Does You Subwoofer Settings ??

I'm also 73 and i think I've become a bass junkie, or should I say truly full range music listening addiction I have tower speakers with built-in powered subs along with two SVS Ultra 13 subs with the upgraded plate amps  I listen to everything from Frank Sinatra to Odesza  Typically I have my subs crossed over at 38 hz and adjust the gain to eliminate any boomyness  Almost all music sounds coherent and not overbearing, no matter the music  Hey my brother had a Harley Sportster and would let me ride it once in a while I reciprocated by letting him drive (hard decision) my 1972 BMW 2002ti  

My Sub is approx 24 inches off wall and corner

This is very likely not the best spot for the sub and probably a big part of your issue.  As I mentioned earlier, do the sub crawl method to find the spot(s) where it’ll likely sound much better and very possibly mitigate the problem. 

Many years ago, I bought my first Harley. As you guessed, an 883. Then a 1200 Sportster. Then a Deuce. I had custom tins and wheels on it. It was sweet, but not comfortable on long rides. Then a Road King. And finally, a Road King Custom. It was a sweet bike and I could ride it all day. But, I lived in Nebraska and the riding wasn’t great. All my biker friends were busy with kids and so was I, so I sold it.

No bikes now, but I have a 52 Chevy pickup and a 62 Chevy pickup.

You are getting standing waves if it's boomy, need to find what frequency is causing it, then change it.

Find a song that starts the boom, walk around the room to see if there are places where it doesn't boom. If it's a large part of the room, move your sub, so your listing position sounds good. 

If it is in the whole room, adjust the PEQ, always go down if you can, trying not to boost anything, just cut. 

If it's still an issue, do both, move the sub, and adjust PEQ. Might also need to adjust the XO point, as it could be interaction between the sub and mains. 

Yes the high pitch Kool and Gang Song I have to turn down for my ears..LOL...My Sub is approx 24 inches off wall and corner...See I do not understand all the language of Subwoofer and have to go by what others say and try and adjust .I am a big car guy and train and slot car person and can not read and understand ..So everything I do is by sound ...I contacted a Audio repair person and he gave me the number of person who may come out and help me..But that will not be before Fall..

So sls883 are you a sportster person ? 

I listened to the tracks that you mentioned.  I like your taste in music, btw.  I didn't find any of the songs boomy.  I turned up the volume higher than I typically would and no boominess.  

I have tinnitus as well. When I cranked the Kool and the Gang song, there is a high pitched synthesizer (I think) that was a bit piercing. 

Is the sub in a corner?  Somebody probably already asked that.  A corner can make things boomy. 

I suspect that you have the crossover and/or gain higher than what you need to get a flat frequency response. 

But, if you like where it's set for 95 percent of the music that you like, leave it there.  That's the advantage to a subwoofer that is easily adjusted. 

@harleyujoe 

Subwoofers take a lot of time and effort to get right.  It is possible for a subwoofer to be adjusted so that all music sounds great.  

What you are hearing that bothers you is a peak in the response (a note or small range of notes that are louder than the others).  

You can tune it out by ear if you can repeat the recording that has the booming bass and make some adjustments.  Just make sure you record your current settings so you can come back to them. 

Peaks are caused by phase overlap, summing with the main speakers or a position of the subwoofer that is too close to boundaries causing a peak.  

Try adjusting the crossover lower as you listen to that track. 

Try moving the subwoofer away from the wall, corner or surface until the peak is gone.  

I will say the SVS SB 16 sure does add range in the music I listen to 95 %..And yes some songs in the way they were recorded show No Signs of Bass in them..I will be more selective on what I play ... But I wanted to know how others felt the music and the bass with their Subwoofers ..

Even same Song recorded on another album at times have different feel to how they sound at times...

But you all have let me know its not just me and my Subwoofer..

Thank You for taking the time responding..

For that very reason I moved on from subs in my music 2-channel set up and only use them in a separate AV 5.2 system for video and occasional music listening.

The lower end of my music system Dynaudio Contour 20s is beyond adequate for music low notes. I adjusted the EQ of my McIntosh MA352 to reflect my hearing test profile. Then I adjusted the EQ to preference after trying several different music genres. 

As @dwest1023 said, so much is in the recording.  Now I find that if strong bass lines are in the recording, the Dynaudios will reveal them very nicely.  No more booming tracks on some recordings.

You can optimize sub setup till your blue in face, bass in recordings will always remain variable. Just last night listening to some highly produced 70's soul, bass guitars and drums just some kind of dull thudding noise. I listen to all eras and genres of music, vast, vast majority of recordings, bass not noticeably bothersome. I agree two subs much more forgiving vs. a single.

The SVS can be adjusted while sitting and my Tidal streaming has no adjustment at computer..I have been just deleting songs that have to much boom for their is so much music to listen to ...and always looking for something new ...

One of the songs that had boom was Peter White Swept Away album version..

And I am very blessed to have the equipment I have and still be able to hear detail in songs I never heard from  solid state amp I have had..

I guess with tinnitus my hearing is so sensitive that probably more reason that it bothers me...Few song I use for testing are Kool & the gang Summer Madness and this at points really hurts my hearing and the other song I use for Bass is Marian Hill called Down...Fourplay and Chant and Fleetwood Mac Warm Ways..

I find that some music has more bass than others. I usually just enjoy as is. However my B&W sub has an app and I can make all adjustment from my listening position. I also have a schitt Loki max eq. It has remote control so again I can make all adjustments from my listen position. 

Nice gear ... I would love to listen!

Does your streamer permit setting EQ for the five percent of songs that sound fat?

95% is pretty good  ... 

You have some very nice gear. I bet it sounds wonderful. 

What are a couple of songs that are boomy? I'd like to try playing them and see if they are boomy on my system. 

My system is new that is my Amp of approx 7 months. I had a Raven Audio Osprey Tube Amp and stepped up to their Reflection and have had Raven Audio Corvus Speakers for 5 years ...Last year I had speakers on steel stands and I finally built wooden box stands with Granite Base and granite top plate and it allowed me to hear the real music I have been missing for over 4 years..And now with Reflection a even larger sound that never knew could existe to my hearing..So at 73 yrs old I am really enjoying this new hobby for last 5 years..Some small adjustments with Subwoofer and maybe few tubes and believe I will be very happy.

I just like to sit back with Tidal Selected songs for about a hour and make no adjustments ..This makes me forget about my ringing tinnitus and this is about Max time I can listen before my hearing starts to become over sensitive ...

And take the songs that cause boominess put them in separate Tidal folder and adjust them and play them later...

I find myself tweaking my sub settings frequently. I don't use any measuring devices or room calibration, just adjust by ear. Annoying, but ultimately satisfying.

You never mentioned what your main speakers are! What are they? Is your system 2 channel or home theater?

Room acoustics issues are static, more or less, and variances are most likely in individual recordings, particularly if the differences are in quality, e.g. definition not just qiantity. Also, If you are listening at only 75 dBA, you're also well within Fletcher-Munson loudness curve territory. The ear at that loudness is decidedly non-linear and changing the volume even a few dB will change the ears linearity, especially ar low frequencies. 

Just to expand on @deep_333 suggestion,

If I'm not mistaken the SVS App includes three presets. These presets should allow for personal customization of all or most of the available App settings to memory.

They may already have factory settings that you may find beneficial towards your issues. Dig deeper into the App or contact SVS for help. All the best with it.

Just reading through this and noticed a mistake in my post - I meant lowering the crossover frequency, as pointed out by @carlsbad2 

I have a pair of SVS SB 1000 Pro subs.  One of the things I like about SVS is the app.  I adjust the volume of the subs occasionally depending on the music I’m listening to.  I don’t adjust other settings since they are set by the preamp and sound good in my room.  

Do most find that subwoofer settings are not perfect for every song you play ??

Yes

Last year went to a SVS SB16 Sub and 95 percent of songs it sounds beautiful. But other songs has boomy sound

Boomy bass is a room acoustics issue. Your room will have standing waves, aka nodes, the frequency of which will be dictated by the distance between parallel surfaces in your room. What ever that frequency is, some recordings will have more energy at that frequency than others, which is why the issue can be inconsistent.

Room treatments, multiple subs and e.q. can all be effective tools in the battle. In my personal experience, I have found out that if I notch out the offending frequency with PEQ in the worst offending songs, that the songs that weren’t plagued by the issue have not been affected. Probably because that frequency wasn’t in those songs with enough energy to have been noticeable in the first place.

Mastering and recording practices vary widely among recordings; thus, no one subwoofer setting will work for all recordings. Add in room effects, as mentioned previously, and Fletcher-Munson (changes in our hearing with volume), and I'm glad my preamp has an easily accessible sub-level control. That said, I leave it at the same spot most of the time. I think Mitch2 said 80%, and my experience aligns with that.

Yes I agree on all the information I have received...And with my Tinnitus I do not play music over 75 db .. I was playing even lower but with bigger Raven Audio Reflection I realized how much detail I was missing ... So I do regulate my volume some with my hearing issues ..And playing at lower volume I was not getting the boom as when playing higher db...I will keep all this information at hand to refer back for reference as I thank You all again for your time ..

You've already gotten some good advice but I'd try lowering my crossover frequency.

IMO, you have already received good advice on this thread. In my case, with two large Aerial SW-12 subs, I would invoke the 80/20 rule and say that they sound just about optimum on about 80 percent of tracks that I listen to. However, I have them dialed in at just barely above the roll-off frequency of my mains, and at just about the minimum acceptable loudness, so that on many of the tracks where they are not optimal, the errors are omission (slightly less than optimal bass loudness) rather than commission (i.e., boominess). Even though my room is moderately large, I had the boominess issue with about 40/50 percent of the music I played with my former large, bass reflex speakers. Moving to more moderate sized acoustic suspension speakers (two 9-inch woofers in a sealed box) and adding the two subs allowed me to dial in a much more impactful and less intrusive bass response from my system.

Positioning and settings are certainly important, as pointed out by @soix, and moving to a slightly higher roll-in frequency and slightly lower output loudness can help (mostly) optimize the bass response over a wider range of your music collection. I am fortunate that Aerial chose to offer remote control operation of the SW-12s, since most of the time a problem can be solved by slightly increasing or decreasing the output level. In addition, I find that bumping the output up a notch or two when playing music at low volumes, or bumping the output down slightly when playing music really loud, can also help optimize the sound. In addition to the output level, the SW-12 remote also has toggles/settings (that I never use) for mute, EQ, and damping.

One last thing, look up the Audiokinesis Swarm Subwoofer System, which is a bass array using four subs. You don’t specifically need the swarm system but adding another pair of subs, or even just a third sub run in mono, may help equalize the bass response in your room.

I really do not have the room for 2 big subwoofers,,LOL.

I have a Harley in there and do not want to give up that for another Sub and it really is just few songs that come up from time to time that makes me not totally satisfied and maybe best just to delete them from my Tidal selection..

I have been really thinking hard in Fall to hire someone to see if they can come in and adjust for optimum sound on what I have...Any one of you in NJ ..LOL

Thank You Again

If 95% of your playlist sounds good with current settings, don’t shake the cradle.

Crossover, phase, PEQ settings and placement should not be changed and remain constant, if your setup is correct.

For the remaining 5%, (i.e. there are many mastering technicians screwing up recordings all day), determine if dropping or raising the sub volume through your SVS phone app fixes it. What you are ’perceiving’ as boom may be just a case of the sub running a couple of db hot for such a recording.

Essentially, you should only have 3 memorized volume settings for your subs, one for very bass anemic recordings, one for hot and one for normal that you can quickly change with your app, i.e. not go crazy with the tweaking.

Other times, you could even avoid doing any sub volume changes and just use tone control/bass on your amp, if the latter is controllable through a remote.

Last year went to a SVS SB16 Sub and 95 percent of songs it sounds beautiful.

But other songs has boomy sound and I have tinnitus and guess at times think it may be my hearing ...

But at times would like to get a professional in that understands all the adjustments the SVS has that I do not understand..

Do others have this issue or is it that Subs can not be adjusted for every song that is played and the way it was recorded causes this at times ???

Tried to correct title Your Subwoofer Settings !!!

This starts with finding the best sub locations in your room for optimal bass, which you can do using the crawl method.

https://www.audioholics.com/home-theater-connection/crawling-for-bass-subwoofer-placement

Then after that dial the sub’s settings in properly.

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-properly-set-your-subwoofers-volume-without-sh-1506136549

Doing these things, if you haven’t already done both properly, should get you better results.  And I agree that you should add a second sub when possible because it makes a big difference, again assuming you have them properly set up.  Best of luck. 

The most common reason for the symptoms you have described is a narrow room mode that only certain songs excite. You can have up to 20 dB or more in one very narrow band. EQ is usually the best way to solve this particular issue. This implies measurements though, but the problem should just be glaringly obvious once you measure.

Sometimes there is a related issue, where 1-2 peaks cause the listeners to set the overall subwoofer level too low. Once you clip the peaks you can then raise the subwoofer to taste.

Of course, bass traps and subwoofer placement also are useful but if the problem is as described, an EQ in just the sub can be magic.

Thank You ... I had duals with smaller amp and when I went to larger amp decided to go largest SVS and most part happy because larger sub sounds more natural in bass sound than my small duals ever did.. 

But I know tinnitus effects some of what I experience at times but wanted to see if others do feel the same about their subwoofer and what they hear from them.

"Do most find that subwoofer settings are not perfect for every song you play ??"

Yes it will always be recording dependent.  Nothing is mixed the same.  If you have a high enough resolving system you will even find this from track to track on the same album.  It's frustrating.

The boom coms from over pressurizing the room with bass when it gets trapped and has nowhere to go.  Most people will say, and I agree, that two subs are much better than one because it will lessen room node/modes.

There will be many people typing that you need a dozen subs, you need room correction, you need to replace all your lamp shades with ones made from Panda etc.  Your best bet is to employ two subs and get them away from the corners so they don't couple up.  Good luck!

I don't unless I set the gain or crossover frequency too high.  It's tempting to turn those settings up to add bass to the music. It makes some songs sound better.