported or sealed, but I think I know now after a couple meets in 2011 I've 100 of the time preferred the ported sound in equal class'ed subs - with this in mind I have one of the best ported subs commercially available in the Captivator pair, and so I can comfortably forgoe the blind audition judging and just enjoy hearing what other's experience!

Suggestions?

Playing around with Audyssey everything looks cool until I disabled Dynamic EQ, when I turned it back on my graph didn't look the same. I'll have to try this again to verify.

When I just changed the crossovers to 100hz for all tower speakers nothing noticably changed from the Audyssey discovered lower values on the frequency response.

When I just upped the subwoofer dB by +6 on both sub1 and sub 2, only the subwoofer levels changed, the rest of the FR looked good and very similar, but as soon as I disabled Audyssey and then turned it back on, or simply disable Audyssey Dynamic EQ and then turned it back on my graphs seemed to show pretty dynamic differences. It's like it didn't return to the same settings?

I'll shortly post up the graphs I took before it got complicated and I lost exactly what I was doing after getting to tired. More for another night.

agreed - we don't want variance in testing, but I fully plan to vette that out before the meet and decide either way.

I'll run audyssey tonight or tomorrow night again and compare FR results between two different runs, and maybe a third time for good measure. Though the question remains - how are we sure that REW methods of EQ that were used at the Omaha meet are any more reliable between 100hz and 20,000 hz? (since that REALLY appears to be the area of primary concern with first test runs last night)...


Caps are happy to play anything I throw at them...I've never heard my pair unhappy.
As to the ultra low LFE clips - I didn't include them by name as having made them in my previous lists because I didn't make them. I have them from the scubasteve disc and have held every intention of including nearly every clip you mentioned. I shortened some of them down last night using tsmuxor so they were not 3 minutes, long. I too want to hear that material, and see if we can really detect a difference between ported and sealed subsonics! The one problem with tightening all these clips up to just the BEST part of the scene, is that we are going to be overwhelmed with bass if we aren't careful. My 10-15 minute listening session of multiple clips last night at reference and -5 left me feeling like I was hungover today -- well that and going to bed at after 3AM on a worknight.


All the clips are pretty much done at this point. I have a group of probably 30 movie clips and 50 song clips to sort down. How do I do the speclab graphs? I bought a 25 pack of BDR disks to give every attendee a copy of the clips and song material we use at the meet - thus if I can't do it, I'm sure somebody can! I don't know how to use REW and I'm a novice with omnimic, and I know nothing about speclabs - but I'm willing to learn! I was originally going to try to author all the clips to BluRay disc and have my own scubasteve variant LFE disc, but that seems too complicated for the short time I have left, and might have to be a future project -- so the disc will likely just be a data disc holding all the m2ts, ac3, and mp3 files.

updated my previous post response to you nube with what I had intended to write, but couldn't stand to do from my smart phone at the time of my initial response!

My head hurts...

I only have a couple more clips to make/shorten. Then it's narrowing the full magazine of clips down to and handful consisting of 30 or 40 minutes of song and movie material per sub x 6 auditions (maybe seven if Mark brings some toys - which it sounds more like hes definately going to try to attend at this point!) That filtering out of the best clips will happen in large part tonight with 3 or 4 people. Then I can post a more final clip and song list.

Jeff confirmed is bringing a friend/customer, and jedimastergrant confirmed attendance today. I'll update the first post.

nube ---

Buy a darn plane ticket and crash out at my place...

Because the klipsch subs likely won't be blind auditioned and will be setup the day before and ready to play right at the start of the day as a reference for the room - we are really only blind auditioning five subs at this time.

JTR X3
Chase
HSU

Perhaps Submersives as a hopeful possibility. Husker's DIY 18" x4 setup a hopeful possibility. We do have time for another set of subs or two if found.

Doug's been super busy and has some illness in the family. I think he's probably out, but I did invite him, he said he hasn't watched a movie on that uber system of his in two months.

So tonight four people (3 others and myself) listened to 50ish demo clips.

A buddy of mine from work who loves music but isn't much of a subwoofer guy, Stitch1, and Luke Kamp.

Volume will have to be dialed back from what I originally thought. We started the night at - 6 AVR volume with a +3 to +6dB boost on both subs and admittedly it is just too loud for regular watching of non stop bass material -- especially when considering a full day. So we more or less agreed that the meet could probably be run at about -10 from reference with each sub hopped up about 3dB hot. This was decided after continually dialing the volume back down slowly through the 50 or so clips we watched until we reached a level that no longer was borderline uncomfortable. That volume was still fun and tactile, but tolerable by each of us! Yes it's not nearly as cool as reference on some of those clips like WOTW, and FOTP etc, but reference non stop hurts. Luke mentioned we would be violating OSHA hearing safety guidelines if we listened to about ~6 hours of 120dB material on the 14th.


Here is more or less the final movie clip lineup - most of these demos are about 1 minute clips. Makes for about 25 minutes of sub clips.

Animusic - last track
Battlefield LA - Alien Ship thrusters
BlackHawk Down - Irene
Book of Eli - gunfight
Dolby Digital Trailer - Canyon
Dolby Digital Trailer - Rain
Drumline - battle o the drumcores
Flight of the Phoenix - barrel roll
How to Train your Dragon - cliff burst
Hulk - cop car scene
Hulk - sonic canon scene
IronMan - Jericho Missle
John Mayer - Waiting for the World to Change
Matrix Revolutions - Architect voice
Star Wars 1 - Pod Race warm up
Terminator Salvation - Big Robot
THX - Amazing Life Trailer
TitanAE - Ice Field
Transformers 3 - Bumblebee HWY scene
War of the Worlds - Pod Emergence Scene
Kung Fu Panda - Skadoosh
Tron Legacy - Club Scene


Not yet finished but to be included
Tron Legacy - entering the grid
Master and Commander - ship battle
Red Cliff - drum beats

Cutting room floor -
Gads of movie studio introductions, dolby digital demos, and other quick demo sources
Band of Brothers - the breaking point
Inception - street erruption
IronMan 2- Fireworks -- (this cut kills me - maybe I'll make a directors edition, but the other guys weren't feeling it. HOW CAN THEY NOT LIKE AC/DC)
Jurrasic Park - TRex
Mr. and Mrs. Smith - gufight
Terminator 2 - Chaingun and Grenade launcher
Tron Legacy - ships fly by
U-571- Depth Charges.




SONG selection (about 10 minutes or so in length) still to be determined. There will be some substitutions from the last KC meet, but some will be the same.