Subwoofers and EQ settings?

[Argonil]

I recently bought my first pair of hi-fi speakers, the Adam T5Vs. I saw they are a little bright so I downloaded the EQ settings by @Maiky76 and felt confident that I'd be satisfied with the results. Then I tried them and the mids weren't as clear as I'd expected, game sounds did not sound at all like they were supposed to, it was like the lows muddied the mids or something. Then I had the idea of connecting the T5Vs to the sub that came with my cheap old Wavemaster MX3 set, and voila, now they sound amazing just because they don't have to trouble themselves with the lows. I think I should get a proper sub to match the speakers instead of using the cheap crap I got from Wavemaster. So I've been looking at the Adam T10S to go with my speakers, I suspect it will be a major improvement.

I have three questions:

1. If I just buy the T10S which Adam says is designed for the T5Vs, will audio scientists show up at my door to yell at me while pointing at graphs? Is there another sub which would be a better pick in the same price range?

2. I downloaded the "Score" EQ settings for Equalizer APO rather than the "flat" settings, since it had more downloads so I figured that's the one that sounds best. Maiky76 writes: "The second settings, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable." I have no idea what this actually means, how is it different from a flat LW?

3. When you connect a sub to a pair of speakers, should you remove the low frequency entries in the EQ settings since the sub is now handling the low frequencies, or how does that work?

Thanks in advance, gentlemen.

 

[Holmz]

I recently bought my first pair of hi-fi speakers, the Adam T5Vs. I saw they are a little bright so I downloaded the EQ settings by @Maiky76 and felt confident that I'd be satisfied with the results. Then I tried them and the mids weren't as clear as I'd expected, game sounds did not sound at all like they were supposed to, it was like the lows muddied the mids or something. Then I had the idea of connecting the T5Vs to the sub that came with my cheap old Wavemaster MX3 set, and voila, now they sound amazing just because they don't have to trouble themselves with the lows. I think I should get a proper sub to match the speakers instead of using the cheap crap I got from Wavemaster. So I've been looking at the Adam T10S to go with my speakers, I suspect it will be a major improvement.

I have three questions:

1. If I just buy the T10S which Adam says is designed for the T5Vs, will audio scientists show up at my door to yell at me while pointing at graphs?

Where is the front door?

Is there another sub which would be a better pick in the same price range?

If that Wavemaster one you used is good (or better), then why not just stick with that?
(I think You said that the Adam was bad, and with the Wavemaster it is better.)

2. I downloaded the "Score" EQ settings for Equalizer APO rather than the "flat" settings, since it had more downloads so I figured that's the one that sounds best. Maiky76 writes: "The second settings, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable." I have no idea what this actually means, how is it different from a flat LW?

3. When you connect a sub to a pair of speakers, should you remove the low frequency entries in the EQ settings since the sub is now handling the low frequencies, or how does that work?

Often yes. High pass filter the mains.

Thanks in advance, gentlemen.

 

[Argonil]

If that Wavemaster one you used is good (or better), then why not just stick with that?
(I think You said that the Adam was bad, and with the Wavemaster it is better.)

The T5V speakers were bad without any sub, it got better when I connected them to the 5" woofer from the cheap Wavemaster MX3 set I have. That sub isn't designed to be used with other speakers, its cut-off point is at 150 Hz lol. So I'm looking for a proper sub. It turns out the T10S has a really annoying feature where it goes on standby if it hasn't had a signal for 10 minutes, and takes like 5 seconds to wake up. It even goes on standby if the volume is low, people complain about it a lot, so I'm not getting that one.

It seems it'd be best if I get a DAC with balanced inputs first of all, so I've moved on to this thread: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/smsl-su-1-vs-d-6s-vs-do100-pro.54893/

 

[ozzy9832001]

I recently bought my first pair of hi-fi speakers, the Adam T5Vs. I saw they are a little bright so I downloaded the EQ settings by @Maiky76 and felt confident that I'd be satisfied with the results. Then I tried them and the mids weren't as clear as I'd expected, game sounds did not sound at all like they were supposed to, it was like the lows muddied the mids or something. Then I had the idea of connecting the T5Vs to the sub that came with my cheap old Wavemaster MX3 set, and voila, now they sound amazing just because they don't have to trouble themselves with the lows. I think I should get a proper sub to match the speakers instead of using the cheap crap I got from Wavemaster. So I've been looking at the Adam T10S to go with my speakers, I suspect it will be a major improvement.

I have three questions:

1. If I just buy the T10S which Adam says is designed for the T5Vs, will audio scientists show up at my door to yell at me while pointing at graphs? Is there another sub which would be a better pick in the same price range?

2. I downloaded the "Score" EQ settings for Equalizer APO rather than the "flat" settings, since it had more downloads so I figured that's the one that sounds best. Maiky76 writes: "The second settings, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable." I have no idea what this actually means, how is it different from a flat LW?

3. When you connect a sub to a pair of speakers, should you remove the low frequency entries in the EQ settings since the sub is now handling the low frequencies, or how does that work?

Thanks in advance, gentlemen.

The listed response is 45hz for your mains.

I know it can be difficult and/or annoying, but have you tried changing your listening position while playing low frequency sounds? It sounds to me like this is a room acoustics issue that having the 3rd sound source is cancelling/boosting some of the bass frequencies. Making them more audible. I'd do a bass crawl from 45hz to about 120hz or so. Putting the listening position either close to the front or rear wall can also cause a desirable boost in bass.

 

[Argonil]

The listed response is 45hz for your mains.

I know it can be difficult and/or annoying, but have you tried changing your listening position while playing low frequency sounds? It sounds to me like this is a room acoustics issue that having the 3rd sound source is cancelling/boosting some of the bass frequencies. Making them more audible. I'd do a bass crawl from 45hz to about 120hz or so. Putting the listening position either close to the front or rear wall can also cause a desirable boost in bass.

It's not that they don't play bass, it's that the bass sorta drowns out the mids. By having a dedicated subwoofer, the mains can better focus on the mids and highs.

 

[kemmler3D]

1. If I just buy the T10S which Adam says is designed for the T5Vs, will audio scientists show up at my door to yell at me while pointing at graphs? Is there another sub which would be a better pick in the same price range?

Depends on your budget and comfort level, but I've had success just finding the most powerful sub per dollar I can, secondhand, and integrating that with my mains.

2. I downloaded the "Score" EQ settings for Equalizer APO rather than the "flat" settings, since it had more downloads so I figured that's the one that sounds best. Maiky76 writes: "The second settings, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable." I have no idea what this actually means, how is it different from a flat LW?

Sounds like it is optimized to preference score. If so, this would probably mean it favors EIR (estimated in room response) over LW. So the LW might get less flat and the EIR more flat.

3. When you connect a sub to a pair of speakers, should you remove the low frequency entries in the EQ settings since the sub is now handling the low frequencies, or how does that work?

Depends on your priority. It sounds like you are using a PC, so you can use REW and EQAPO to flatten out the bass regardless of where you cross the sub. The benefit of high-passing the mains is that you get less distortion in the low/mids, but you lose the ability to fill in nulls from room modes, to an extent. If you run everything full-range, you get the chance to fill in nulls at the listening position better.

I personally do the latter because I don't listen very loud so distortion isn't a huge concern, and you also proportionally reduce the output of the mains in the overlapping frequencies anyway, so there's still some benefit to distortion either way.

So to sum up my advice on this:

-Get any sub that appeals to you that has enough SPL and goes down to 20hz in your price range.
-Run the sub up to 100 or even 150hz. (I am actually running mine almost up to 200hz right now, but it sounds a little weird and I'm planning on going to stereo bass or dropping the xover.)
-Get a UMIK and use REW to generate PEQ filters for a nice flat or slightly sloped bass response.
-Load those filters into EQAPO and enjoy your awesome sound.