Official Epik Subwoofer Thread - Page 421

+1. I think that's what it would take to get me to ditch my Castle...

Well, that, or a little more time spent on the DIY forum...it's a real struggle to force myself to stay away from there!!

+1

Congratulations to Epik on another winning design and out-of-the-blue market pleaser!

Dual opposed 18's would definitely require a larger cabinet than the Empire's, (the larger the more efficient) and probably a more powerful amp to compensate for the RELATIVELY smaller cabinet volume for two larger displacement drivers, assuming Chad continues his latest design goal of keeping the cabinet size smaller than the Conquest, Tower and even the Dynasty.

Even if the cabinet were on the scale of the Phoenix, a dual opposed 18" sub would probably sell out the first manufacturing run nearly as fast as the Empire's have. Though the serious bassheads would still want pairs of these, for smoothing room response, one of these monsters should have more than enough power for most of the market segment that desire the slam and low distortion of 18" drivers.

Agreed... which is the direction I went myself...

Except my build is not even close to the realm of budget builds. No Holds barred this time around...

Have a link? I'd be curious to see your build.

And BTW, yes, DIY is very appealing to me. I've come very close to trying it in the past but stopped because I have no woodworking skills or tools. But I don't think I'll be able to hold off forever!

Didn't start a thread yet...

I'll send ya a PM so as not to derail this good Epik thread...

Thanks I was just going to recommend we take things to PM...

Back to Epik...

their site has been updated
Backordered: Ships Early/Mid May

daaaamn

was just about to order too

lol, who knows when they start shipping again it might be a different model.

I've been reading up on Antimode, audyssey, and the SVS EQ-1, and they all sound like they do great things. My question is, for something this expensive ($750 for the EQ-1), why could they not make something that EQ's the speakers as well as the sub? Does this exist? A nice plug and play box that does great for speakers and subs both?

They make the Audyssey Sound Equalizer which does your entire system. It's stupidly expensive however, like $2000+.

Here.

That link is to their sound EQ, which is 799, they also have the sub EQ which is 799 also. $1600 to EQ from 20-22k just sounds a little high. Am I wrong? Plus it looks as if you have to have an amp for the Sound EQ, which is another big expense.

Yeah, expensive stuff. Any EQ built into your receiver? I have an onkyo that has Aud XT built in but am considering an EQ1 since the receiver version is limited for how it handles the sub.

AFAIK, The sound EQ also handles the sub based on it's description. And I have no idea what it really costs. It was originally $5000, then I've seen $2500. Could be only $799 now? Beats me. I'm guessing the sub-eq has better resolution and supports dual subs.

Anyone else know what the dealy-o is with those?

I have a 2500 cubic sq ft theater room. I had dual SVS subs PC 16-40 plus. Sounded good but got the urge to upgrade. I have reviewed many internet sites. The Epik's sure sounded good. I ordered the dual empires on Monday at noon and recieved them Wednesday at 4:00 and had them calibrated and Eq buy 8:00 .

I'm not the type of guy who does all the different graph's, I just go what sounds good to me. I threw in some Yello CD and I was'nt that excited. They sounded good but not as loud as the svs. After listening for a while I turned up the power a little holy cow, thats the sound I was looking for they are very tight and a lot less boomy.
I watched Terminator salvation, incredable!!!
If your debateing between a single or a dual, some how some way get the dual.
Have fun enjoy your music and movies.

Sealed subs take more power, but there is no question about the SQ of them over ported IMO...

SVS makes great subs but I just couldn't get over the upgrade of sealed over ported.... Getting my JL Audio F112 for my bedroom was the best and worst thing I have ever done...

Finally, after owning my dual Empires for a few weeks now, I got a Blu-ray player that can decode the DTS HD-Master that my old Denon AVR3200 couldn't recognize and watched my first movie in DTS-HD Master - the move 9... All I can say is WOW!!!! I think even the most discerning audiophile would say the two subs are "adequate" for my ~13,000 cubic feet. To me, it's freaking FANTASTIC - on par with a very good movie theater. WHOO-HOO!!! A HUGE upgrade from my 17 yr old Velodyne F-1200.

Listend to the Empire alone for sub duty today. Used it solo for music and it sounded really well balanced with my Ascend 340's. Not a tad bottom heavy like the Tower. 2 must sound really nice, and 4 must be amazing.

i got the amp in the mail and put it all back together. its amazing my wife hates electronics. the first time i turned it up she said leave it just like that. she likes it has no idea what i paid 4 it . if she did she probably toss the computer in the water. im an internet shopper.anyways why does the antimode 8033 cost so much and the bfd 1124 so little and whatis the difference?

The way I understand it, the antimode is press one button and a few minutes later, done, you should have relatively flat room FR. A few buttons for some basic adjustments.

The BFD is completely manual. You use it in conjuction with a computer (near the equipment, prefer a laptop) and REW and an SPL. The combination of the 3 will allow you to manually adjust the FR with filters that REW will apply to the BFD which in turn should flatten your FR. It can be intimidating at first but once you get the hang of it, it's not bad.

Basically if you want an easy way to flatten your FR, go antimode. If you're the type that likes to tweak, go bfd.

Neither, however will correct time domain issues, which is a while 'nudder ballgame! (Actually the bfd is supposed to do something with time domain stuff but I have no friggin' idea)

I'm considering (more like begging the misses) to get an SVS EQ1 which does both. It's not cheap though, almost $800.

Happy EQing!

So does that mean that the computer needs to be dedicated to doing audio duty? In other words, the laptop is doing the EQing?

The computer needs to be on in order to run frequency sweeps and measure your in-room response with the REW software. However, once you use REW and determine what filters to use with the EQ device (BFD), you can input these filters into the BFD and the computer doesn't need to be on anymore. The computer just helps determine what filters to input into the BFD when you first set it up.

Has anyone been able to compare the Empire to any of the Elemental Designs subs? I'd like to know if anyone has heard both the Empire and the eD a7s-450? With both of them sealed and around $8-900 shipped, I trying to decide between then two.

u talking about using a computer and all that stuff sounds complicated. i know nothing about it . i heard it here first about a month ago. is it worth the money as far as performance? 85 bucks sounds good. 400 doesnt. i dont even have a sound meter. u need one of those too?

First of all everyone should have an SPL meter so I would pick one up right away. You can't assume that whatever onboard EQ you're using is doing it perfect. I use YPAO and I always end up tweaking levels after calibration. As far as REW is concerned the initial learning curve is a little high but once you get it it only takes a few minutes to run sweeps and see what's going on and what needs to be adjusted. There are plenty of guys on here and Home Theater Shack with lots of experience that are always willing to help a noob out. After you get the SPL meter ($50 new) all you need is a duplex soundcard ($30)(if your PC doesn't have one built in), BFD1124DSP ($85) and a few cables along with the PC or laptop.

Cool info! I want to do this - I've never done anything like this before, but am pretty good at picking up software and how to use it.

I've got an ASUS Eee PC 904HD running WinXP, which my searches said has a RealTek ALC6628 onboard sound chip. I found several references to this being a "full duplex". Anybody know how to find out for sure??

So, where can I buy this stuff and what exactly do I need to buy? Should I just try finding it on Home Theater Shack or what?

Any guidance appreciated!

Has any one compared the Empire against HSU's ULS-15? If so, what are you thoughts?

If it's full duplex it should have a line in and line out (not mic). You can get the SPL new at Radio Shack or used on EBay. The soundcard I use is the Behringer UCA-202 from Amazon for $29.99, Behringer BFD Pro 1124DSP $99.99. Cables can be had just about anywhere (except for the midi cable if you're going to go the full auto route).

Speaking about YPAO. What I do is, I run the YPAO, after that's done, I use the Radio shack meter to level it out. This was done about 6 months ago. This past saturday, I did it again just to see if the setting changed. Well, it did. I don't know why it didn't have the same settings as before. Is it because all the speakers are broken in and have a different sound? The placement of speakers never changed. Even the subs has a diffferent setting. Anyway, I adjusted it after that.

One of the first things in the Anti-Mode product description is the fact that it corrects time domain responses.

"Anti-Mode technology eliminates the resonances of the speaker and the room by equalizing both amplitude and time domain responses using very accurate digital signal processing filter structures and anti-phasing technology."

I stand corrected.

I've never had much luck running YPAO, I ran it the other day and I always have to go back in and correct what it does. Yesterday I ran it because it hadn't been run since my sub upgrade, and it changed all my speakers to large, front/center/even my surrounds were set to large, and put my subwoofer level way down. I ended up resetting everything to small, and just using a SPL meter I just purchased to set my levels.