Audio Kinesis Swarm Subwoofer Awarded 2019 Golden Ear Award by Robert E. Greene

I find this concept to be fascinating although I have never actually heard it. For many years I have known that multiple subwoofers can greatly smooth the bass response in a room but I haven’t actually experimented with it.

Does anyone here have experience pairing a Swarm/DEBRA with relatively full range speakers...in this instance the Vandersteen Treo’s? The Treo is -3db @ 36Hz.
For those not familiar, Richard Vandersteen has a very specific technique for pairing the Vandersteen subs with his full range speakers. It involves an outboard first-order high pass crossover for the main speakers.(installed between the preamp and amp) The subwoofer also receives this signal from the amp by speaker wire and is built with some sort of low pass first-order crossover and it also somehow equalizes to compensate for the reduced bass level received through the speaker wires. So it results in very gentle 6db rolloffs for the subwoofer and mains either side of 100Hz. I really like this setup and think it works extremely well.

My big question is what would be the best way to setup if I wanted to integrate Swarm/DEBRA with the Vandersteen full range speakers.
-No crossover on the Vandersteens and the 24db crossover on the Swarm/DEBRA at about 36hz?
-A Vandersteen first order high-pass crossover on the mains(100Hz) and a low-pass 24db crossover on the Swarm set at....?
-or some other variation that I haven’t thought of?

"Does anyone here have experience pairing a Swarm/DEBRA with relatively full range speakers...in this instance the Vandersteen Treo’s?"

Installo43, one of my customers has Vandersteen Quatros.

Before getting the Swarm, he had been using one sub and a Meridian processor with 16 of its available 60 digital filters professionally calibrated to smooth his in-room bass response.

He replaced his sub with the Swarm, ran the Quatros full-range with their filters set to neutral, and hired the same (highly experienced) technician to make measurements and calibrate the filters on his Meridian processor. The technician found that the ONLY adjustment needed was to the level of the subwoofer amp. No further equalization was needed, either from the Meridian processor or from the Vandersteen’s analog filters (well, the Meridian did equalize the two surround speakers a bit, but that doesn’t affect what the Swarm was doing). He wrote that the Swarm "had rendered both the Meridian Room Correction and the Vandersteen’s analog equalizers unnecessary" for his room.

Quoting from his e-mail:

"The technician, J___ S____, who has performed dozens of these calibrations, said he has never seen anything like this. The room is rendered literally flat in frequency response and spatial energy distribution - sonically the room disappears. We played one of Kal Rubinson’s recommended demo discs, the 100th anniversary for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra using the John Adams piece, "Short Ride on a Fast Machine", and you would swear you were in the hall. You can "feel" the ripple in the tympani skins! Very impressive."

I DO NOT claim that these results are "typical", but apparently it is possible to use the Swarm with a set of Vandersteens.

Duke
got a dog in the fight

Duke,

Thanks for the response! Wow. That is certainly a rave testimonial...and in keeping with all the other things that I have heard about the Swarm.

I guess I should have been more specific about my situation. My application will be strictly stereo, not surround. It sounds as if the customer with Vandersteen Quatros ran the Quatros full range and the Swarm was running simply as LFE...which I see as a very different application.

The question I had was about the best way to integrate the Swarm with relatively full range speakers in a stereo only setup.

Installo43, yeah I don't think I could buy a testimonial like that one if I wanted to!
In your situation I think we'd use essentially the same approach... run the Treo's fullrange, and use the Swarm to fill in the bottom octave or so. 

I have owners of speakers like Wilson and Magico who run their main speakers fullrange and then use the Swarm for the very bottom end.
Duke

Hello Duke,

Another Swarm bass success story that, as an owner of the AK Debra 4-sub distributed bass array (DBA) system, doesn’t surprise me at all.

I’m glad you posted again, Duke, because I was just going to contact you with a question I have about whether room bass treatments negatively or positively effect the performance of the Swarm/Debra bass systems in a given room.
I recently had a free analysis of my room by GIK Acoustics done and they recommended I utilize some of their bass treatment products in my room, mainly the following:


1. Stacked TriTraps in all 4 corners of my room.

https://www.gikacoustics.com/product/gik-acoustics-tri-trap/

2. 244 2’x2’ and 5.25" thick bass trap panels on the floor level of my front 14’ 2" front wall behind my Magnepan 3.7i main speakers.

https://www.gikacoustics.com/product/gik-acoustics-244-bass-trap-flexrange-technology/

     This plan would result in a 2’x2’ Debra sub being located between a 2’x2’, 5.25" thick 244 bass trap panel and the bottom TriTrap located in the corner behind each main speaker which are both positioned about 3’ away from the front wall.
My question is what effect do you think these combined bass room treatments would have on the overall perceived bass response in my 21’x12.2’x8’ room?
     The current bass response with the Debra system operating in my room is extremely good with zero room treatments and room correction in use. My main concerns are doing no harm to the current results and not spending the time and money on these treatments if you don’t believe they’ll have a meaningful positive effect.
     Within a few weeks on a different but related concern, I’m also going to upgrade my about 25 year old pair of Magnepan 2.7QR main speakers, containing quasi-ribbon treble sections, with a pre-owned pair of 1 year old Magnepan 3.7i speakers, with true-ribbon treble sections. Given your considerable experience in speaker design, room acoustics and knowledge of Magnepan speakers, I was hoping you could also give me your opinion on my general plan for utilizing GIK room treatment products to optimize the perceived full range frequency response of the pair of 3.7is in my room.
     The 3.7is will be positioned about 8’ apart, with the true-ribbons on the inside, along and about 3’ away from the front short wall with my listening seat about 12’ away centered on the rear short wall. There’s a 6’ tall x 8’ long window section along the left 21’ long wall, covered by a plantation blind window treatment with 1" wide wooden horizontal slats, that begins about 2’ in front of the left 3.7i and continues for 8’. The right 3.7i is positioned at the beginning of a 4’ x7’ opening at the front of the right 21’ long wall. The remaining portion of this section is a solid wall with no other openings with an 8’ leather couch positioned along it.
     There’s also a wall mounted 65" hdtv centered along the 12’ wall between my speakers and a Magnepan CC3 center ch speaker attached to a smaller tv wall mount that positions it just above and centered on the hdtv beow it.

     My general plan is to use an approximate 50/50 balance between absorption and diffusion GIK treatments throughout the entire room with nothing on the 8’ tall ceiling and the floor covered with fairly thick wall to wall carpeting. There are room pics on my profile page if it helps.

     As I stated, this plan would result in a 2’x2’ Debra sub being located between a 2’x2’ 244 bass trap panel and the bottom TriTrap located in the corner behind each main speaker which are both positioned about 3’ away from the front wall. There will be side by side 24.5" w x 48.5" tall GIK 242 absorption panels, with diffusing scatter plates underneath the top cloth covers and positioned above each bass trap and sub behind each 3.7i.
https://www.gikacoustics.com/product/gik-acoustics-242-acoustic-panel/

     The remainder of my plan is to use an even distribution of absorption, diffusion and combination panels on the remaining solid wall portions on both side walls and rear wall. The goal being to ensure that there’s adequate diffusion of soundwaves at the front and rears of the room to avoid over damping the overall room and sound.
Based on your knowledge and experience, do you believe my overall plan is a good one?
      I really appreciate any help you can offer, I’d like to order all GIK treatments by end of tomorrow, Thursday Dec. 12th.

Thanks,
Tim