Advice between Kef R3 Meta or Buchardt S400 MKII ?

[CK.]

The facing could be due to how the driver itself relative to the reflecting wall, basically changing the boundary effect as you've moved the sub closer to the wall

it should be fine for 90hz X over, generally if you can't perceive where the sub is (feeling the bass coming from the sub location instead of from the stereo pair)

narrow nulls (High Q) isn't audible to ears so it should be fine, from measurements it looks decent, so how did you subjectively feels? somehow more enjoyable now?

Thanks again for the input. Yeah for some reason it never occurred to me that I can even turn the sub 180 degrees directly facing the wall and could achieve a difference response. I was just changing spots in the room but always having the sub facing forward. In any case, now I can hear a more "prominent" low end for sure, but I need to "get used" to it for a few days before deciding how I feel about it. Generally I like bass but sometimes and it can make a song "less clear" to my ears. My question would be, If I have ended up with "boomy" bass that would show up the FR right? I dont' have a "trained" ear so I have to rely on measurements.

 

[YSC]

Thanks again for the input. Yeah for some reason it never occurred to me that I can even turn the sub 180 degrees directly facing the wall and could achieve a difference response. I was just changing spots in the room but always having the sub facing forward. In any case, now I can hear a more "prominent" low end for sure, but I need to "get used" to it for a few days before deciding how I feel about it. Generally I like bass but sometimes and it can make a song "less clear" to my ears. My question would be, If I have ended up with "boomy" bass that would show up the FR right? I dont' have a "trained" ear so I have to rely on measurements.

well, if you don't like a curve and say, feel it's generally overly boomy, you can always tune down the EQ profile and make the bass shelve from say, +6db to +3db depepnds on what you like

 

[CK.]

well, if you don't like a curve and say, feel it's generally overly boomy, you can always tune down the EQ profile and make the bass shelve from say, +6db to +3db depepnds on what you like

in general it sounds pretty good to me like this but yeah I will need to put in some more listening hours and then decide accordingly. cheers

 

[CK.]

Hello again,

So I have been reading a bit about what @Ellebob and @YSC said regarding EQ boosting and limiting EQ for only <300 Hz. To be honest I was initially a bit confused because many "audio experts" have been using the auto-EQ (in my case audyssey) either full range or up to say 10Khz and also allowing boosting.

What I came to understand, is that Audyssey (and probably other auto-eq implementations) avoids digital clipping (that may come from boosting) by actually lowering the volume of the whole spectrum by the boost amount so that the DAC gets a max of 0dB signal (and then you just need to up the volume manually). So while boosting is indeed not efficient and not ideal it seems it can be done without losing information. Correct me if I am wrong.

Secondly, regarding EQing the higher frequencies, it seems that again this can be done by taking into account the Impulse Response of the signal (e.g. from REW) in order to take into account the reflections and avoid overcorrection. @OCA has a youtube video describing this.

Two questions:

1) Is my understanding correct?
2) I read that high Q values are not recommended when cutting (or boosting), why is that? Is it because it may overcorrect at other listening positions or other positions close to the measured one? What is the max Q you would recommend?

Thanks!!

 

[dominikz]

So while boosting is indeed not efficient and not ideal it seems it can be done without losing information. Correct me if I am wrong.

There are 3 issues with boosting response dips with EQ:

1. You waste headroom (because you must reduce pre-gain by the amount you boost with EQ to avoid clipping)
2. It can cause bass bloat in other listening positions (where the same response dip may not exist)
3. In some cases EQ boost cannot fix the dip at all (if it is a very deep null)

If these considerations are not relevant to your use case then indeed boost filters can be useful. Personally I avoid them and prefer to minimize dips by improving loudspeaker/subwoofer positions.

Secondly, regarding EQing the higher frequencies, it seems that again this can be done by taking into account the Impulse Response of the signal (e.g. from REW) in order to take into account the reflections and avoid overcorrection. @OCA has a youtube video describing this.

Using IR filtering / frequency dependent windowing (FDW) can indeed be used to get a relatively reasonable approximation of the loudspeaker direct sound, and that can be used to correct the loudspeaker response above the bass region (in case anechoic measurements are not available). However, I personally find this is not necessary with loudspeakers that have very good anechoic performance (e.g. like the Kef R3 Meta), in that case just doing bass EQ is IMHO sufficient for great sound.

2) I read that high Q values are not recommended when cutting (or boosting), why is that? Is it because it may overcorrect at other listening positions or other positions close to the measured one? What is the max Q you would recommend?

One reason is because high-Q filter can be overly precise, while on the other hand peaks/dips can slightly shift depending on various factors (minor changes in listener/speaker position, opening/closing of windows and doors, change in furniture etc... one example here).
In addition, using high-Q boost filters may cause ringing elsewhere in the room (i.e. a resonance).

 

[CK.]

There are 3 issues with boosting response dips with EQ:

1. You waste headroom (because you must reduce pre-gain by the amount you boost with EQ to avoid clipping)
2. It can cause bass bloat in other listening positions (where the same response dip may not exist)
3. In some cases EQ boost cannot fix the dip at all (if it is a very deep null)

If these considerations are not relevant to your use case then indeed boost filters can be useful. Personally I avoid them and prefer to minimize dips by improving loudspeaker/subwoofer positions.

Using IR filtering / frequency dependent windowing (FDW) can indeed be used to get a relatively reasonable approximation of the loudspeaker direct sound, and that can be used to correct the loudspeaker response above the bass region (in case anechoic measurements are not available). However, I personally find this is not necessary with loudspeakers that have very good anechoic performance (e.g. like the Kef R3 Meta), in that case just doing bass EQ is IMHO sufficient for great sound.

One reason is because high-Q filter can be overly precise, while on the other hand peaks/dips can slightly shift depending on various factors (minor changes in listener/speaker position, opening/closing of windows and doors, change in furniture etc... one example here).
In addition, using high-Q boost filters may cause ringing elsewhere in the room (i.e. a resonance).

Thanks dominikz for the explanation, very clear. Indeed in my case that I have the KEF R3 there are anechoic measurements so it wasnt obvious to me that since I EQed based on the anechoic measurements for higher frequencies then there isnt a benefit to also perform IR filtering.

So when I added a harman house curve in REW in order to match the bass response to that, there was an REW option to not use high-Q values but that resulted in 2-3 filters whereas using high-Q values resulted in 7-8 filters and obviously the result was much closer to the target curve....I guess I will need to go back and use the low-Q values....that's bad for my ocd, response will not look that smooth

At the end of the day, what I came to realize from all this, is that auto-EQ software like Audyssey (for low frequencies) or DIRAC, should not be disregarded lightly, although not perfect their implementation is a result of years of experience and there is usually a scientific reason behind their algorithm. Unless you really know what you are doing there a lot of "traps" you can fall into if choosing the manual route. But its fun.