Subwoofer Options - <$800 - Small/Medium Room

[MarkS]

You cannot EQ your way out of a physical null, and a second subwoofer is one of the most effective ways to solve this—even for a single listening seat.

In this scenario, I would just put the single subwoofer where you put the 2nd one.

 

[ShadowBoxer]

His only point was if you use a W11 device for EQ, the only source you can use is that device. Which is why he called it "limited"

With a WiiM Pro and above you could have input specific PEQ for:

a) streaming
b) ripped media (DNLA)
c) CD transport input
d) turntable (if desired)

with a baseline (separate) DRC ie RoomFit and independent L/R.

All for as little as $99 (remote optional).

Always seems like a no-brainer to me.

 

[Puddingbuks]

In this scenario, I would just put the single subwoofer where you put the 2nd one.

What?

 

[whazzup]

That part i get. I'm going to try this REW first i wasn't aware that was an option with a free tier. Go from there. Just need to get the mic

I may be able to get it out my ears are good I'm just not sure what I"m hearing means....Just trial and error

If you're trying REW, instead of a fully automated solution like Dirac, I will also suggest Equalizer APO + Peace (the UI on top of EAPO, 2 separate downloads) since you're on Windows platform.

And obviously every room affects sound differently, but from what I've learnt when trying to eq my own systems:

1. First figure out from published specs / measurements, what is the shape of the sub's bass response, example an upward sloping bass to 40-50hz or a more uniform distribution, and if there's a switch to change it. They may call it 'music' mode or 'home theater' mode. Of course the sub will behave differently in your room but it's good background knowledge.



2. Depending on whether you connect the sub to your aiyima amp or to the computer directly, you might need to set up things differently.

If connecting the sub to the pc, you'll need to configure your soundcard to be in 5.1 / 7.1 as Windows doesn't have a specific 2.1 configuration. Your soundcard software might notify and auto setup for you or it might not when you connect your sub. And you might then find that you can output audio when testing the .1 channel with your soundcard, but nothing gets played through your sub. That's because your specific software (YouTube on chrome browser, Spotify etc) is outputting stereo audio stream with nothing going to the sub.

That's where eapo / peace comes in (other than the regular eq functions). You'll need to configure it to send the stereo mix to your sub. Only then will there be audio. I'll add a picture of the peace interface later.

3. IMO as more of a hobbyist, I've narrowed down why we need to EQ the sub to 3 interrelated points:

• a. Get as much usable output as possible below 40-50hz
• b. Fix room modes
• c. Integrate sub to speakers smoothly

Personally, after I realised that these are my goals, looking at the measured frequency response made much more sense and I'm not blindly attacking every peak I see.

• 3a. Get as much usable output as possible below 40-50hz

No 50hz is not a magical number. But generally the affordable 8-12" subs roll off beyond that. Depending on your room, you might find that when you increased the sub volume the bass peaks are rattling your furniture excessively / too boomy. It could be that the subwoofer maker designed the sub to peak at 40-50hz and then drops off, so it's especially loud there relative to the other frequencies. Though maybe your Revel will not have this issue. Or that your room geometry is somehow boosting that region.

So my goal here is simple: I want to turn up my sub to the max volume it can withstand, WITHOUT the sub or my other furniture rattling to bits, to get that sweet sub-bass. And the more usable volume I can get means the more headroom I have, since I can EQ down the sub to match the speakers.

And you don't need to always EQ at the max volume, do it at a sufficiently loud but comfortable level to you and your family.

• 3b. Fix room modes

There are tons of content on this subject by real experts so you should check them out. As others have mentioned, it's hard to tackle nulls due to room modes without a second sub. But depending on the severity of the nulls, you also might not detect a difference when actually listening to music, or you might get away with a 3-6db boost in that region without too much added distortion, assuming your sub has the headroom.

• 3c. Integrate sub to speakers smoothly (aka digital crossover between sub / speakers)

This is where you need to read up a bit on high pass and low pass filters for your sub and speakers. Again tons of content by actual experts.

For LPF / HPF adjustments, what I do is focus on the 80hz to 150hz region (in the video below). If you can clearly hear the volume dropping off then becoming louder again (or the reverse), that means you have a null or peak and you might want to tweak the LPF / HPF so that you can get a smoothly transitioning sweep as the playback transitions from your sub to your speakers.

Note also that the sub's orientation / placement can affect how the transition sounds like, and for a lot of subs they have a phase switch. For example, you might find that no matter how you tweaked your LPF / HPF there's always a null in the crossover. Changing the phase on the sub can improve the result.

Finally, another key concern you might have that will affect how you adjust the transition, is if the LPF for your sub is set too high (sub roll-off too gradual), you might hear too much human vocals from your sub. This frequently happens in closely mic'ed, talking head videos in studios where bass in vocals is emphasized, and you end up with 'humming' bassy voices which can be irritating. This is where a null in the transition can be preferable.



With REW, you can easily generate a range of frequencies to test with. But because I almost always have the browser on, I often find it easier to search and use the excellent frequency sweeps on YouTube.

For sub testing, just look for the 20 - 200hz videos. You'll hear the volume changes as the frequencies play. You should be able to identify the general nulls and peaks from hearing them alone. EQ them so that you can get a smoothly transitioning sweep (ideally higher volume as frequencies get lower), and your job is done. No point trying to get every frequency perfect if you cannot hear the difference, at least in my opinion.

 

[BookshelfBob]

With a WiiM Pro and above you could have input specific PEQ for:

a) streaming
b) ripped media (DNLA)
c) CD transport input
d) turntable (if desired)

with a baseline (separate) DRC ie RoomFit and independent L/R.

All for as little as $99 (remote optional).

Always seems like a no-brainer to me.

There are DRC devices that are only 100 dollars?

I really had no idea. Most of the DRC I have ever looked into was paired with AVRs.

This thread has made it very clear I don't know anything about room correction outside AVR's. So I will be patient.

Sub is here, UMK mic is on the way

 

[BookshelfBob]

If you're trying REW, instead of a fully automated solution like Dirac, I will also suggest Autoeq + Peace (UI on top of autoeq, 2 separate downloads) since you're on Windows platform.

And obviously every room affects sound differently, but from what I've learnt when trying to eq my own systems:

1. First figure out from published specs / measurements, what is the shape of the sub's bass response, example an upward sloping bass to 40-50hz or a more uniform distribution, and if there's a switch to change it. They may call it 'music' mode or 'home theater' mode. Of course the sub will behave differently in your room but it's good background knowledge.



2. Depending on whether you connect the sub to your aiyima amp or to the computer directly, you might need to set up things differently.

If connecting the sub to the pc, you'll need to configure your soundcard to be in 5.1 / 7.1 as Windows doesn't have a specific 2.1 configuration. Your soundcard software might notify and auto setup for you or it might not when you connect your sub. And you might then find that you can output audio when testing the .1 channel with your soundcard, but nothing gets played through your sub. That's because your specific software (YouTube on chrome browser, Spotify etc) is outputting stereo audio stream with nothing going to the sub.

That's where auto eq / peace comes in (other than the regular eq functions). You'll need to configure it to send the stereo mix to your sub. Only then will there be audio. I'll add a picture of the peace interface later.
View attachment 545230



3. IMO as more of a hobbyist, I've narrowed down why we need to EQ the sub to 3 interrelated points:

• a. Get as much usable output as possible below 40-50hz
• b. Fix room modes
• c. Integrate sub to speakers smoothly

Personally, after I realised that these are my goals, looking at the measured frequency response made much more sense and I'm not blindly attacking every peak I see.

• 3a. Get as much usable output as possible below 40-50hz

No 50hz is not a magical number. But generally the affordable 8-12" subs roll off beyond that. Depending on your room, you might find that when you increased the sub volume the bass peaks are rattling your furniture excessively / too boomy. It could be that the subwoofer maker designed the sub to peak at 40-50hz and then drops off, so it's especially loud there relative to the other frequencies. Though maybe your Revel will not have this issue. Or that your room geometry is somehow boosting that region.

So my goal here is simple: I want to turn up my sub to the max volume it can withstand, WITHOUT the sub or my other furniture rattling to bits, to get that sweet sub-bass. And the more usable volume I can get means the more headroom I have, since I can EQ down the sub to match the speakers.

And you don't need to always EQ at the max volume, do it at a sufficiently loud but comfortable level to you and your family.

• 3b. Fix room modes

There are tons of content on this subject by real experts so you should check them out. As others have mentioned, it's hard to tackle nulls due to room modes without a second sub. But depending on the severity of the nulls, you also might not detect a difference when actually listening to music, or you might get away with a 3-6db boost in that region without too much added distortion, assuming your sub has the headroom.

• 3c. Integrate sub to speakers smoothly (aka digital crossover between sub / speakers)

This is where you need to read up a bit on high pass and low pass filters for your sub and speakers. Again tons of content by actual experts.

For LPF / HPF adjustments, what I do is focus on the 80hz to 150hz region (in the video below). If you can clearly hear the volume dropping off then becoming louder again (or the reverse), that means you have a null or peak and you might want to tweak the LPF / HPF so that you can get a smoothly transitioning sweep as the playback transitions from your sub to your speakers.

Note also that the sub's orientation / placement can affect how the transition sounds like, and for a lot of subs they have a phase switch. For example, you might find that no matter how you tweaked your LPF / HPF there's always a null in the crossover. Changing the phase on the sub can improve the result.

Finally, another key concern you might have that will affect how you adjust the transition, is if the LPF for your sub is set too high (sub roll-off too gradual), you might hear too much human vocals from your sub. This frequently happens in closely mic'ed, talking head videos in studios where bass in vocals is emphasized, and you end up with 'humming' bassy voices which can be irritating. This is where a null in the transition can be preferable.



With REW, you can easily generate a range of frequencies to test with. But because I almost always have the browser on, I often find it easier to search and use the excellent frequency sweeps on YouTube.

For sub testing, just look for the 20 - 200hz videos. You'll hear the volume changes as the frequencies play. You should be able to identify the general nulls and peaks from hearing them alone. EQ them so that you can get a smoothly transitioning sweep (ideally higher volume as frequencies get lower), and your job is done. No point trying to get every frequency perfect if you cannot hear the difference, at least in my opinion.

This is perfect. Thank you. Will start here. I'm not sure I want to fully manually tune it with REW. But I do think I need to understand more about what room correction really is at a granular level before making a choice.

Mic is on the way.

 

[whazzup]

This is perfect. Thank you. Will start here. I'm not sure I want to fully manually tune it with REW. But I do think I need to understand more about what room correction really is at a granular level before making a choice.

Mic is on the way.

Noted. I do not mean that you need to use REW. Which is why I recommend the 20-200hz youtube video. Use that to train your most valuable measuring instrument, your ears. You can then relate what you hear to what you see in those measurement graphs. When you know what to hear / look out for, whether you use the Dirac or REW is simply a matter of choice.

 

[MarkS]

There are DRC devices that are only 100 dollars?

This is a new (and very welcome!) development just in the past year or so.

 

[a_ron]

You've got great speakers, do them justice and give the low frequencies the attention they deserve. Looks like you have gotten lots of great suggestions in this thread, but I will be more direct in hopes of saving you some time and $

Dirac is great but you want EQ built in to your preamp or integrated amp. You don't need EQ on your subwoofer when you have better EQ available in your preamp or integrated amp. Subwoofer apps are great, but you want to spend your money on subwoofer output. Multiple subs are great, but at your budget a single sub that is EQ'd and placed in the room based on measurements is a better place to start.

The lack of bass management (high pass the mains, low pass the sub) and lack of EQ in the A80 means it's just not the right solution. Sell it and put the funds towards a WiiM integrated amp with bass management and EQ. The WiiM platform also includes a bunch of other great functionality.
$380 WiiM Amp Pro
+$100 from selling A80

Good call getting the UMIK-1. Low frequencies do strange things in a room. You are going to need EQ and measuring tools to go with a subwoofer. Try different subwoofer positions and measure them with the microphone and REW. Then use REW to help you build the needed EQ filters which you load in to the WiiM.

Did you get the Revel Concerta2 B10 subwoofer? Revel rates it 35Hz -3dB, so it is unlikely to perform as well as some others at that price. Return it. Either of these would be great, minor output difference. Pick based on looks, size, placement.
$500 RSL 10s - Need to keep the rear port off the wall a few inches
$600 Starke SW15 - More headroom above 40Hz if you play music loud

 

[kyuu]

Did you get the Revel Concerta2 B10 subwoofer? Revel rates it 35Hz -3dB, so it is unlikely to perform as well as some others at that price. Return it.

Nonsense. Basing your subwoofer purchase on the -3dB rating is silly. I can make a six-inch woofer in a cardboard box have a -3dB rating of 20Hz if I wanted. Obviously it wouldn't be pretty in any sense, but the point is that a -3dB rating without any other context is pretty meaningless.

 

[a_ron]

Basing your subwoofer purchase on the -3dB rating is silly

Fair. Do we have any other data that we can use to judge it? Maybe I missed it. Would be useful to compare to the CEA-2010 measurements that James Larson did on the RSL and Starke.

For the OP: If you can't return the B10, don't sweat it, it will likely do the job. Measuring, placement, and EQ will do wonders.

 

[BookshelfBob]

You've got great speakers, do them justice and give the low frequencies the attention they deserve. Looks like you have gotten lots of great suggestions in this thread, but I will be more direct in hopes of saving you some time and $

Dirac is great but you want EQ built in to your preamp or integrated amp. You don't need EQ on your subwoofer when you have better EQ available in your preamp or integrated amp. Subwoofer apps are great, but you want to spend your money on subwoofer output. Multiple subs are great, but at your budget a single sub that is EQ'd and placed in the room based on measurements is a better place to start.

The lack of bass management (high pass the mains, low pass the sub) and lack of EQ in the A80 means it's just not the right solution. Sell it and put the funds towards a WiiM integrated amp with bass management and EQ. The WiiM platform also includes a bunch of other great functionality.
$380 WiiM Amp Pro
+$100 from selling A80

Good call getting the UMIK-1. Low frequencies do strange things in a room. You are going to need EQ and measuring tools to go with a subwoofer. Try different subwoofer positions and measure them with the microphone and REW. Then use REW to help you build the needed EQ filters which you load in to the WiiM.

Did you get the Revel Concerta2 B10 subwoofer? Revel rates it 35Hz -3dB, so it is unlikely to perform as well as some others at that price. Return it. Either of these would be great, minor output difference. Pick based on looks, size, placement.
$500 RSL 10s - Need to keep the rear port off the wall a few inches
$600 Starke SW15 - More headroom above 40Hz if you play music loud

It's just for music and mostly TV, i almost never put movies on when i'm at my desk, it's fine.

Listening to Thriller

As a millennial, it's easy to forget how amazing this album is. And I'm probably hearing it in the best quality I ever have by a massive margin.

I won't be returning or selling anything. Major benefit to the Revel is it has some EQ so I can use it with a lower tier set up. While the other subs require better components upstream for similar effect. This revel may sit in my garage one day with this A80.

The rest of your advice was great and I will take it to heart.

 

[a_ron]

Great! Enjoy the music, that is what this is all about!

 

[MarkS]

I second getting the Wiim with bass management and EQ. I wish it had been available a couple of years ago when I was looking for such a two-channel device. My Lyngdorf cost me five times as much ...

 

[Chrispy]

We're getting off topic. I think i should not have mentioned the AVR lol. My video set up is top tier. You'd have to spent many thousands to beat my MadVR set up. I have a lot of compute laying around.

His only point was if you use a W11 device for EQ, the only source you can use is that device. Which is why he called it "limited"

This is not a problem for me relative to most people because everything I do is on Windows for the most part.

I wasn't referring to any video aspects, just the audio when it comes to using bass management/eq of an avr. Yes, that is a limitation of using pc as a pre-amp/avr I rarely use my computer for any of my audio/video setups, just not the best tool.

 

[Jarrett]

Sounds like you are in the same situation with me: don't need anything extravagant, small room, mainly music, likely not worth overspending on a sub in a small room.

I also have a UMIK-1 and run Audiolense. I assume (hopefully) the integration is easy and all I do is add the sub as another speaker and the crossover frequency and let the mic and software take care of the rest? I'm pretty good at using Audiolense by now.

 

[BookshelfBob]

I wasn't referring to any video aspects, just the audio when it comes to using bass management/eq of an avr. Yes, that is a limitation of using pc as a pre-amp/avr I rarely use my computer for any of my audio/video setups, just not the best tool.

From an EQ perspective it's not ideal...

From a source perspective it will take care of literally everything but analog (i own no analog media anymore) and 4k streaming, which is a DRM problem not an issue with the underlying tech of the OS.

If you're using your cell phone as a source....You're just using a computer in a crappy form factor and a very stripped down OS. Same with a stand alone device.

And the only benefit to using something like a CD is the DAC built into the player. It's the same exact data otherwise from a rip and is pointless. I can only explain it by thinking no one has computers just lying around everywhere anymore.

 

[Chrispy]

From an EQ perspective it's not ideal...

From a source perspective it will take care of literally everything but analog (i own no analog media anymore) and 4k streaming, which is a DRM problem not an issue with the underlying tech of the OS.

If you're using your cell phone as a source....You're just using a computer in a crappy form factor and a very stripped down OS. Same with a stand alone device.

And the only benefit to using something like a CD is the DAC built into the player. It's the same exact data otherwise from a rip and is pointless. I can only explain it by thinking no one has computers just lying around everywhere anymore.

Yes, limited EQ as well as codec handling, appropriate outputs, some other issues....

Many still use analog sources, and need some way to handle that was my only point. I recently got a 4k tv, and up til now have not really cared about 4k content, my movie disc collection is largely from before that in any case.

I once in a while use an android device to direct a Spotify stream wirelessly to a "connect" enabled avr or audiochromecast unit. I use my computer the same way.

I don't use the dac in my disc players generally, even though they're adequate, I get more options with digital connections from my optical disc players....and have many digital devices rather than computers (I have one laptop at a time....they don't live long enough generally to have more than one at a time ).

YMMV

 

[BookshelfBob]

Well they're all computers

Only question is which form factor and which OS. I have a 15 year old desktop that still deals with digital music as well as any device on the planet.

Put your disks on a server. Disks rot. Much easier to maintain on a hard drive......Even perfect storage. QA faults in the discs will get you. Once it's digital all that matters is the DAC. The rest is just a question of what's the cheapest to get your hands on. Outside some interference issue and maybe some timing...It's all the same. USB will deal with the timing for you automatically.

You do not get more options from you optical disc players....There is an adapter for whatever you're doing.

 

[Chrispy]

Well they're all computers

Only question is which form factor and which OS. I have a 15 year old desktop that still deals with digital music as well as any device on the planet.

Put your disks on a server. Disks rot. Much easier to maintain on a hard drive......Even perfect storage. QA faults in the discs will get you. Once it's digital all that matters is the DAC. The rest is just a question of what's the cheapest to get your hands on. Outside some interference issue...It's all the same

You do not get more options from you optical disc players....There is an adapter for whatever you're doing.

LOL true enough, but devices are far more portable generally and equally capable, if not more capable, in this regard.

Haven't used a desktop in about 15 years myself, and only at work even then.

I use a variety of backups, both solid state and disc drive. Why using a phone to direct a stream is just fine, otoh. Where the dac is can be different. I don't use the optical disc players except on the hardest to rip discs, such as bluray and sacd. Generally after receipt of a cd I simply check it out once with a listen on a player and then rip it to a variety of those drives....