So, long story short, I think I had figured out the end-game setup in my small 3x3 bedroom. Since there isn't a lot of measurement specifically for KEF KC62, I'd believe it would be interesting to post some actual numbers and curves here. Still, bare in mind that my room is not treated so dips and peaks are expected. (and some nasty THD peaks)
Setup: Equalizer APO + Topping EX5 + XLR to Genelec G Three + RCA to KEF KC62
Speaker config: -10dB sensitivity, everything else being the same as out-of-the-box, no crossover.
Sub config: 80% volume, crossover at 40Hz (roll off at a speed of 24dB/octave), 'room' EQ mode, manual mode.
For raw measurement, I turned on all three of them, sub is switched to 0 degree phase shift.
For another raw measurement, I switched the sub to 180 degree phase shift. You can see the phase shifting actually works to fill the dip around 70-90Hz.
So, previously I also have some channel imbalance problems, the L and R channel is not balanced at lower bass area, which is super annoying. The figure below shows the measurement of L and R G3, no sub. Green is L, blue is R.
Next, with the sub turned on, the L and R channel basically matched. I think it is because I am placing my sub below the R speaker.
Finally, with some EQ that REW has designed, I am using 1/6 smoothing here.
THD:
The white line is THD and the peak around 60Hz is 17%. The sub stays around 2%-5% on other frequency tho. I am currently figuring out what is going on at that area. (mostly likely related to my room mode being 58Hz)
Then, spectrum of decaying:
The sub bass area is not optimized indeed, but currently I don't have too much ways to tackle this problem, or room for those treatment.
For your information, this is what my room and placing looks like:
There is a closet on the bottom left cornor and a bed on the bottom right cornor. This is why my LR channel is not reasonably balanced.
Conclusions:
I've being spending some hours into this speaker system building and tried some terrible mini sub. I had auditioned other proper sub like REL T5x and T7x. My opinion about KEF is that as long as you are fine with their somewhat exaggerating marketing, KC62 is the choice for a small bedroom. I did not try SVS micro 3000 because it is a bit larger and I don't like the look. Also, since I actually got this KC62 as a second hand, I only paid the price of micro 3000 for KC62, which is better than buying a brand new micro 3000, at least to me.
About the loudness issue of KC62, yes it's true, it cannot be super loud. But since I mainly listen around 75-85dB... I don't really care about that. And, can you feel slam on your chest from this tiny sub? I think no. But the bass is indeed textured and speedy. It adds loads of warmness to my G3 and it surprisingly kind of solved my channel imbalance issue...
If I have other choices, I'd probably try 7040A or 7050C. But given those two are not necessarily better than KC62 if take size into consideration. I would probably use my current setup for a long time.
Hope this could be helpful for your bedroom system planning. If you have further suggestions or questions about pairing Genelec G 3 (8030C) with this mini sub (kc62), I will do the best I can to improve/answer.
Setup: Equalizer APO + Topping EX5 + XLR to Genelec G Three + RCA to KEF KC62
Speaker config: -10dB sensitivity, everything else being the same as out-of-the-box, no crossover.
Sub config: 80% volume, crossover at 40Hz (roll off at a speed of 24dB/octave), 'room' EQ mode, manual mode.
For raw measurement, I turned on all three of them, sub is switched to 0 degree phase shift.
For another raw measurement, I switched the sub to 180 degree phase shift. You can see the phase shifting actually works to fill the dip around 70-90Hz.
So, previously I also have some channel imbalance problems, the L and R channel is not balanced at lower bass area, which is super annoying. The figure below shows the measurement of L and R G3, no sub. Green is L, blue is R.
Next, with the sub turned on, the L and R channel basically matched. I think it is because I am placing my sub below the R speaker.
Finally, with some EQ that REW has designed, I am using 1/6 smoothing here.
THD:
The white line is THD and the peak around 60Hz is 17%. The sub stays around 2%-5% on other frequency tho. I am currently figuring out what is going on at that area. (mostly likely related to my room mode being 58Hz)
Then, spectrum of decaying:
The sub bass area is not optimized indeed, but currently I don't have too much ways to tackle this problem, or room for those treatment.
For your information, this is what my room and placing looks like:
There is a closet on the bottom left cornor and a bed on the bottom right cornor. This is why my LR channel is not reasonably balanced.
Conclusions:
I've being spending some hours into this speaker system building and tried some terrible mini sub. I had auditioned other proper sub like REL T5x and T7x. My opinion about KEF is that as long as you are fine with their somewhat exaggerating marketing, KC62 is the choice for a small bedroom. I did not try SVS micro 3000 because it is a bit larger and I don't like the look. Also, since I actually got this KC62 as a second hand, I only paid the price of micro 3000 for KC62, which is better than buying a brand new micro 3000, at least to me.
About the loudness issue of KC62, yes it's true, it cannot be super loud. But since I mainly listen around 75-85dB... I don't really care about that. And, can you feel slam on your chest from this tiny sub? I think no. But the bass is indeed textured and speedy. It adds loads of warmness to my G3 and it surprisingly kind of solved my channel imbalance issue...
If I have other choices, I'd probably try 7040A or 7050C. But given those two are not necessarily better than KC62 if take size into consideration. I would probably use my current setup for a long time.
Hope this could be helpful for your bedroom system planning. If you have further suggestions or questions about pairing Genelec G 3 (8030C) with this mini sub (kc62), I will do the best I can to improve/answer.
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