Gorilla83's Humble Basement Hangout - Page 4

Yes they are 18's powered by an LG 14000 clone. I have some ideas for placement - I may start with all 4 up front, but not stacked. I
Alternatively, i have room behind the couch for 2 as well so they could be split. I'll give them a listen in each position and see what sounds best to my ears.
Edited by Gorilla83 - 12/17/12 at 6:26pm

Everything JTR I've heard so far has been phenomenal, and the Caps were no exception. I loved the sound the 2 new subs produced so I had to build a couple more.

Haha sorry I misspoke, I intend on only a total of four subs. Maybe two up front and two out back? At least for now. I have SHO 10s, but will probably build something upgraded and use them (the SHOs) as surrounds in January.
Edited by Gorilla83 - 12/17/12 at 4:53pm

The difficult part now will be quieting down resonation in the room. I'm going to take care of insulation above the ceiling next (1 foot thick R38) to both treat the ceiling as well as apply some pressure against the grid, tiles, and light canisters.

The walls will be tricky, but I will see what I can do to secure them some more. Ideally if I were building new I would have double stud/drywalled the room but after 3+ months of hard work finishing that area, there is no way I'm going to tear down the walls and re-do it all.

Maybe a while from now I will redo it from the ground up again. Certainly don't want to think about that now though, heh. I think keeping the 3rd and 4th subs somewhat near field will help mitigate some of the room resonation. We'll see how it sounds when they get set up shortly.

The idea behind multiple subs is to play at loud volumes with less effort, distortion, and stress on the equipment.. I don't expect to extend any lower than what I have now, but I will have substantially more output capability at the same levels or even the same output with less stress to the equipment. Getting great output at <20hz requires a lot of power and/or displacement. With multiples in this magnitude the bass is just effortless.

Thank you! You are 100% correct about the response smoothing, especially across multiple seats. I can get awesome FR with just one of these subs in the listening position, but that is not consistent across all seats. I'm looking forward to insulating the ceiling. As of now it is 100% bare joists.

Mike - If you're getting good FR and output with one sub and you're happy with it all, consider yourself lucky! If there was someway I could set my stuff up in a room that is smaller and wouldn't require as much power/drivers/setup/treatments that would be great. The downside is I wouldn't be able to fit 20+ of us for a GTG and have access to the bar.

So next week in parallel with getting all 4 subs up and running, I'm going to start treating of the ceiling. I've found a few relevant threads that seem to offer some great advise for treatment of drop ceilings. As of now above the tiles it is bare with nothing other than wires and HVAC ducting. I'm going to line the entire ceciling with 1 foot thick right over the tiles and around the perimeter of the room I will (double) stuff up through the joists right up until the floor upstairs. This will essentially make my entire ceiling one huge bass trap.

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?2302479-quot-Drop-quot-Ceilings-(grids)-and-Acoustic-Treatment

Mostly correct. The amp is running in 4 ohm stereo (or 8 ohm bridged) so it's actually 'only' 8800 watts. Somehow I think it will suffice.

Guys - I have all 4 subs up and running now. The 3rd and 4th subs are behind the couch and acting as an end table. First and foremost the output and impact is absolutely ABSURD!! Completely blows away anything I've had in the room so far. I've spent only a few quick minutes listening so far since I don't have a lot of time left today before family activities kick off. Tomorrow I'm hoping to re-eq and take some onmnmic sweeps along the way. I've learned a few things from the 10 short minutes I've spent demo'ing them:

1) I don't know if I'll ever be able to need or tolerate much more output for more than a clip or two at a time. Upon first hooking them up I had to back the sub level down -4 or -5 DB in order to not overpower the mains. The impact with the sub behind the couch makes me giggle like a second grade schoolkid at recess. I'm confident I'm seeing 130+ DB at the listening position for most frequencies. I will know more when i measure shortly.

2) I feel sorry for my wife when I have friends over to demo while she is home. Truly.

3) I have a newfound respect for what this clone amp can really do now that it's wired in 4 ohm stereo. It's freaking awesome. Hopefully it stays working for a while. I had it cranked near reference for a few clips and wasn't even close to finding the limits of this setup.

4) Some of you guys have got to get over here this week and have a listen. Seriously.

5) I'm really going to have to respect this setup or I will have some serious hearing damage.

6) There is no need for transducers with the subs in these positions.

I'm going to toy with placement a bit next and finish up the grills. Once I've found the locations, I will wire them through the walls with outlet plates, etc and snap some pictures for you guys.

Merry Christmas Eve all!!!
Edited by Gorilla83 - 12/24/12 at 3:24pm

I owned a deftech trinity at one point in this room. It was a nice sub and very well built, but fell far short of what the Captivators and the current setup offer. D

I'd like to start with insulating later in the week, but we will see what kind of time I have.

So testing has been completed powering the SHOs with my EP4000 amp. I dialed the gain back a bit and then performed level matching. I listened to a few popular music and movie clips that are part of my normal demo material. I listened first up to about reference and really didn't notice any audible difference from the receiver. Same sound quality, midrange, etc. However, when the levels were raised to +10 and beyond there was no longer any audible hint of distortion. These levels are enough to really drive you out the room. My conclusion - for my setup in my room, the receiver is more than sufficient for 99% of normal listening conditions. When it comes time for demo/testosterone fest the pro amp really gets them cranking, cleanly.

I tried crossing them over at 80, 90, and 100hz - they all seemed relatively similiar to my ears with a slight change in the 80hz mode. I figured with the massive output I have with the subs I'll leave them a bit less stressed at 100hz.

All 4 subs EQ'd. I had much better luck with Audyssey connecting all subs to one channel. I'm basically flat without having to add any external EQ this time around. I've also wired up some rear surrounds for a full 7 channel setup. I wanted to get this done prior to insulating the ceiling. I had some Klipsch RS35's laying around so I hooked them up for now until I build all of my surrounds.


Stay tuned for ceiling treatments and new SEOS mains build in the next month or so.

Some pictures - take note of the new 'end tables.' I apologize I hadn't cleaned up a whole lot before taking the pictures. That would have been wasted time instead of more listening.

Thanks Mike. You are in for a surprise when you come to listen. The next GTG will be in April. Of course you're invited, in fact I even have you on the list already.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1446450/ne-spring-speaker-shootout-gtg-date-poll-and-discussion