The speakers don't have a bass hump, your room does........
Interesting (or not) dilemma
I could use some advice here.
I have owned and enjoyed a pair of Revel M20's for a decade. Still like them
with one important exception.
Due to logistics, I have them on stands some three feet from the back wall
with my seating position seven feet from the speakers --as far back as possible--there's a wall behind the chair.
The room is far from optimum-no carpeting and bare (ok some paintings) walls very solid parquet floors.
(I have a wife enraptured by minimalist design! Room treatments are out.
The problem. These speakers have a serious (on some recordings) bass "hump" at around 100HZ (my guess based upon a comment in Stereophile's original review--it IS there.). It is a distinct boominess
at a very specific HZ level and not present above and below it. These are rear ported speakers with otherwise wonderful sound.
As a solution I was thinking of adding a small subwoofer (REL7) and utilizing a cross over point to
take some of the bass load away from the Revels. Am I nuts? I could use some intelligent advice.
Thanks
I have owned and enjoyed a pair of Revel M20's for a decade. Still like them
with one important exception.
Due to logistics, I have them on stands some three feet from the back wall
with my seating position seven feet from the speakers --as far back as possible--there's a wall behind the chair.
The room is far from optimum-no carpeting and bare (ok some paintings) walls very solid parquet floors.
(I have a wife enraptured by minimalist design! Room treatments are out.
The problem. These speakers have a serious (on some recordings) bass "hump" at around 100HZ (my guess based upon a comment in Stereophile's original review--it IS there.). It is a distinct boominess
at a very specific HZ level and not present above and below it. These are rear ported speakers with otherwise wonderful sound.
As a solution I was thinking of adding a small subwoofer (REL7) and utilizing a cross over point to
take some of the bass load away from the Revels. Am I nuts? I could use some intelligent advice.
Thanks
12 responses Add your response
Thanks--you guys have made me think about this with better perspective. I gotta do something about the room. The funny thing about the "issue" is the problem only occurs on certain recordings and specific pieces of music on those recordings. For eg--the Jayhawks "The Eyes of Sarah Jane" when the bass player hits one note at each exact same point in the song--there is a loss of control and the bass literally booms. The rest of the song (and the record)--the bass is tight and beautifully controlled/balanced. So, at one bass frequency the speaker appears to lose control--it performs well at lower and higher frequencies in the "bass range." I am taking some advice a few posts ago and am going to reconfigure my room--putting the speakers in the center away from back walls and my listening position also away from any back wall. Luckily we are looking to move in a year or so and I can have "room" to design my listening room! |
Post removed |
Here ya go: http://tripp.com.au/sbir.htm Enter dimensions in mm to find the likely frequencies of your peaks and nulls - experiment with placement accordingly. |
Assuming you can't get rid of your wife anytime soon for whatever reason, the best solution may be some form of room EQ. Something like the DSpeaker anti-mode 2.0 would take care of the hump and probably some other issues, and I've seen them pop up used from time to time for 500-600 bucks. http://www.dspeaker.com/en/products/20-dual-core.shtml I doubt a sub will help since you'll likely want to cross it over well below 100Hz, although a sub is still a good idea for the other significant benefits it can bring. The anti-mode 2.0 can help integrate that as well. Best of luck with this. |