Cross at 60 vs Cross at 100

[Acerun]

Hi all,

I'm still a noob at interpreting REW measurements. I am using MultiEQ-X, a Denon X8500H, a. Purifi stereo amplifier, two Revel M126Be speakers as mains and two Rhythmik 1000w Hypex sealed subs. I took measurements of the full spectrum left channel + subs with a 60 crossover and with a 100 crossover. Can anyone help me understand if one is better than the other and if so, why?

Thank you in advance for any advice.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Oh the answer is 80 hz of course.

Just looking the 60 hz looks a bit better. I do wonder though as above 1 khz I would expect no difference. So maybe run this more than once or perhaps you have. Also maybe show us the 1/6th or 1/12th smoothing (or post your MDAT files). Psy is usually pretty good, but more resolution might help in seeing how the room and subs are working in the lower frequencies. For these purposes maybe just do the sweep up to 1 khz.

 

[Flaesh]

Oh the answer is 80 hz of course.

Not exactly flawless, but about right. Sqrt(60*100)=77,46 Hz

I do wonder though as above 1 khz I would expect no difference.

Yeah. These measurements are questionable.

 

[Acerun]

I appreciate the responses. I will do some fresh ones in the morning. I realize these are from a couple of weeks apart so I will get a better set of data. Maybe I'll try 60, 80 and 100. I appreciate the help. I just don't really know how to read the data.

 

[Acerun]

I don't know if it matters or not but on these settings I am using multieq-x room correction up to 500.

 

[Chrispy]

Just not different time but slightly different mic positions could be the reason....are you using multiple positions or a single position? If you're only correcting up to 500hz then measurements above that aren't addressing the dsp particularly either....

 

[witwald]

You're probably already doing this, but make sure that you don't move the microphone when taking the different measurements. That way your results at higher frequencies (say above 1kHz or so) should lie on top of each other. If they don't, there could be something going on that needs addressing.

The idea of doing measurements for 60 Hz, 80 Hz and 100 Hz crossover points is a good one. If you wish to get a bit of an idea of what the filters are doing, you could also do some measurements of just the subwoofers on their own, as well as the main speakers on their own. As that's quite a bit of extra work, such measurements at the 80 Hz setting would probably be more than enough.

 

[boxerfan88]

FR chart alone doesn’t tell much other than amplitude variation. Take a look at waterfall, distortion, phase charts and compare. Most importantly which one sounds better to you?

From my own experience integrating my subwoofer, crossing higher gives nicer FR chart but somehow sound’s worse in my room, resulting in slightly muddy upper bass.

Try listening to bass heavy tracks & deep vocals, such as James Blake limit to your love, and Geoff Castellucci sixteen tons. Try out those tracks at different crossover points, you’ll know which crossover point works best for your ears.

 

[Chrispy]

From my own experience integrating my subwoofer, crossing higher gives nicer FR chart but somehow sound’s worse in my room, resulting in slightly muddy upper bass.

Try listening to bass heavy tracks & deep vocals, such as James Blake limit to your love, and Geoff Castellucci sixteen tons. Try out those tracks at different crossover points, you’ll know which crossover point works best for your ears.

My general experience is otherwise, in that a higher xover creates not only better measurement but also to my ears. How are you determining "slightly muddy upper bass" particularly? Wasn't familiar with the James Blake number, but like it, don't see how it demonstrates your point particularly, as he doesn't have a particularly deep voice, or are you referring to some of the sound effects in the track?

 

[jeffhenning]

Sorry to tell you, but you’re going about this the wrong way.

You are only considering the frequency response of the mains and then using the subs to fill in the low bass. That will not get you the best sounding system.

You should also be considering how the main speakers produce distortion in the low end.

Here’s a link to a thorough review of your loudspeaker:

Revel M126Be Bookshelf Speaker Review

Revel M126Be Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

Scroll all the way to the bottom to where Erin is measuring harmonic distortion. Around 170 Hz, the midbass starts producing a lot of distortion. This is not surprising since all speakers with drivers this size will do the exact same thing.

The Rythmik subs have no problem going up to 170. if you use that as your crossover point, you will have much cleaner bass than If you crossed over your mains around 60-80.

Trust me… If you do this, you will like the way it sounds.

 

[witwald]

Try listening to bass heavy tracks & deep vocals, such as James Blake limit to your love, and Geoff Castellucci sixteen tons. Try out those tracks at different crossover points, you’ll know which crossover point works best for your ears.

The frequency response plot for the track "Sixteens Tons" is shown below. It shows a large amount of bass energy in the 36–46 Hz region.

The frequency response plot for the track "Limit To Your Love" is shown below. This has some strong tonal information in the 18–30 Hz frequency range.

The frequency response plot for the heartbeat at the beginning of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" album shows a strong, broad peak at 31 Hz. It's interesting to listen to it as it builds in intensity.

If the subwoofer's ability to reproduce very low frequency content in music is of particular interest, then the track "Bass I Love You" provides a lot of low-frequency content at 9 Hz and 18 Hz, as well as 31 Hz. That should help test out most subwoofers quite nicely. The frequency response plot is provided below.

 

[Hayabusa]

Hi all,

I'm still a noob at interpreting REW measurements. I am using MultiEQ-X, a Denon X8500H, a. Purifi stereo amplifier, two Revel M126Be speakers as mains and two Rhythmik 1000w Hypex sealed subs. I took measurements of the full spectrum left channel + subs with a 60 crossover and with a 100 crossover. Can anyone help me understand if one is better than the other and if so, why?

Thank you in advance for any advice.

View attachment 347143

was the mike at the exact same position and having the same calibration?

 

[witwald]

View attachment 347178

Nice...that is quite some loudspeaker stand! It seems to pre-date Harbeth's Nelson bass extender + stand solution for their P3ESR series of compact loudspeakers. I think that your solution will have significantly greater bass output.

 

[boxerfan88]

My general experience is otherwise, in that a higher xover creates not only better measurement but also to my ears. How are you determining "slightly muddy upper bass" particularly?

By listening to bass heavy with vocals test tracks at different crossover points (50Hz through 120Hz). The tracks sounded most balanced & clearest vocals was with crossover points 70Hz & 80Hz in my room and in my setup. I chose to go with 80Hz.

I’m sure your experience will be different from mine. Your room, setup positioning, and furnishing will surely differ from mine. I’m sure we can agree that the room and setup positioning has a huge impact on bass performance, therefore our experiences can differ.

To add additional complications- I use digital crossover foo_subwoofer. I found out that crossover slope steepness has a subtle impact on sound (upper bass) quality where the subs-mains transition. So does mains-subwoofer delay settings therein.

Back to OP’s main post- that’s why I suggested to OP to listen to bass heavy test tracks at different crossover points, and let himself choose what works best in his room in his setup.

 

[Chrispy]

By listening to bass heavy with vocals test tracks at different crossover points (50Hz through 120Hz). The tracks sounded most balanced & clearest vocals was with crossover points 70Hz & 80Hz in my room and in my setup. I chose to go with 80Hz.

I’m sure your experience will be different from mine. Your room, setup positioning, and furnishing will surely differ from mine. I’m sure we can agree that the room and setup positioning has a huge impact on bass performance, therefore our experiences can differ.

To add additional complications- I use digital crossover foo_subwoofer. I found out that crossover slope steepness has a subtle impact on sound (upper bass) quality where the subs-mains transition. So does mains-subwoofer delay settings therein.

Just curious. I use both measurements and listening, just prefer the capabilities of my setup with higher crossovers (80 or above rather than below generally). I have a bunch of different rooms and setups to an extent, but I still tend to use a higher crossover than lower as my sub setup is better in that range than the speakers generally.

 

[Acerun]

View attachment 347178Sorry to tell you, but you’re going about this the wrong way.

You are only considering the frequency response of the mains and then using the subs to fill in the low bass. That will not get you the best sounding system.

You should also be considering how the main speakers produce distortion in the low end.

Here’s a link to a thorough review of your loudspeaker:

Revel M126Be Bookshelf Speaker Review

Revel M126Be Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

Scroll all the way to the bottom to where Erin is measuring harmonic distortion. Around 170 Hz, the midbass starts producing a lot of distortion. This is not surprising since all speakers with drivers this size will do the exact same thing.

The Rythmik subs have no problem going up to 170. if you use that as your crossover point, you will have much cleaner bass than If you crossed over your mains around 60-80.

Trust me… If you do this, you will like the way it sounds.

I love the spicy take... I will try it! I will also post 60, 80, 100, 170 tomorrow. God I love ASR.

 

[Acerun]

By listening to bass heavy with vocals test tracks at different crossover points (50Hz through 120Hz). The tracks sounded most balanced & clearest vocals was with crossover points 70Hz & 80Hz in my room and in my setup. I chose to go with 80Hz.

I’m sure your experience will be different from mine. Your room, setup positioning, and furnishing will surely differ from mine. I’m sure we can agree that the room and setup positioning has a huge impact on bass performance, therefore our experiences can differ.

To add additional complications- I use digital crossover foo_subwoofer. I found out that crossover slope steepness has a subtle impact on sound (upper bass) quality where the subs-mains transition. So does mains-subwoofer delay settings therein.

Back to OP’s main post- that’s why I suggested to OP to listen to bass heavy test tracks at different crossover points, and let himself choose what works best in his room in his setup.

No exactly. This is great. That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm listening to tracks like fading sun, flight of the cosmic hippo, soundtrack to Tron, mission impossible, magnetic lies, and lots of other beautiful bass, heavy music. With this quality of stereo system, it actually all sounds really good. I'm just trying to dial it into the best of the best. And above all I'm trying to understand some correlation between what I see in the Rew measurements and what I am hearing and all of you are helping.

 

[Acerun]

View attachment 347178Sorry to tell you, but you’re going about this the wrong way.

You are only considering the frequency response of the mains and then using the subs to fill in the low bass. That will not get you the best sounding system.

You should also be considering how the main speakers produce distortion in the low end.

Here’s a link to a thorough review of your loudspeaker:

Revel M126Be Bookshelf Speaker Review

Revel M126Be Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

Scroll all the way to the bottom to where Erin is measuring harmonic distortion. Around 170 Hz, the midbass starts producing a lot of distortion. This is not surprising since all speakers with drivers this size will do the exact same thing.

The Rythmik subs have no problem going up to 170. if you use that as your crossover point, you will have much cleaner bass than If you crossed over your mains around 60-80.

Trust me… If you do this, you will like the way it sounds.

Taking this one more level. I I'm using Adyssey multi eqx currently set for room correction up to 500. Any thoughts on where that should be in your paradigm?

 

[Acerun]

All right. Fresh measurements at 60,80,100, 180 (can only do 150 or 180)

For each measurement I used MultiEQ-X to set the crossover, then used REW to confirm X marks the spot for the desired crossover, then took the L+Subs measurement.

 

[Acerun]

First impression is that the bass is a bit light crossed at 180. Perhaps if I have higher quality bass at a 180 cross, I can add a tilt in MultiEQ-X. I have previously been unable to do this as it always created boom. I suppose another option would be to add a bass shelf?

Edit. I added a third file with a -0.3 tilt and then an additional +2 bass shelf at 100, keeping the 180 crossover.