2. speakers
  3. 158552-131472

Is Sub Gain Set&Forget Across Music Genres a Fallacy?

I have a single subwoofer in each of my 3 installations.  Two Rels (S/5 and R-328), and a Sunfire (SDS8).  L/R's are Spendor D7, D1, and SA1, respectively.

Try as I might, I cannot ever seem to arrive at one sub gain setting (to say nothing of crossover setting, but let's leave that alone for now) that works ideally or even sufficiently for all of the music that I listen to (blues, jazz, rock, classic rock, southern rock, country, some pop).

Maybe I'm naive and the answer is simple - of course dummy, why would you think there'd be a single setting that would work for everything?  

It'll sound perfect for certain songs/genres (majority), but then I today listen to Jimmy "Duck" Holmes new blues album "Cypress Grove" (really good), which has a TON of bass (and really good recurring bass on certain tracks - probably a pretty good album for sub setup) and I find I need to dial everything way back.

So if I say, okay, this Cypress Grove album is my baseline for setting up my sub, then it'll probably come up wanting on other stuff, ugh.  I am going to get some GIK room treatment monster bass traps to go on the front wall, so I know that will help.

As I said, maybe the simple answer is, YES, there is no such thing as set and forget for subwoofers across music genres.

PIA to keep changing the gain during a listening session but appears that is way it has to be if I don't want to just ignore the non-ideal-ness of the bass with single setting (not my style).....    If that's wrong, LMK what the magic secret is!  

I anticipate some will say multiple subs is the only way to cure this.  Perhaps, but not an option at present time for me.  Looking to keep this discussion to single sub if possible, as I know it could easily morph to a swarm discussion quickly. 

If sub swarm is the only answer, however, I suppose I could accept that.  But if room treatment and careful setup can get there, that's preferable.  Maybe set/forget not even possible with swarm - kinda seems like this could be an issue that more subs don't necessarily fix? 
kren0006

Showing 1 response by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
You already have the answer. Take any two subs and move them to the third system creating a three sub system. When you see how much better that works and want to try and blame it on the room, or the system, or anything other than the fact its the multiple subs, move them all to the next system. And the next. However many moves it takes to finally sink in that yes indeed DBA is the way.

Then once you figure this out realize there's a reason for the old Loudness switch. Volume affects subjective bass perception, big time. Because of this there is no one magic level that will ever be perfect for all volume levels. So make your sub level adjustments very slight, very carefully, and very gradually. 

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

Go and listen. You will see.
More to discover