Subwoofers and Phase Question For You Sub Experts


I use a pair of Dunlavy SC-3 speakers, known for their time/phase coherent crossover design.

When the stars align the speakers completely disappear and there’s a sense of space and 3 dimensionality that I’ve heard from few other speakers/systems. It’s easy to destroy the illusion with things like poor placement, poor setup of room treatments, etc.

Adding subs to the setup is both a blessing and a curse. The Dunlavy’s need some support in the nether regions and a pair of HSU subs do add a solid foundation to music which enhances the overall presentation; however, it’s at the expense of some stage depth, width and image dimensionality. Placing the subs a few inches forward of the front plane of the speakers helps a little but that isn’t where they perform at their best as ‘subwoofers’.
Finding optimal room positions for bass augmentation always creates a clash with the phase aspect of integration resulting in the diminished soundstage described above.
Playing with phase settings has little impact on the problem since there’s just a toggle for 0 and 180.

Which brings me to the questions - 
1/ How does running a swarm setup, with 4 subs, affect phase/time integration with the mains? Does it create twice or half the issue or remove it altogether?

2/ Looking at subs such as the JL Audio F series with auto room calibration, does the EQ algorithm compensate for any time/phase anomaly or is it simply looking for a more linear bass response?

I don’t mind investing in more sophisticated subs so long as I don’t end up with the same problem. I’m not really inclined to mess with software and the like, unless there’s no other way.

Thanks

Rooze


rooze

Showing 8 responses by kenjit

 There is no such thing as swarm. Its just a bunch of subwoofers rather than a single subwoofer. 


There is no such thing as swarm. 5 subwoofers gives the speaker dealers 5 times the profit and you"ll end up with mega bass in your room that you dont want. One is more than enough for a small room. You will not even have space for 5. Its another band aid that is being touted as the solution to horrible room acoustics that most audiophiles have. 
 I also make my own loudspeakers 
which if i recall correctly has been heavily ridiculed by the experts on diyaudio. 
Erik, what you dont seem to understand is i have ultra perfect high standards. I have heard many high end speakers, and they sound dreadful. How do you explain this? I see and hear problems that seem to elude experts like you. Why is that? Your speakers are nothing more than box speakers. They are equivalent to every other box speaker both in their strengths and weaknesses. The differences that do exist between your speakers and every other box speaker, are immaterial.
Ideally the sound from the sub should reach the listening position at exactly the same time and at exactly the same phase angle as the woofers in the satellite speakers.
Which is not possible with the duke le june swarm technology 
in other words we dont really know how all these things work so just do a bit of each and see what happens.