Subs with room correction DSP?

mijostyn
Thanks for the advice but 2 things: 
1: My speakers claimed frequency response is 25Hz-30kHz but I see a drop off in the bass around 35Hz so the subs are just filling in the very bottom.  
2: I use an integrated amp, so I'm not able to use this pre-amp you are recommending. 
That being said, I don't see the need to roll the main speakers off if they aren't struggling to provide most of the bass. 
If I had some small monitors, then yes, I would agree that rolling off the main speakers would be a good idea.  

@traudio , take a deep breath and let it out. You are on the right path. The only error I see in your approach is that you have to include your main speakers in the mix. The issues with subwoofer integration are the right two way crossover point and slope, phase and time matching with the main speakers and finally what most people call room control which is really speaker control. 

For most systems the right TWO WAY crossover point is going to be between 80 and 100 Hz. This is NOT just a low pass filter on the subwoofer but a corresponding high pass filter on the main speakers. Trying to integrate subwoofers with just a low pass filter is ....fill in the blank. Relieving the main speakers of having to make low bass lowers distortion through the lower midrange and increases headroom.  Through the crossover region the subwoofer has to be in phase with the main speakers and the sound from the main speakers has to reach your ears at exactly the same time as that from the subwoofers. If this is not the case you wind up with the sonic equivalent of mud. Phase is cyclic so you can be in phase but out of time. You have to be both in phase and time for the best performance. Room control is equalization to fill in room nodes evening out the frequency response at the listening position. The only way all three issues can be fulfilled is via digital bass management. The best way to accomplish this is with a digital processing preamplifier. These range from the very respectical MiniDSP SHD at $1500 with the best microphone to the $12,000 Trinnov Amethyst. My personal favorite is the DEQX Pre 8 which is going to be released shortly, price yet to be determined. There is also the Anthem STR at $4500. 

Two subwoofers are mandatory. Do not even bother with one. Without two subwoofers and digital bass management with room control most people will be better of without subwoofers.

I have been pleasantly surprised with the ease of setup of my Perlisten subs.  The DSP was so easy to setup I thought I must be doing something wrong.  There are several subs that use in-room feedback and re-calculate output in realtime.  They state that it recalculates 1000 times per second.  They are not cheap but will go toe-to-toe with JL.  

If you want microphone based setup, Velodyne supports this.  There is a new distributor for Velodyne and you ought to reach out to them directly to get details. 

Full Disclosure - I am a current Perlisten retailer and former Veloydyne regional distributor so I am familiar with both products.  

I should also point out, the AM Acoustics room mode simulator is a great tool for finding the initial placements for subs, speakers and listening locations.  Try to keep all three away from the lowest room mode locations.

After that, I'd keep your Hsu and add a miniDSP rather than buy anyone's room correction, assuming you already have the measurement capabilities. It's going to be a lot cheaper.

Another tip:  If your main speakers are ported, plug them. It makes integration easier, and reduces main speaker distortion and improves it's dynamic range.

After that is all done, integrate the slopes and delay.

Next, clip any narrow bass peaks before setting the sub level. 

Set your sub to descend from it's lowest viable frequency, about 1.25 to 1.5 or 2 db/octave.  OK, now set the sub level by ear.

I bought a 15’’ sub from paradigm, the most affordable line and it had ARC built in. If I remember correctly it had me use my tablet mic and took measurements from several specific spots in the room.

@doctors11 You're welcome. Personally, I've never bought anything primarily based on a professional review. I do read them though. Sometimes after the purchase.

Reading commentary from actual users and asking questions, mostly here, has served me well - Zavfino cables and my Rogers amp are 2 examples.

@macg19 Thanks for that detailed response. I guess it's really room dependent. One of the reviews I read showed REW measurements with ARC on and off and there was an obvious smoothing in the bass response at the listening position. He only used his phone mic and still got pretty good measurements. I'm guessing his room was considerably smaller than yours and I seem to remember he had some treatments in it. I'll keep reading, again, thanks.

@doctors11 My experience was with a single ML Dynamo 1100X and the Perfect Bass Kit. I have a very difficult room to deal with - 60 ft wide, 20 ft deep, 8ft ceiling, open floor plan, lots of glass.

I tried front and downward firing, and had the wireless kit so I could try any location in the room. I had the iOS app which provides a lot of control - perhaps too much, and you can toggle the ARC setting on an off to hear exactly what ARC does (or doesn't do in my case).

The Perfect Bass Kit is a joke. The hardware and cables are cheap, I had to tape the connection to the mic and hold the USB connector in the PC just right to get it to recognize the mic. 

When I finally did get it to work and loaded the ARC file to the sub, it made zero difference. I tried ARC with the sub in multiple locations on the room. Total waste of time.

I sold the ML and replaced it with 2 REL T/9x which are shared with my 2 channel and 5.2 channel HT system. Set phase to 0, played with gain and crossover until I was happy and I'm done. Bass sounds rich, full, controlled, and there is no longer a massive overload of bass in one corner of the room (not sure what you call that but there is a term for it)

btw I did a video consult with an acoustic treatment "expert" and he basically said he wouldn't touch my room because it would be both expensive and ugly and not pass WAF (think panels on wheels). I've done a lot with rugs, furniture and panels on walls though. He told me that room correction software in general, and especially dialing in subwoofer phase, really only works in rooms with decent acoustics & dimensions. Basically he told me that I was wasting my time with ARC, which I already knew at that point.    

Note the T/9x is slightly cheaper than ML 1100X and IMO are much better if 2 channel is your priority. I'm a firm believer in using 2. 1 just doesn't make sense for 2 channel audio - you are summing L and R output into one speaker. 

Note I just replaced the high-level speakon connectors supplied with the RELs with a pair from designacable dot com. I was surprised at how much these improved the sound. $190 for the pair - I wish I'd done this sooner. The stock cables are clearly crap. I'll write up more on this in a separate post later.  

Hope that helps.

@macg19  I'm interested in your comment on the Paradigm and Martin Logan subs. I've read some pretty good reviews on them, even here on Audiogon, saying they offered clean tight bass and that the room correction gave a smooth response in the listening position. Have you had a bad experience? Thanks.

Has anyone used the SVS SoundPath Wireless adapter with the SVS Subs?

@m-db I didn’t say the sub crawl was a gimmick, it is not and I have done it and understand it. What I was suggesting is that it is not necessary if you use 2 subs as an extension of each speaker for 2 channel. You can see my set up in my profile but you are correct in terms of l placement. Also I went with 2 REL T/9x because they are advertised as low bass extensions and not so much a true subwoofer

For a multi channel home theatre set up where very low frequency special effects are in play it’s a different story.

My set up is ideal for 2 channel and a compromise for my 5.2 system. (Which shares the mains and the RELs)

FWIW, the REL crossovers are set to 48Hz, the mains are rated at 50Hz, and the gain is just 5 clicks so they are barely breathing.

Always wear your sunscreen !

I have two JL Audio F112V2's in my set up and it sounds fantastic! Before purchasing them I borrowed my brothers SVS subs. They were great in his more Home Theater based system, but sounded very sloppy and  bloated in my audio focused room despite many attempts to tighten them up and get some degree of refinement. 

@macg19 No subwoofer crawl or gimmicky software with "special" mics required.

If you’re using a -6dB sub-bass speaker/s they roll off around 40Hz and simply do not output enough subsonic frequency to excite most rooms standing waves. I’m guessing your using one or two satisfactorily right next to your main speakers which are typically located in the rooms null?

Actual subwoofers output a far lower frequency which can excite a rooms standing waves. The subwoofer crawl IS exactly the gimmick that easily demonstrates the reverse locations of most, if not all, the rooms standing waves for subwoofer positioning in relation to the listening position.

A four sub distributed bass array can eliminate a rooms standing waves all together making the crawl moot. Either method does not require a purpose built room.

The ability to process and compensate poorly recorded bass or to simply to kick out the jams with punched up deep bass is really fun audio nonsense. Your happy, we’re happy. Don’t forget the sunscreen.

My short answer:  I have two SVSs in my HT room and a single JL Audio Fathom 112v2 in my two channel room and they are both excellent in their application. I'm very pleased with the results of the JL room correction.  The JL sounds very fast, smooth and well integrated with the mains.  Fair disclosure, I have full bass traps in my two channel room.  Cheers

ARC on the ML subs works well for me.  Just used my iphone as the mic with the app from my listening position and it cured some room issues I had no problem. 

Also used the Velodyne SMS-1 management system with dual Bag End Infrasubs back in the day when I had more space.  That took hours to get right.

@traudio 

Contact Duke LeJeune at audiokinesis. He is an expert with subs and will give you the advise you need. You will be glad you did. 

Syzygy subs came with a trouble free automatic room correction feature that was run from a iPhone app, but you have to shop used since they went out of business during COVID.

I think I'm going to go with SVS. 
Has anyone used the SoundPath Wireless Audio Adapter? Does it work well?

My B&W DB2 can do room corrections with the iPhone app in a minute and the rest is quite good (to pair with my B&W 803D3. 

Martin Logan and Paradigm subs both use Anthem’s ARC Genesis software and a USB mic for room correction. The software can be downloaded for free but I think you have to buy the “Perfect Bass Kit” to get the mic.

The ARC "kit" and SW is a joke. Absolute garbage hardware.

You might start by researching the value of two, or more subwoofers vs. one.

This is what I did. Assuming you are not building a home theatre, using 2 subs as bass extensions of your mains is relatively easy. No subwoofer crawl or gimmicky software with "special" mics required.

Alternatively, buy a miniDSP 2x4HD, UMIK-1 and download REW and any sub can be room corrected.

Nonsense. No room correction solution can "room correct" a sub that is in a room that is an acoustic nightmare, which is the case for many of us without purpose built rooms.   

I agree a remote for my RELs would have been nice though.

I'm really happy with my two older SVS Ultra 13 subs with the upgraded plate amps So now I can adjust every sub parameter from my listening chair because of their DSP app that I have on my smart phone No more running back and forth adjusting subs! I have a 2 channel tube stereo rig and 5.2 AV rig  I ran the Dirac from my Emotiva XMC-2 to intergrate the subs into my room REW also does a very good job and it's free, but you need to buy a mic 

It's JL Audio. They're built like tanks, deep, very fast and tight. The newer versions use their room tuning DSP DARO (II) which is much improved over the earlier versions.REL is good- I had an SHO/510 but more subtle, driven by the speaker leads and did not have any tuning. SVS make a decent one with a decent phone based app to tune it with-but its not in the same league as the JL product imo and my experience. Depending on your budget you can also get the JL CR1 which is a pretty sophisticated - and tonally invisible- active crossover that will really tune the sub, the room and the main speakers. 

Svs has a very good app and you can buy a usb Mike and REW program 

which is very good ,and Svs can assist in this to fine tune your room 

the best self contained Room correction is theJL Audio Fathom subs 

a bit expensive but very accurate and tuneful.

Martin Logan and Paradigm subs both use Anthem’s ARC Genesis software and a USB mic for room correction. The software can be downloaded for free but I think you have to buy the “Perfect Bass Kit” to get the mic. Unfortunately you cannot use your own mic (like a UMIK-1) with the Anthem ARC software.

Alternatively, buy a miniDSP 2x4HD, UMIK-1 and download REW and any sub can be room corrected. Requires a bit more effort and there is a bit of a learning curve, but IME, it can deliver better results than built in room correction.

There’s the Velodyne Acoustics DD Plus. It requires a subwoofer crawl to identify room locations. Connections to either a TV or a laptop to monitor adjustments. It’s supplied with a calibrated mic positioned at the listening position and connected to the sub. A Sweep Tone CD thats played as the Auto EQ runs a twenty minute sweep of the room, main speakers and the sub/s between 200-15Hz all at the same time. The Plus Auto EQ adjusts the subwoofers thirteen parameters within eight discrete frequency bands which reflect the mains presentation onto the sub beginning at 100Hz to 20Hz. The process is graphically monitored on the TV or laptop and saved to memory.

At this point the six manufacturer presets have also been auto EQ’d and have been saved to memory.

After completion the user can choose to open the Frequency Response and Parameters Screen (page 10-11 User Interface Manual) and augment the the Auto EQ by making multiple simultaneous adjustments using the drag and drop feature. As well as manual adjustments of all the individual parameters and save to an individual memory preset.

http://velodyneacoustics.com/pdf/digitaldriveplus/DD+Manual.pdf

https://www.velodyneacoustics.com/pdf/digitaldriveplus/DD+UserInterfaceManual.pd

In my experience with an early JL F113 v1 and an early DD-18 were well over a decade old and their processing dramatically different. Despite those differences, I believe their unique in house driver technology and build quality were on par with each other. The F113 driven by the EQ settings of the DD was simply phenomenal.

IMO todays home audio enthusiast still struggle with trial and error room positioning as result of manufactures erroneous location suggestions. They’re stifled by deficient and complicated low frequency signal processing and integration measures some requiring dealer assistance. Having experienced the potential and ease of implementation that David Hall and his developers succeeded in, anybody would agree all these subwoofer mysteries were elegantly and affordably solved over a decade ago.

Soon after Velodyne’s DD Plus barely marketed release it seems brighter avenues of technology altered the goals of one of the biggest little subwoofer manufactures and leaving home audio with undefined DSP marketing, line arrays and chrome plated -6dB sub-bass speaker six packs doing the low frequency rope-a-dope.

The SVS is looking good. 
Yes there is an app to control it, but it's still just guesswork without a program to measure the frequency response of the room. 

I believe SVS and now Hsu offer some sort of app that lets you configure the sub from your listening location.

I don't know about Hsu, but I have two SVS subs. The app includes PEQ, phase, level, polarity, low-pass filtering, and more. All configuration can be done from the listening chair.

I believe SVS and now Hsu offer some sort of app that lets you configure the sub from your listening location.

I’m in the market for a sub or two

You might start by researching the value of two, or more subwoofers vs. one.

Also, it would be great to see what your system looks like under virtual system. What frequency range should the subs be covering? How big is your room? What are the room dimensions?

Another question that I have is why don’t more manufacturers offer subwoofer DSP? What is the downside of DSP? I can see that the upside might be the ability to place the subwoofer(s) in less than ideal position. Is DSP one of the top features needed when shopping for subwoofers?

I recognize that you simply asked for DSP subwoofer brands/models, but I guess that I’m asking why DSP and is this the best solution for your room/equipment? I went with REL and it did take some work to get things right, but that was a one time effort.  One of the main challenges that I had with bass was keeping the stylus/cartridge/tonearm/platter free from the subwoofer output.  This issue extends beyond analog play, but can also act upon other components.

Lastly, are you trying to get things right within a two cubic foot listening box, or will you need to consider a larger listening area?  This is an important question and one that goes back to subwoofer placement, type and number.

The Elac Varro series has automated room correction, though I don’t know the details (how many bands it adjusts, for example). Review here. I believe it takes its measurements with a smartphone or tablet.

The SVS models come with an app with three PEQ points, but you need to measure them independently to make the settings. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are iPad apps for measuring frequency response, but I don’t know for a fact.

The apps are a definite improvement over running back and forth, which gets tiresome and breaks concentration.

I don't have a laptop, do any of these room measurement programs run on an iPad?

new REL.

Thanks for the responses so far. 
In the past I've had earlier model REL Subs and it was constant running back & forth between the sub and the listening seat. Adjust, listen, adjust, listen over and over. 
A remote would be a big help of course. 
In any case, was it JL that you plugged a mic into and ran some test tones, or am I thinking of another brand? 

lyngdorf amps do room correction with subs integrated

The best are JL audio but damn, expensive. :)

I wouldn't worry too much though, setting a subwoofer right is relatively easy with any DSP correction.  Just look at the peaks, clip them, tip the frequency response generally downwards from ~ 16Hz or as low as your sub goes. 

So if you can save a couple of grand and get something else, with Room EQ wizard and a mic I'd encourage it.