Subwoofer suggestion to Integrate w/ Meyer HD-1's

Stearnsn,

My two cents....

X-800.

You are best to stick with the same manufacurer. Meyer make studio quality gear. This is very different from audiophile speakers and I doubt this will integrate well with anything but a studio grade sub.

Firstly, your speakers are capable of very high ouput levels - something which is expensive and hard to to achieve accurately between 20 and 40 Hz on a sub. So get a studio grade high output sub to match.

Secondly, studio grade monitors generally tend to have excellent transient response and tightly controlled bass. This will give you the impression of a "lack of bass" if you are used to hearing your music collection on audiophile speaker designs with copious warm bass (a big selling "wow" feature in competitive floor demos and, after all, audiophile designers are only giving customers what they want/demand).

After a while of listening to Meyer HD 1's you may find you gradually get used to the "lack of bass" and realize that the bass sounds markedly different on each and every track. Instead of mush you should be able to clearly hear the individual notes in the bass guitar riff or double bass loop (even with heavy drumming and music over the top).

There are three ways that audiophile speaker designers make bass appear stronger...

1) higher signal or boost in the bass frequency response (often a bump between 80 and 100 Hz) using tuned reflex ports
2) a higher Q or more resonant design (bass notes sound stronger because they do not decay as quickly)
3) higher amounts of harmonic distortion (often as a result of choices 1 and 2 above)

None of these commmon audiophile speaker design approaches (which sound very pleasant/impressive) are very useful/popular with studio engineers that need to make decisions on how to adjust & precisely EQ the bass response when mix/mastering. (They want to know what is actually in the source music rather than have a sound tailored to their taste)

Here is a test for you; Try some organ music! I suspect you will discover that copious amounts of resonant bass in the source music will result in lots of resonant room shaking bass coming out of your HD 1's (at least this is the way it should be - if it doesn't then as they say "Houston, we have a problem!")

Thanks Shadorne,

I am concerned that the X-800's might be too much for my space. Am I wrong?

I noticed in your system you use a sub with your ATC's which have similar freq. response as the Meyers. How is that working for you?

The Bluesky Sub15 might be worth a look, too. It measures very well.

www.abluesky.com

Stearnsn,

The sub integrates well but ultra LF bass is always a mess because of any room. In my case I needed a PEQ to tame bass room modes (room modes not just from the sub but from the mains also). This is not ideal but it is practical (idealy it is better to plaster every square foot of the room wall spaces with massive bass traps rather than EQ down the modal bumps in the main signal with notch filters). I do have four monster sized corner traps and they do work to create a larger sweetspot with more even bass around the room and better clarity in the lower mid but they are pretty much ineffective below 60 Hz (biggest benefit seems to be 100 to 1000 Hz but I haven't confirmed this with precise measurements).

Specifically I run the sub up to 90 Hz and the speakers full range and then use a PEQ to EQ ONLY the sub to get a reasonably flat room response - in all honesty it is still far from ruler flat! It is probably the best compromise as the primary signal from the speakers being nearly full range leads to some good room bass modes whilst the sub more more than helps fill in any nulls due to its different position from the mains. This setup leaves me with copious bass (way too much) which then allows me to apply notch filtering to the sub wherever there are room modal peaks.

It is easiest to start out with way too much bass and then tame room modes. If you lack bass and have a problem with nulls then you are stuck with moving the main speakers around for the best compromise (as you can't boost nulls - a null being a null means it ain't there at the listening position!).

Thanks! Do you use your ears to adjust the EQ or do you use some sort of analyzer?