Official Epik Subwoofer Thread - Page 409

I know I am happy I went that route. Plopping 1700 for the empires hurt bad enough. Now I have more money for another pair!

Good evening gents,

I got the dual empires in house, picked them up last night (despite the snow). I'm pretty pleased by the packing/build quality/looks on these. Getting down to business I only have a NAD c372 integrated amp as I was always had been a 2 channel guy (using a large floor-standers for HT and monitors for music using the A/B switch). From the NAD I run the 2 channel left/right preout to each sub through the crossover in, my settings are phase 180, volume halfway and I can tell these things are potent cause my wife came across our large Apt to ask why the house was shaking. Problem is things aren't dialed in properly, mains seem way louder then subs which I can hardly hear(going past halfway seems like something is amiss). I want to get that visceral bass with proverbial kick in the chest. Now my apt is large but not that great for acoustics speakers that sounded great in past residences sound large garbage here. Would getting a AV Receiver which has things like crossover, room correction, eq be the ticket to seamless integration?

A cheap way would be to get a radioshack meter and level all speakers to 75db - 80 db from the listening position. But that would be incomplete since speaker distance and other room acoustic factors affect how everything sounds. So, yes. A good AV reciever would take care of most of this, as well as some eq for the Sub (above 60Hz depending on brand). I like Pioneer's higher end stuff (Elite) although I only have a basic Pioneer. Their MCACC prog is pretty good, and the advanced version in their Elite series has even more functionality.

Looks like the competition might be getting smaller:
http://www.timescall.com/news_story.asp?ID=20988

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14478539

wooooooooooooooow.

Wow is right, I didn't believe it myself.

Greed is an ugly and demanding mistress.

Not surprising in the least

All the best......

Manipulating Lying Shifty

I can't believe it took so long to get the indictment.

Very sad for all of the above Mostly for every Charity that should of received the money and for the people who donated thinking there money was going to a good cause .

So, bored and with lots of energy, I stacked the Empire on the Tower. Watched various scenes in Transformers 2 (discovery of the two deceptacons in the intro, forest fight, trek to meet Optimus's body, before his ressurection, Super Prime fight) and it sounded awesome. But I popped in some music and it dosent sound as impressive at the LP. Going to run REW for that position now. Hopefully i'll be done in an hours time.

TnT,

Be sure to run REW of each by itself and then the two together.

Then you can see if you're getting any cancellations. I've already been down that road once this week with two other subs. bummer.

Thanks for the advice JimP. I think I did just that. Good thing the name of the graphs are specific to where and what sub was measured. Going to analyze the graphs now. Will post pics n graphs a little later.

I did the same, stacked them yesterday and holy CRAP movies were incredible. U571, Ep2 when the ship blew up in the beginning, holy moley - good stuff. BUUUUT ... I got a nasty null in the mid 30's (about -25db) that I couldn't shake ... so, I scrapped the stacked idea and went back to front center and rear center arrangement. That's giving me the best response for my room. I think I'm done with placements and EQ and going to stick with this. I'm not sure how much more my back can take this! Here's a graph after BFD eq with room curve (NO smoothing). About 3500cft connected to a great room ... almost 10000cft total.

Btw, how the HELL do I show the image in the body here instead of an attachment? Can I use Flickr?

Very nice, but that's quite the house curve.

How about some graphs with the sub and speakers playing together?

Yes it is! I was very conservative at first but it kept getting deeper and deeper as a result of my A/B comparisons. I think it's because of the volume I'm trying to fill. Plus, my ears are used to a 12 year old velo that had exaggerated 30's +/-.

I'll post some more later, the dog and I are on lockdown because the gf is studying for (and about to take online) a mid term.

Edit: Do you mean a 20-20k sweep graph?

I watched Michael Jackson's This is it last night on blu ray and the Empire sounded fantastic. Very articulate, quick, and full sounding is the best way I could describe it.

So far I'm loving the empire. I haven't dialed it in yet...no EQ'ing or use of SPL meter, just Audessy and some ear adjustments for channel level matching. About the only negative I've encountered so far is placement. It sounds best in the front right of my living room but unfortunately it's too close to my fireplace so I can't leave it there. So now I have it next to my sofa (back right of living room) and there is a hint of localization if you sit too close to it. That's understandable considering it's two 15" woofers. My sofa is about 13' across so I try to sit 5'-6' away. From that distance it sounds great. The bonus of having it so close to the seating area is that you literally feel the bass. Plus I use it as an end table with a lamp on top which appeals to the wife.

Got my two empires put in a perfect place now. They are bumping clean delicious LFE.

Nice, nothing like delicious epic Epik bass! Where'd you end up arranging them?

Well I went to the shipping place & picked up my new Empire. Was a real challenge getting it into the house by myself. It's HEAVY! Placed it where my HSU VTF3mk2 was and let 'er rip. I have to say it is a very big improvement over the HSU for both music and movies. An electric bass guitar does NOT sound like a dinosaur jumping up and down on the floor as it did previously. It sounds like a bass guitar. Watched Terminator Salvation and Serenity Blu Rays and it felt like the house was coming apart. I can't imagine two or four of these things. As stated very little cabinet vibration but by gawd everything else does. Wow! For roughly the same money as the HSU the Empire is a no brainer. Anyone setting on the fence had better jump on it before the price goes up. glad I did.

No, I mean 15-200 and 15-500, for example. You need to see how the sub and speakers interact. The combined graphs can help you set sub phase, and sub distance setting in the receiver (which can drastically change the response at xo point to 1 octave above).

EQ experts...

I just obtained a Velo SMS-1 and hooked it up for the first time this morning. I have attached a pic of a manual EQ with dual Empires. As you can see, I have a dip around 20hz. I tried to attach a pic of just one Empire running but for some reason, it wouldn't attach/load. The pic just shows essentially a better house curve with no dip at 20hz. It's right around 75db. So, is this your basic cancellation with the duals? I have one on the left wall about 10ft from listening pos. and the other is on right wall about 12 ft from listening pos. Neither driver is facing a wall. The amp panel is against the wall for both.

Based on what you see, I need to find better placement, correct?

Maybe try lowering your crossover point a bit, and see if that helps your localization issues.

Looks like I have some issues ... recommendations?

Hit the Freq Axis button (3rd from right in top right corner) to change the frequency scale, and re-post the graph. But it doesn't look bad above 100Hz. That kind of response is to be expected in-room. If you applied some smoothing it would look pretty even. But it looks like your sub


This is my 15-500, before and after eq:

I don't think you finished your sentence there ... "But it looks like your sub ..."

Yay I figured out how to post the image in the body of the forum message ... Here is it rescaled:



And here is with 1/6 smoothing:

That probably gives you nice slam, albeit over-emphasized, for movies. Can't imagine listening to music with that, though. You could drop your sub level 3-4dB and still be fine.

Did you re-calibrate after applying that house curve?

Okay, reran Audyssey with the SMS-1 involved (no EQ) so that Audyssey could detect the delay. Afterwards, I changed the sub that was closer to 180 phase. That seemed to take care of the null between 15-24hz. Now all I get is a dip around my crossover (cross at 60; dip is at 63)
If I turn one sub off, I get such a nice house curve with just slight nulls and peaks. I mean barely there. I wonder if I should just stack them at the one spot where I'm getting such good response?

Meaning did I re-run audyssey? I did apply filters based on that house curve. I don't use this EQ for music though, I have another preset that's relatively flat for that.

I found I had to bump the lower end because I'm used to it (I guess) from my old velo plus with the Empires being sealed (and the velo has a radiator so you could says its pretty much ported) I had to force the lower end for that oomf needed for such a large listening area. But I agree that house curve is crazy and I will slowly adjust it over time as my ears get used to the new subs. They're very different sounding from the Velo, in a good way.