Subwoofer Comparison

[ryaneagon]

The thing that can make subs difficult to integrate is group delay curve differences between the mains and the subs. Even if the crossover is aligned properly it is possible you can have cancelation effects below the crossover exactly where you would expect the sub to be taking over. The conventional wisdom is that sealed mains and sealed subs are easy to integrate but the problem is with these small sealed subs that use DSP to make them "look good on paper", they actually have much worse group delay than a well designed ported sub. I learned this the hard way when I was trying to integrate some "near full range sealed speakers" with the SVS SB-3000 subs. Crossed properly at 80 Hz the group delay of the subs was so high that by 30 Hz the mains and the subs were "out of phase" and were cancelling right where I was hoping to get a boost. My full range speakers measured similar to the ones you have. That is when I took a deeper dive into subs, looking beyond advertised specifications to what really works and does not work and why. There is a great test on a bunch of popular subs on this site https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/i-measured-10-subwoofers.49042/ my advice would be to study these test results until you understand them and contrast the bigger Adrinal sub compared with the SVS subs to understand there are differences beyond advertised specs. You will also need to measure and understand your mains speakers LF roll off and group delay characteristics. This will hopefully lead you to a choice that works first try unlike my experience.

I’ve been using two older, less expensive subs in the configuration I mentioned above, basically a short setup with left and right feeds from the Anthem. Each sub was placed on the inside of each tower, with the towers set to full range and the subs crossed over at 40Hz.

I honestly don’t remember where I ended up setting phase alignment. I just sat in my main listening seat while a friend adjusted each sub until the bass felt the most impactful.

Overall, I really enjoy the “supertower” effect for 2.0 listening, 5.1 music, and movies. The only downside is that both of those subs roll off pretty hard around 25–30Hz, and the drop is pretty drastic.

My thought is to put the SVS 3000s in their place and use the built-in SVS DSP, which seems more than capable. It’ll take some time, but I should be able to dial them back in with my fronts for a seamless transition.

 

[ryaneagon]

Might I suggest this video:

Also, eq software like Dirac and A1 Evo Acoustix and others, phase align speakers and subwoofers, I propose much better than just ears. Then there is the topic of target curves etc.

When I watched this video, I realised that sometimes I may have been overcomplicating things:

I've seen both. Thank you!

 

[CptKaos]

I’ve been using two older, less expensive subs in the configuration I mentioned above, basically a short setup with left and right feeds from the Anthem. Each sub was placed on the inside of each tower, with the towers set to full range and the subs crossed over at 40Hz.

I honestly don’t remember where I ended up setting phase alignment. I just sat in my main listening seat while a friend adjusted each sub until the bass felt the most impactful.

Overall, I really enjoy the “supertower” effect for 2.0 listening, 5.1 music, and movies. The only downside is that both of those subs roll off pretty hard around 25–30Hz, and the drop is pretty drastic.

My thought is to put the SVS 3000s in their place and use the built-in SVS DSP, which seems more than capable. It’ll take some time, but I should be able to dial them back in with my fronts for a seamless transition.

I use SVS SB1000Pros with my Swan 3.1's as virtual 4-way tower speakers and absolutely love it

 

[ryaneagon]

I use SVS SB1000Pros with my Swan 3.1's as virtual 4-way tower speakers and absolutely love it
View attachment 524862

Yeah! I dig that! This is what I'm going for. PULSE Very nice. One of the best live albums...Ever.

 

[levimax]

I’ve been using two older, less expensive subs in the configuration I mentioned above, basically a short setup with left and right feeds from the Anthem. Each sub was placed on the inside of each tower, with the towers set to full range and the subs crossed over at 40Hz.

I honestly don’t remember where I ended up setting phase alignment. I just sat in my main listening seat while a friend adjusted each sub until the bass felt the most impactful.

Overall, I really enjoy the “supertower” effect for 2.0 listening, 5.1 music, and movies. The only downside is that both of those subs roll off pretty hard around 25–30Hz, and the drop is pretty drastic.

My thought is to put the SVS 3000s in their place and use the built-in SVS DSP, which seems more than capable. It’ll take some time, but I should be able to dial them back in with my fronts for a seamless transition.

Beware with DSP subs like the SVS you will have ~6 ms "delay" due to the DSP which would require that you delay your mains to match them. SVS DSP may seem helpful and it is for very simple non-time aligned systems but if you step up to a mini-DSP or similar you will find yourself "fighting" the built in DSP and it can not be disabled. For what you are trying to do crossed very low you probably won't notice 6 ms too much. The thing about bass is even distorted and non-aligned bass sounds "better" to most people than no bass. In my experience clean and properly aligned bass sounds even better. One thing I agree with you on is that co-located subs and mains is the way to go for stereo, most on these boards would not agree. See below, after being frustrated with small subs I ended up building some large ones to see what the fuss was all about. Not really practical for most situation but my system and I am "banished" to a separate room so I can do what I want

 

[Honken]

That's a slightly crazier version of my setup.

For what it is worth, I too prefer DSP-less subs and to keep the DSP upstream if possible.

 

[90sNintendoKid]

Beware with DSP subs like the SVS you will have ~6 ms "delay" due to the DSP which would require that you delay your mains to match them. SVS DSP may seem helpful and it is for very simple non-time aligned systems but if you step up to a mini-DSP or similar you will find yourself "fighting" the built in DSP and it can not be disabled. For what you are trying to do crossed very low you probably won't notice 6 ms too much. The thing about bass is even distorted and non-aligned bass sounds "better" to most people than no bass. In my experience clean and properly aligned bass sounds even better. One thing I agree with you on is that co-located subs and mains is the way to go for stereo, most on these boards would not agree. See below, after being frustrated with small subs I ended up building some large ones to see what the fuss was all about. Not really practical for most situation but my system and I am "banished" to a separate room so I can do what I want

View attachment 524877

I was under the impression that if the speakers and subwoofers can be time aligned using delay in a dsp device or through software then this doesn’t matter.

 

[levimax]

I was under the impression that if the speakers and subwoofers can be time aligned using delay in a dsp device or through software then this doesn’t matter.

Yes if you have DSP control (including delays) for all the channels then you can compensate for the DSP delay of the built in sub app. It does add a layer of complication to an already complicated process and in room timing measurements are difficult to take accurately and interpret. Even using DIRAC DLBC I have had trouble when some subs are DSP delayed and some are not. You will find even using the best system wide DSP that not having additional DSP in the chain makes things much easier. The biggest misunderstanding is regarding the built in apps in the subs. These DSP sub apps all add delay so you can't use them to time align the subs, you need to delay the mains to match the already delayed subs which requires system wide DSP so the apparently very helpful sub DSP can easily work against you instead of for you.

 

[ryaneagon]

I’ve been using two older, less expensive subs in the configuration I mentioned above, basically a short setup with left and right feeds from the Anthem. Each sub was placed on the inside of each tower, with the towers set to full range and the subs crossed over at 40Hz.

I honestly don’t remember where I ended up setting phase alignment. I just sat in my main listening seat while a friend adjusted each sub until the bass felt the most impactful.

Overall, I really enjoy the “supertower” effect for 2.0 listening, 5.1 music, and movies. The only downside is that both of those subs roll off pretty hard around 25–30Hz, and the drop is pretty drastic.

My thought is to put the SVS 3000s in their place and use the built-in SVS DSP, which seems more than capable. It’ll take some time, but I should be able to dial them back in with my fronts for a seamless transition.

I ended up placing on order for 2 SB5000's. Overkill? Yes. but, I'm covered if I move into a bigger room. Also going to set them up the LFE AVM DSP route and 2.0 Super tower setup. I love experimenting.

 

[Krit]

Is there a big difference between REL High Level Input and LFE/LOW level input ? Does it sounds significantly different ?

I'm always was using LFE for many different subs but to be honest was never impresed that much with it. Usually it will muddy sound more than help.

 

[Honken]

Is there a big difference between REL High Level Input and LFE/LOW level input ? Does it sounds significantly different ?

I'm always was using LFE for many different subs but to be honest was never impresed that much with it.

If the REL sub handles the HLI properly, why would it sound different from a LFE input? That said, a LFE input assumes that there is something upstream handling the crossover between your speakers and subwoofers. That could have a dramatic impact on your sound, if nothing handles this assumption.

 

[Krit]

If the REL sub handles the HLI properly, why would it sound different from a LFE input?

I have no clue at all that's way i'm asking. If i'm not mistaken High Level Input will take exactly the same signal as the main speakers LFE can not do that.

 

[markstein]

The thing that can make subs difficult to integrate is group delay curve differences between the mains and the subs. Even if the crossover is aligned properly it is possible you can have cancelation effects below the crossover exactly where you would expect the sub to be taking over. The conventional wisdom is that sealed mains and sealed subs are easy to integrate but the problem is with these small sealed subs that use DSP to make them "look good on paper", they actually have much worse group delay than a well designed ported sub. I learned this the hard way when I was trying to integrate some "near full range sealed speakers" with the SVS SB-3000 subs. Crossed properly at 80 Hz the group delay of the subs was so high that by 30 Hz the mains and the subs were "out of phase" and were cancelling right where I was hoping to get a boost. My full range speakers measured similar to the ones you have. That is when I took a deeper dive into subs, looking beyond advertised specifications to what really works and does not work and why. There is a great test on a bunch of popular subs on this site https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/i-measured-10-subwoofers.49042/ my advice would be to study these test results until you understand them and contrast the bigger Adrinal sub compared with the SVS subs to understand there are differences beyond advertised specs. You will also need to measure and understand your mains speakers LF roll off and group delay characteristics. This will hopefully lead you to a choice that works first try unlike my experience.

This should only be relevant if you are running subs and mains in parallel, without a x-over (highpass for you mains) in place.
But I agree that small heavily DSP'd subs with too high Q and bad step response (ringing) may not be the best solution.

 

[levimax]

This should only be relevant if you are running subs and mains in parallel, without a x-over (highpass for you mains) in place.
But I agree that small heavily DSP'd subs with too high Q and bad step response (ringing) may not be the best solution.

The 4 subs were all crossed at 80 Hz with a proper crossover to the mains. The problem is the group delay difference between the subs was so severe that the 2 SVS subs, which were in phase with the other 2 subs at the 80 Hz crossover point, became 180 degrees out of phase by 30 Hz so adding the 2 SVS subs actually massively reduced output around 30 Hz.

 

[markstein]

The 4 subs were all crossed at 80 Hz with a proper crossover to the mains. The problem is the group delay difference between the subs was so severe that the 2 SVS subs, which were in phase with the other 2 subs at the 80 Hz crossover point, became 180 degrees out of phase by 30 Hz so adding the 2 SVS subs actually massively reduced output around 30 Hz.

Well, of course all subwoofers (all speakers running parallel) should be of the same type ideally.

Edit: Allpass filters will help to align the phase of different subs. You can simulate the effect with REW or MSO.

 

[Honken]

I have no clue at all that's way i'm asking. If i'm not mistaken High Level Input will take exactly the same signal as the main speakers LFE can not do that.

Correct. That said, I'd recommend sticking with LFE if it works for you.

 

[tjaa]

Looks like Brent Butterworth updated his spreadsheet in February:

CTA-2010 results

docs.google.com

Edifier T5s is at least one new addition. Performance (scaled to 2m) seems quite nice for the footprint & cost (only 110€ on amazon.de). Would make for a cheap compact MSO desk setup for example

 

[3125b]

That's significantly better than I would have expected. Good deal.

 

[Froghawk]

Question for y'all: are there any pretty flat studio subs that are suitable for a roughly 25x25 room are:

A) sealed or with passive radiators
B) have a bypass footswitch and/or pass signal to monitors when turned off?

Nice bonuses but not necessary:
-50hz crossover option
-aes ins