Seaton Sound SubMersive1 - Page 4

Yes those specs will make one drool.... They did me when mark was still in the design phase of this sub.

As far as I know he has a TEF and will travel but you will have to talk to him about that..... I know he has set up systems some distance away

I will bet that he would sugest a 2nd submersive but.... one would get you some decent output

I guess it's time to come clean,Marks install he was doing was at my home. I have four of the Seaton Submersives complementing my Seaton XL fronts now.

I've been tremendously busy so I've had time only to give a real preliminary listen. I cut to the chase this evening and put in Master and Commander ! Well if you would like to know what it feels like to be standing on the deck of a tall ship during a cannon battle you should stop by. I certainly am getting a whole new level of tactile effects and just raw power. It seems to be very very clean and it is just so much fun to sit there getting crystal clear dialog as my seat, pants and hair are shaking.

At this point I'm not sure if I should congratulate myself on my decision or Mark for his engineering and passion.

I will post more after a more in depth run tomorrow evening.

Art

Art,

Four Submersive subs! Very impressive sub bass you must have there.

And what is a Seaton XL ? If I may ask.

crazy dynamic powered mains created by mark, oh you thought he only designed subs? send him to your webpage art!! Ive got one of the submersives in my room it simply rocks, thinking about a second one but I will have to check for structural integrity first !

I know you had 4 SVS subs but I forgot if it was the Plus/2 or the Ultra/2?

4x Plus/2. There are/were some pictures on his site where you could see them being installed.

Art, you are one crazy dude! Now I can't miss your next meet.

Yes, the XL is the name he has designated for his large front channel speakers.

Here they are during installation next to my Triad classic Golds:




Art

Hello Art,

Thank you for the opportunity to turn 4 SubMersive's and the XL's loose in a such a great setting and supporting such a great picture.

While the results were as I had intended with the design of the products, actually putting it to use and confirming it really delivers the intended experience is always gratifying. As I hinted at in an earlier post, the very low frequency extension of the system extends to around 10Hz as measured at the listening position, and we should remember that as we get this low in frequency, even 5Hz makes for a significant fraction of an octave.

I'll post up measured responses in-room from both WarrenBuffet's and Art's systems some time today.

Best Regards,

Hi 'EAR,

Art's system is the first install of some prototype speakers I will be offering regularly early next year. "XL" stands for eXtreme Loudspeaker. As you can see in the picture Art posted, they are not small speakers, and are intended as front LCR channels to be used with powerful subwoofers. To put some dimensions to what you see, they are 36.5" tall, 15" wide, and 12" deep. The drivers you see are a 6.5" SEAS coax, with a pair of high excursion, 12" sealed woofers above and below. The speaker only goes down to about 55-60Hz, but is quite efficient and powerful in doing so. The XL is also internally bi-amped with an ICE Power amplifier delivering 1000W to the pair of woofers and 500W to the 6.5" coaxial driver, with on-board DSP to handle crossover duties. While of course tenative and subject to change, I expect to sell them for $2500 each.

Here's another picture I took when we had the screen off, obviously before the SubMersives had been installed:

WOW.
Man I wish I had a bigger room . Art that is one nice theater you got there. 4 submersives. Man that must be sweet. Congrats on having a major drool worthy system.

Very cool Mark!!

Maybe it is time for Art to think about adding seat protection for people who get too scared..

So let me get this straight Art...

Three XLs 1500W each
Four Submersives 1000W each
--------------------------------
8500W

I think Ettepet's suggestion is not overrated at all.

Now you see what had me so busy last week with both WarrenBuffet's and Art's subwoofers to deliver and install. I've also been wrestling with some laptop issues and I hadn't had a chance to post measurements taken in WarrenBuffet's system. Here is a before and after EQ measurement where we used the Behringer DEQ2496 that was already in the system. I did some further shaping of the response while listening, as we really didn't need the small ~4dB elevation in the 25Hz range, so the response ended with should have the low end pulled down a couple dB further. Also note this was without the main speakers playing, as we adjusted the system so the recession at 70Hz was filled in by the Rocket RS-1000s and RSC-200. Remember this room is open to the rest of the 1st floor for 2/3rds of what would be the front left wall.

Dual SubMersives in-room, before/after EQ

In checking out what happens as the level is incremented higher, here is what was observed:

Dual SubMersives in-room, increasing output

Mark,
Thanks for your earlier reply. I'm just shocked at how much room gain you are getting. I mean, I know it is there from my own experance with your sub. I was just expecting to see more eq. (Continues to make me wonder about what room gain does to those ported subs that are flat to 20hz, but that is another thread).

So mark, when you say you are adjusting the eq to fix room problems, are you doing it with an outboard EQ, like the QSC or are you just adjusting the internal DSP? Also, did your sub end up with two eq modes?

I think all I can manage at this time is a simple wow

Art,

I want to thank you again for hosting the GTG this summer, but I have to admit when I heard it, I knew you would be upgrading to Mark's subs. I think Kevin, Mark, and probably a few others knew it too.

I really think you made the right decision. I bet it is very very very impressive - even more so than it already was. You should have Jeff theBland over to see if he still thinks you need ButtKickers - I have my doubts.

F*ckin' sweet.

Mark,

Any chance to see the FR with the mains playing? What kind of crossover was used?

well, looks like the cat is out of the bag ......... congrats Mark! and Art!!

the Submerssives are doing an excellent job, specially for a sealed application. The XL's are what is intriguing me a bit Mark...I've built some large DIY speakers with 12" woofers and Coaxials before (Seas T18REX/XFC (H1353) 7" Coaxial, clear cone)... they were very good in HT apps, albeit not the best, but fell short in 2-channel audio. Obviously you got better results given that you are using them as your LCR offering, so I'm curious how did you get the imaging and soundstaging issues fixed from these Coaxials in the XL

very cool stuff man....

I'm seeing ~12db gain at 10hz. That doesn't seem to be anything crazy. It's twice as powerful at 29.5hz as it is at 10hz in Warren's room.

Have a busy day here, but I did want to post the response we arrived at in Art's system. Art did agree to upgrade his Rane PE-17 to the QSC DSP-30, which gives me 2 outputs and a lot more flexibility. Dennis Erskine designed into Art's room 3 Bronze in-wall subwoofers to the side columns and rear wall for the purpose of helping with modal issues in the bass. In the configuration prior to the SubMersives being added, these 3 10" sealed subs were used to augment the 70-120Hz range of the surround channels. With the flexibility of the DSP-30, I put these to use in helping to smooth out and fill in a recession due to front wall placement in the 50-70Hz range. In the DSP-30 the Triad subs are high passed at 45Hz and were delayed for best integration. This smoothed the response at various seats and slightly reduced the amount of EQ needed in this upper range. The subwoofers are overlapping in this range, so the SubMersives are still providing the majority of the output. The the crossover in the pre-processor is now set to 80Hz, where the effective crossover is in the 70-75Hz range.

The response you see below is the combined result of the center channel and all subwoofers. I did some final tweaks to the response later at night, so these measurements were at a lower level, but noise and level are not a problem in the measurement. I did take some sweeps similar to what I posted above for WarrenBuffet's system which showed more than 114dB @ 16Hz and more than 120dB above 23Hz at Art's main listening position. The output at 10Hz is pretty close to the 110dB I had expected at the listening position. What was quite interesting is that I did not need to do any EQ to get the extension below 20Hz. In fact, I slightly tapered it down as you can see. Without any EQ, the response at 13Hz was 1dB lower than 25Hz, with about a 7-8dB modal peak near 40Hz.

Here ya go:
Art Sonneborn's listening position center+subs.

"I did take some sweeps similar to what I posted above for WarrenBuffet's system which showed more than 114dB @ 16Hz and more than 120dB above 23Hz at Art's main listening position. The output at 10Hz is pretty close to the 110dB I had expected at the listening position."
Again, Wow Wow Wow. I am not used to seeing these numbers. I can imagine with 4 of them
distortion is basically not even a consideration?

A big thanks to Art and Mike,

Thanks for posting the pics and for the info.

Now I am salivating,the idea of these amplified mains intrigues me to say the least.$2500 per speaker...amplified. Very interesting

I may have to change some plans now

Well I ran through some more great bass tonight. The machine coming out of the ground in War of the Worlds was first up. Again tremendous performance and as I stated before the expectation that the bass would overpower and turn the dialog into some unintelligble muck never happened,in fact, everything is much more defined than ever !!!

For the first time I feel like my theater is a high performance sports car and it is just loafing down the road with power and handling ability to spare...lots !

Art

So, overall do you like these better than the SVS's?

Thanks Sherv',

I have always found a well executed coaxial driver to do certain things better than any set of acoustically far appart drivers. Of course there are hurdles to overcome with every design, as well as differing strengths. Without a lot of attention with measurement and design tools, it would be an uphill battle, as there are a variety of complications. The crossover design is different than how I have seen others implement this coax, which is quite similar to the one you experimented with, and results will vary tremendously with the choices made in both the bass to mid and mid to tweeter crossover and overall response shape and trends. One of the strengths of the XL is the lack of sudden changes in response when moving off axis. While no speaker is perfect in this regard, the goal is to have sounds and dialog sound very similar if not the same across multiple seats. Art's theater is a good example where the presentation is quite similar seat to seat, with most of the variation occuring in the lower octaves where expected modes and boundary interaction dominate. The enclosure, mounting, and nearby materials can also notably impact the sound and such details have been given some attention in the materials and construction.

In the end it really is all about careful execution while using appropriately chosen components.

I would never say that distortion is not a consideration, as you can push ANY system towards it's limits. In the case of Art's setup with the 4 SubMersives, it is rather unlikely that operating levels will push into regions of increasing distortion for more than a brief moment of big peaks, and the SubMersive's dynamic linearity mean that there will be almost no compression observed outside of a *highly* spirited demonstration.

Thanks Mark. "Highly" spirted. I like that. The only time I have experienced what I would call "spirited" playback was with the Sub Utopia Be. They had to turn it down because it was shaking the building. No joke. That is my main frame of reference. All other systems that I have heard were "weak" compared with that so I really have a limited frame of reference I guess. I am not sure what to expect with that kind of output possibility in my room. I guess I have never really heard(felt) bass like that. Like I said, the Utopia is the closest I ever got to that kind of level.
Again Art, glad to hear that it is living up to or exceeding your expectations.