Thanks. Why are you surprised with sealed? Sealed subs are know to get that low with boosting and room gain and lots of them. I have some room gain, but most of that low end is boosting.

I was surprised thinking you got that with NO boosting...

no longer surprised... I don't boost down low or at all on the sub.. every 3db of gain takes double the power and big problems easily follow, unless you have thousands of watts to spare above average levels and coils and Xmax that can handle it.

I have 4 SI 18s waiting for the new theater and I'm debating on LLT or Full MArty like enclosure... just not sure how much room gain I'll get. I want 10-12hz with no EQ gain.

I don't just run a sweep and look at it and think that it is final, I fine tune it. There are a few ways to make sure you don't damage your driver or amp. I always check input and output signal to make sure there is no clipping at max volume at what I listen to. You can check voltage on the output to make sure you are not sending too much power to your drivers and you can set limiters. Once you do that, no worries.

I designed the new room to go with 4 corner loaded subs (one alcove in each back corner and behind front baffle wall) and have enough room to go as big as I want to and they remain hidden. In the right enclosure (LLT design) I should hit 120db at 15hz (again corner loaded subs) with a few hundred watts of power each and won't exceed excursion until 12hz at 400w. Then add in room gain and who knows how much output I'll have on tap. I'm all about headroom!

I will need very little power at reference down to 10hz or less. I just have to carry the beastly cabinets upstairs after I build them (or I may cut downstairs and assemble upstairs).... So I keep wondering just how low a Marty will be with room gain which is less wood and lighter to carry upstairs.

So I saw your graph and thought it was with no EQ gain and it got me wondering.

That is my graph with my house curve implemented and it is really flat without the house curve. I am not a fan of a flat response though so that is why it looks the way it does and 12db average higher than the rest of the bandwidth. I have no idea how loud I can get my setup to go in spl but I know that my house is taking a beating right now. I do have a little bit of headroom but not much. I don't need tons of it either because of the way that I tune my system.

Hidden is the way to go! I am all about that too and all my subs will be hidden and speakers once I go atmos. The two subs up front are hidden right now and it is super stealthy! Seven of my speakers are hidden too, but just the surrounds are hanging from the ceiling that you can see if you are looking for them. You don't notice them if you are just walking into the room and sit down.

I wish that graph was with no eq!

Cool! I've been running volt 10s as mains in 2 channel in my living room to test to see if I liked them enough for surrounds and atmos. They are a damn good speaker and for 2 months my paradigms have been collecting dust. Just ordered 6 volt 10lx speakers. They can be installed without boxes like a ceiling speaker and crossed around 80-100 so I'm using those as stealthy atmos speakers, keeping my ceiling height and using the ceiling as a baffle wall so imaging should be exceptional.

The surrounds, wides, rears will be hidden in columns.

^
late to game wrt the naked volts as ATMOS tops


most interested in how this comes together
thanks

Already running something similar, using the same 10" coaxial. They operate fantastically in the ceiling with no box. Mine are in a drop ceiling so I just dumped some additional insulation behind the speaker and boom, you are good to go. Audyssey has swept them and set them to 60hz the extension is quite good, but being free-air, I run them back up to 80 or 100hz to protect the drivers a little more....

^
given that you may not have seen my Klipsch SLX as tops suspended from the unistrut trestle/ modded security camera arms gizmo sdurani inspired me to create
I don't have an option wrt cutting holes, just an old school plaster ceiling with popcorn
but I could (eventually) construct something to hold them the volts 10lx up fairly tight against that ceiling, maybe even a cardboard collar to hold some ultratouch around it
but not quite semi baffled as you did wrt to drop ceiling


thanks for the food for thought

Happy customer here! Thank you for the tutorial!!

@mtg90 . Just wanted to say thanks. Just got my carpet in and broke out the umik-1. XT32 had my distance off. For weeks the upper bass sucked, I ran it over and over and it just sounded weak.. 4 SI HT18s and QSC 2150s with dual 15s..and it was weak, yet sounded great with just the mains in full range. I didn't want to get out the umik until I got carpet so I relied on XT32.

As soon as I checked with REW i saw a hug null at the crossover, 60hz, 80 it followed me... Then it clicked..the phase is off..DUH!. Adjusted the distance until I had it just right using REW, and just WOW..the 4 HT 18s roll off perfect to my mains now.

XT32 is doing a good job EQing the loudspeakers, me and the inuke did the subs... But XT32 sucks with phase for some reason...Just shows you can't trust room EQ to do it all.


I also used Bi amp so I could have one sub out on the AVR. (front two subs on one channel of the inuke and the back two on the other channel). I adjusted phase between the pairs in the Inuke. Then I only had one channel to adjust in the AVR. Makes things very easy when trying to integrate with the front 3.

How many feet off did you find audyssey to be? IME experience I have had to subtract a pretty substantial amount off the xt32 findings before it all got right in my space....

If I remember right it set it at 28ft. I ended up with a battle between 21.6 and 19.6...20.6 won! It was way off.

I ran it several times over the past weeks before doing it manually. Even after using only 1 sub out(on the AVR) and setting phase between channel 1 and 2 in the Inuke it still had weak upper bass and had a huge null. So it didn't matter if xt32 had one sub channel or 2 to deal with it screwed them it up every time.

I will say again it does well at loudspeaker EQ and sounds very very good in reference mode.

Here's an un EQ'ed response.. XT 32 off using it's distance settings. I had it set to 200hz but you get the point. When I set to 60hz the null followed.

This was an 80hz xover, no smoothing,eq off.


This was a 60hz xover with smoothing.. this was me settling on a distance. Yellow was xt32 setting with smoothing..freaking 12db down at the bottom....sounded horrible.

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Thank Matt for the tutorial. It contains many of the things that I use. The main differences, Pioneer Elite with MCACC and Omnimic. The avr is from 2011 and does no Sub EQ below 63 Hz and Omnimic with the I Nuke does not allow tranfer of data from the Omnimic platform to the I Nuke. This has some pro's and con's, I like that the subs are not touched below 63 Hz. This makes sub EQ after initial integration a bit more easy. From trial and error over the last few years, I have develop and intuitive sense for setting the Q, frequency and amp gain/attenuation.

Setup takes a bit of time due to all eight of the subs being spread around the room and none share the same distance. A boost is also used on the low end like what Pain Infliction does and no real problems with drivers or the I Nukes over the last several years. I will be using additional info from this thread in my setup procedures for the subs. I am looking forward to the gtg this Saturday and picking your brain some more on REW.

Just out of curiousity, what are most folks with D&M (Denon/Marantz) units finding when adjusting their subwoofer distance using the unit? Are you adding or subtracting distance from the findings of audyssey. I have seen on my personal calibrations that anywhere from 4-7ft. closer gets me in the ball park. My subs are located directly under my mains and these settings puts them nearly identical when it pertains to distance. My nearfield (directly behind me) usually gets set around 10 ft, and I back it down to closer to 3ft. as well. It normally moves identically in distance to how far I adjust the main subs from the audyssey results. Just curious if others are finding something completely different to be the case

Keep in mind that DSP introduces delay. If I remember correctly, my Denon was off by 4 feet or so from the actual distance which is okay given INukes in the signal chain.

Most often you would want to work in the direction of increasing the virtual distance, not decreasing. Since a magnitude response measurement basically indicates the relative phase in how the sub-speakers sum, you should get similar results, possibly better, going the other direction.

Absolutely. With my open DRC-AN in the chain, it adds around 5 more ms to the delay as well.

I went quite a few feet out where a detrimental effect began to manifest, and got worse upwards of 4-5ft out so I went back and started the opposite direction. Ill give it a little more next time and see if it shapes up some more though.

To MTG90

great thanks for this thread !

OK @mtg90 , I skimmed this over and are now wondering when you are gonna come by and help me

Seriously though I need to go though this now that I have my subs done. Be prepared for questions!


Sean

Awesome walk-thru, thanks @mtg90
It made night/day difference in my room with minimal dsp

@mtg90

If you just have XT32 in your AVR, is any of what you mention possible? I've got a MiniDSP 2x4 balanced I'm having built into a custom enclosure so for now all I've got is XT32 to set distances with......

Also I forget but once I have the MiniDSP do you recommend using only one sub out of the AVR so once you've calibrated both subs XT32 treats it as a single sub rather than two?

I am not sure if Audyssey lets you adjust both sub distances manually, I have never used it with both sub outputs connected I know it at least lets you adjust distance for one sub (or perhaps both together) which lets you integrate the speakers and subs together which is often where it has the most trouble. I have heard that is not bad aligning two subs together but it doesn't always get speaker/sub correct.

If you are going to be using a miniDSP I do find it's best just to handle the multiple subwoofer integration within the miniDSP so long as you have enough delay to use ~8.5 feet limit on the 2x4. That way once you have it setup you know it's always set correctly and rerunning Audyssey won't mess that part up.

XT32 will let you do each sub distance and level independent...... but still not doing a great job of handling the crossover point.

See my graphs here of tonights work. Better but still not as good as I hope it can be........

I'm posting to say thanks, mtg90.

I"ve read thousands of pages over the last year, learning about subs, then mains, then room treatment.
I purchased a set of the HTM-12s and set those up a month or so ago and love them.

While the MartySub thread and room treatment threads are also brilliant, this thread may be the single most important thread I have read concerning setups.
The difference between what the AVR says to use and what is best can be truly incredible.

@mtg90

THANK YOU SIR!

I'd also like to add...that many people talk about how their mid-bass is lacking. Yes, like mine it's largely due to SBIR, but the other factor is right here in this thread.
There can be 10+db changes around the crossover getting this right, and it's right in that critical range we all like so much.

Thread and information provided....pricesless!

I'd agree in most of the cases where I have seen people follow these steps that there is 10dB+ gain in the XO region as well. I see it in my own space, and it's quite enlightening if you can somehow A/B the differences. Proof is in the pudding though, and dedication and time to getting the crossover region right separates the men from the boys around here.

Well said beast! Its so easy doing the crossover i feel bad for the 98% that dont know about it.

Some runs the bass looks so sad then boom flat as a pancake ☺

@mtg90

Here is my plan of attack for tomorrow. Let me know if I've got it wrong. I've NOT redone XT32 since getting a second Crown amp and adding the MiniDSP. Given your previous suggestions I'm going to follow it and run a single cable to the Mini so XT32 sees both subs as a single unit, and EQ the two through the MiniDSP to set distances, etc....

So here goes:

1. Turn off XT32, set the crossover on my mains as high as possible. Set the LFE as high as possible.
2. Turn off my 5 channel amp
3. Run REW on each sub independent of each other
4. Keep running REW sweeps while playing with the distances (after measuring the actual distances) to get them to sum right
5. Use REW to generate the EQ filters for the two subs, apply EQ filters into the MiniDSP
6. Connect a single sub cable from the MiniDSP to the Denon
7. Rerun XT32
8. Use REW to measure the sub to main crossover integration
9. If needed adjust the distances in the Denon
10. Apply any additional EQ in the MiniDSP such as shelf filters and verify results via REW.

Did I miss anything?

Last step a nice cold beer afterwards.

That should be everything you need to do.