Does your room have TOO MUCH or TOO LITTLE bass?
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- Опубліковано 22 лип 2024
- Ah bass, getting it just right, the smoothest, flattest bass in your room, the Audiophiliac is here to help. To accomplish this goal the Audiophiliac lays out his method of "mapping" the bass peaks and nulls in your room.
Your tool for the job is a sine wave generator app, such as these two:
Online Tone Generator, www.szynalski.com/tone-genera...
Audio Signal Generator, apps.apple.com/us/app/audio-s...
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I did as you told and the effect was mind blowing 😀 not only did it improve bass perception but the overall soundstage itself is much enhanced now. Thank you so much 👍
The neighbours found my bass.
I fixed that problem I moved to the country LOL
Everyone hears my bass..... How low can you go??? 🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊
Hello Steve, another excellent video. For your viewers, Tidal has an album called “Audio line-up test tones (calibration reference check)”. The album contains a hundred plus tracks, including drum beats, sweeps and test tone. Take care, Brian
Hmmm, have to check that out!
Legend thanks 👍👍
If too little bass step 1 is to check to make sure you don't have the speakers wired out of phase, then proceed with Steve's advice.
A very good advice, indeed.
I once sold a pair of relatively well-playing floorstand speakers to a mate. After some weeks he came back to me and complained over the lack of bass, which shouldn't at all be the case with these speakers. But of course, no room is alike the other. So I came over for a listen: no bass. Disconnected, so only one speaker played at the same time. Bass was back. Positioned them front-to-front: no bass. Clear sign of wrong polarity on one of the speakers. After fixing this, the bass was there. And the sound was absolutely marvelous in the room. So always make sure the polarity is correct as the first point on your checklist.
How do you check that.
@@adamk4716 Check the speakers when playing music while positioned front-to-front: If the bass is gone, one of the speakers have wrong polarity *.
Which one, is determined by the wire connections from the amp to the speakers (correct connections are minus to minus, plus to plus).
(*Explanation: The speaker with wrong polarity moves the cone backwards instead of forward in each sound pulse. So the bass (and the remaining sound, but this is not as audible) from the speaker with correct polarity is acoustically 'sucked up' by the speaker with wrong polarity).
One the best guides so far. Simple to follow and practical advice.
My speakers were set up according to the Cardas golden ratio room calculator, in my 10 x 16 room nonetheless. I had a complete bass suckout at the listening position, I think bc two of the walls are brick outside walls plus concrete slab. So I bit the bullet and setup the speakers along the long wall, as to per golden ratio still, and now I've got fantastic bass at the chair.
So sometimes what's supposed to be ideal isn't in your room, and only moving things around can fix it.
Hi Steve
One of your best video’s yet such a big help thanks
i just got my first system this week. I used your advice in this video and it went from great to amazing. Excellent timing for the topic :-)
Steve, a more general thank you for the encouragement to keep fiddling to find improvements. I started with the tone generator (educational!) but this exercise for some reason led me to looking into other things too, and I found a settings change on the computer I use as my streaming source (Tidal & Plex) that made a really significant difference. I was just sitting there doing A/B comparisons, and then WOW it all clicked.
Thing is in a room high and mid never in the same position as bass. This is why I use bookshelves with huge subs. And place the sub in the middle of the room as near to listening position as possible. So you can turn the volume of sub down as low as possible. This setup sound best to me.
Sweet, I really want to try an extra Rel sub, place them for optimal smoothed out bass, then small point source bookies that does not go down low and optimize for highs, mids and staging 👍
Great video!! I’ve been experimenting with this very subject these days. I recently bought a new home and the room I have my system into has been a bit of a challenge finding the bass. Little by little I’m finding it. But definitely not perfect.
Love your videos really enjoy watching.
Hi Steve, thanks for the advice given here, based on your advice I was able to improve my bass and the overall sound quality of my system. I toed in the speaker bit more and moved the sofa 6 inches closer to the system which resulted in a sound that have more punch to it. The image have become more accurate too. Thank you so much!
Thanks for this. That Online Tone Generator was awesome tip. From this you could talk even more.
mr. Finglish (Bäd English Recs)
This seems like a really good exercise. I’ll give it a try, even in my small room.
Great advice Steve👍👍
Great information. I hope to try it this weekend.
love this vid. im always telling every om play with the speaker placement 1st
You know what is so great about Rock n Roll?
A: You can truly enjoy the song on a handheld transistor radio.
Thank you Sir for the great advice you gave us
Great advice!, thank you!
Thanks Steve, very useful.
Great points. I used a tone generator when integrating my sub. I also use pink noise and an RTA apps on my phone to get me in the ballpark for position and toe in. Once I was pretty good, I listened to some music. For good recordings, I change nothing. For weak recordings, I use my Schiit Loki to compensate.
Steve, I watch your show to try to learn how to make my crappy equipment sound the best it can. You are appreciated. ;)
Great great advise Steve : knowledge, methodology and patience are key, not thin (less than 1,5 m) «bass traps».
@Lloyd Stout 24 inches might be useful for 140,66 Hz. Even 1,5 m isn't always enough.
Adjusting the sub phase made a night and day difference with my system. Changing the sub distance in my AVR settings, I could hear the beat "rush" or "lag." Really changed the coherence and tightened things up.
I recently got 10 cm higher stands for my S400, which totally moved them from overloading the room, to being really acceptable (crazy I know). Also walking the room with a tone generator was the most eye opening thing I ever did for appreciating how bass behaves in a small room. Great topic 👍
Great suggestion. Never thought to look for a tone generator app.
I use it to find annoying resonances and then turn down that specific frequency on my mini-dsp.
@@woohunter1
Just be aware that you are also removing that specific frequency from any music you will be listening to.
That's fine if you're O.K. with it, but you should at least be aware of it. ~_^
@@HareDeLune well aware of it, don’t turn it down completely, just enough to keep my wall hung tv from rattling at high volumes. Sometimes, small sacrifices must be made.
@@woohunter1
T.V.'s are a damned nuisance to work around.
What to do? What to do?
@@woohunter1 Could you tell us the model of your dsp? Thank you ver much!!
If you have a laptop you can also use the online tone generators when you connect the laptop to your stereo.
Awesome positional EQ tutorial!!
I liked that this episode addresses where the bass is in the room and how it's behaving within the room once it leaves the speakers. Especially telling is listening to the speakers up close to see what's really coming out of them before anything has a chance to influence them. In addition to speaker position and listening position, I would add a few things that happen at the speaker as the waves first leave it. These affect the characterization of the waves that then move into the rest of the room. Speaker to floor isolation - anything that is being transmitted to the floor and/or back into the speakers from the floor. Any floor 'treatments' on a bare floor, likely carpeting - immediately under and for certain in front of front of the speakers. For an extreme example of a bad starting position, the famous graphic 'Blown Away' shows JBL L100's, a bookshelf speaker, sitting directly on the floor - wood in this case. I suggest correcting any faux pa's like this before bothering with walking around the room. Also, if you have an area carpet sitting in front of the speakers, it might be easy to simply roll it up a bit at a time to see what happens. :):)
@GeneralCurtis3LeMay
*SPHEERE!!!!*
Well explained! 👍
Good video I have been updating my system and watching your videos I was thinking I need a sub woofer but I will try what you suggested thanks for the information
Exceptional....useful...applicable
another fantastic video
Awesome!
"And you know something is happening but you don't know what it is" Thank you Bob Dylan.
Interesting video, thank you. I usually crawl around the room (soar knees), finding bass peaks :) Since my ears have aged to below 10KHz now, I find the bass in music more important. For my music den - the best place to hear the bass is in the hall outside with the door open. I assume the hallway is acting as a bass resonator. Using a variable frequency tone generator; it's surprising just how many objects will rattle around in a room with differing notes.
Good poop, Steve. Very good poop.
The best 'room correction' I have made to date is to add a second small ($150) subwoofer (asymmetrically) and set the phase. It's hard to describe the difference, but said simply, it filled in a bunch of holes in the bass due to standing waves. And, it also tamed a bunch of peaks. And it didn't affect the mids and trebles at all. YMMV, for sure.
I can play the lp of Frank Sinatra and Count Basie and my Heresys play a lot of bass and lower frequecies. Very complete sounding. An original US vinyl pressing of Let It Bleed, I ask where's the bass? Lots of variation in recordings, but I know the little guys can do great bass.
When I bought my surround system for music and not for film viewing my dealer installed my complete system: my av receiver from Arcam and my front speakers type Tempo from Audio Physic (made in Germany), they have a solid base and my dealer used a small sub from Rell type Quake. Because I have a wooden floor he placed the sub on plate of stone, 2 cm thik. The Rell is downfiring. He did what he could with acoustic situation in my room. The back speakers are dipools from Kef. I must thank you for your videos because when you reviewed a cheap but good sounding headphone from Sennheiser, you had in comparison the Hifiman Sundara and the Grado sr 325e. I have a Grado sr 125e but I wanted to upgrade. Today I went to my dealer with my IPad and dragonfly Cobalt and I had a good listen to Sundara about for one our. And I ordered the Sundara, He’s astonishing good. And price: 349 euros. I play lots of classical music and rock, blues,but not modern music.
Thank you again.
Ludo Belgium
I never had an issue with bass until modern compressed music came along which i don't listen much to. But when i do whoa..
I like to listen to the bass-sounds on the Nordost SYSTEM SOLUTION - SET-UP & TUNING DISCS
Indeed move the speakers, especially forward is a good and cheaper tweak.
I did place Isoacoustics Gaia feet under the speakers, not cheap but progress.
Also consider whether you have not purchased a loudspeaker that is too large for your space.
Grtz Phil
I’ll have to try that
The bass is billowing forth from my REL.
I used a sine wave at 23hz amp: 1 at over 100db to get my speakers set up in my living room using the same concept of close and far, walking around, and where my couch is to get the best sound and also feel it as well.
Intersting. I have just consultet GiK for recommendarion but I will fisrt try this method out.
I got 4 R-12sw's from Costco ($600)for my big room HT setup. Fixed the bass and don't have to turn them up much at all
I enjoy tactile bass with my Subpac S2 strapped to my chair w a good pair of closed back headphones .
If you're suing subwoofers, I also suggest using REW to help find where the placement THEORETICALLY works best as a starting point.
That dang blasted tone generator: Every time I see how high it goes, it stops working at a lower frequency.
Having a calibrated 🎤 and using REW software is very very beneficial.
So HSU Research has a very good bass tuning DVD with various tones, sweeps, and very well miked live recordings/videos. It comes with a sub purchase but I think is available separately for a reasonable price. I'm still experimenting with a 15" HSU and some Vandersteen 2Ci's.
When i decide to tweak and tune my sound system one of the tracks i use to check the bass response is Sweden Rhythm by Two Fingers. The second is "Expanded" by Bass Nectar.
The most powerful bass effect in my house appears to be 8 feet outside the room, at the toilet. Lol
I like the up close experiment. I have my speakers on a wide bookshelf, ear level with my seating position with the subwoofer in the corner. High frequency a tad harsh with no tone controls. It’s not a desirable set up but space is at a premium.
Tried toeing out the speakers slightly, to reduce the treble harshness?
JL W7 inside is bass perfection :)
I have my speakers either side of my chimney breast, and my sub inside the cavity where the fire was. Works really well for me. My listening room has no furniture apart from my listening chair, and my rack.
I like how you said breast and rack and cavity it all kind of fits.
Innuendo a go go
There's a nice concrete slab on the chimney breast.
Good spot for a single sub!
I used that spot for the turntable stand when I lived in London;
@@carlitomelon4610 wall mounted turntable, plenty of carpets :)
Steve, the story of your father not wanting to "ware out" his new color t.v. is so me that I had to slap myself in the face; I love your messy listening room.
Roger Night , I think my color tv is worn out all ready... LOL
Great advice Steve! But first I have to make sure the wife and kids are out of the house.
It’s all about the bass 🔊🔊no treble 🎶🎶
You can download REW and play with the Room Simulator there. Purchase measuring mic and a laser distance measurement device. With 100 bucks you'll have a good picture on where you sit.
Can you suggest a good mic? What do you feed the mic into when doing this trial?
Umik 1
@@aaronschen9896 Does this mic plug into a phone with an app or a tape deck mic input so that the tape deck meters are used to see the level?
Thank you for yours incredible reviews. Please give me advice. I'd like buy speaker and amplifier. Amplifier could be without any DAC and phono stage. My room is small 14 square meters. Distance between speakes could be about 2 meters and same distance for listening position. I like holographic and natural sound. My budget is under 5000 USD. Thank you very mutch.
I don't mean to add more confusion ...but another way is to put one speaker in the listening position and then go to general area you intend to place your speakers ...Slowly move forwards or around the area until it sounds a good balance and put a marker or tape there. Continue moving around and into the room see if the are other sweet spots and mark them too. Then choose and place each speakers on the two parallel marks you think think are the most practical (or as close too as possible) . This is great starting point
You can then do the same thing with a sub woofer. However this time get on your hands and knees... as subwoofers are usually placed lower on the floor. This time however You can move and listen everywhere in your room...even behind or to the sides of the listening chair/ sofa... as bass soundwaves are longer and are omni-directional.
The problem is..usually and typically most of the best sonic places or speaker positions are usually at least 3-4ft into the room...which won't suit everyone. So just moved the speakers backwards to the most practical position...but this obviously will compromise the sound quality to some degree.
But there are many ways but this has always worked for me and seems to make my speakers disappear.
Thx
My sound system is set up in a 35' diameter wooden yurt. It has 10' walls and a 17' peak. There is absolutely no problem with standing waves. The sound is "different" in the center of the yurt, under the acrylic dome. I don't have any complaints. Has anyone else set up their system in a round room? The sound gets even better when I open the windows.
I have a room in the basement for my two channel system. I recently set up some old PSB Alphas (The Amazing Alphas) on some Target stands in front of my floorstanders. I put on Explorations in Time and Space and was meh with the impact of the percussion. I then left the room while it was playing and I found the bass. I went upstairs and it was even more impactful. What gives?
Just want to caution people about feeding a single frequency tone into their speakers. Speakers are designed and rated in power for music, which consists of a complex mix of tones usually, not pure tones. So if your speakers are say rated at 100W, you would NEVER want to approach that level with a pure 50Hz tone, or even say a 10,000Hz tone. To be safe, only send about 1/4 to 1/2 the rated power in when you are playing pure tones, or you may risk a driver being fried.
@@kthmtchll was worried that some might "crank it" if they started experiencing roll off at very low frequencies....
Great Vid Steve!! Simple question - What's considered to be a "small" room vs. a "large" room?? My office is about 10'x11'x9 and I'm guess that's small. My Great room is about 22'x20'x12' however. Is that mid size or large?? TIA!!
I recently moved my system to basement. I got overall more base but from my listening position it got less. I have to move my subwoofer to different location.
I just sit at the best listening position and I don't get any unwanted frequency responses. It's when you're outside the listening sweet spot and beyond is when problem happens. Unless you walk around your room while listening, then you don't really need to worry.
I have plenty problems in the sweet spot 😛
Steve, thanks for the video. I had my subs in the front corners of the room and my magnepan 1.7i's about 4.5 feet from the front wall. I noticed the bass was kind of muddy sounding. So I moved the subs away from the corners and closer to the speakers, wow what a difference, I can now hear more details in the drums! I also notice the bass does not bleed to the upstairs as much, which is a + for my wife who usually askes me to turn the music down. Moving things around can really make a difference!
"something's happening, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones"
Or more simply go near-field , minimize the secondary reflections. Wherever I go it's the same, and I have heard systems up to £15,000 in one case in the mid 2000s ( from Richer sounds). My then friend got angry with me when he put on the £ 8000 speakers that came with it and I said, all I hear is room trouble (Inside he knew I was right, much to his frustration, as he admitted several months later)
A Several hundred dollar near field setup can give cleaner sound, better imaging also. Personally I will never ever go back to a large speaker room setup, as I did when I was younger. Best thing I ever did was go near field. It's that, or headphones.
My room is very generous, it lets the whole street hear the beat, but it is kind enough to keep a wee bit for me to hear it too, would be nice if I had a wee bit more but I’m not complaining, strangely enough my neighbours are though, I think that’s very ungrateful of them!
Steve, semi related question...
I have the Andrew Jones SP-FS52's that have a freq response of 40-20k. Would I really hear that much of a difference if I were to buy the matching sub if it only goes down 2hz to 38? What's the point?
Hey Steve (or anyone else). Where did you get the blonde equipment racks on your right side in this video? Thanks for any help!
Zoethecus...
@@warrenwillis6477 Danke
Steve, I am genuinely curious whether moving your listening chair and speakers, in a dedicated room,...no matter what, you still have an issue in the bass. Whether that's a null or a peak. Since dsp/applying PEQ filters to drop the peaks only isn't your thing, do folks just live with that because to use something like a mini-dsp is bad?
My Trio KA 2000A has the Bass on -2...
An online room mode calculator may give you additional hints
15" speakers, 400w amplifier. Oh, there's the bass.
15” woofers and 12w amp = plenty o bass. It’s all about the grip, control. EL84s do a great job with this.
@@westernartifact580 I agree with that, up to a point. If you want bone-shaking bass, try a 400w head. I say this as a former organist who played left-handed bass in live performances and recordings. Bass needs wattage to punch through.
But room treatment does make a big difference...it's just a matter of how much space you are willing to sacrifice and what type of absorbers you use, since a LOT of mass is required.
It's in the recording
You cannot tell my 8'x9' room that my 12" sub is too big. There's never enough!
(yes, of course it's too much but I love it)
Just in time, im setting my speakers in a new room
my room is a nightmare to set up my Altec 604-8h i have an analogue signal generator i will plug it into my preamp
My ear has lost its bass after getting rid of a lot of earwax. I'm super sensitive to loudness and lower treble now. That's why perception of bass has gone very low. 😔
@GeneralCurtis3LeMay I'm not talking about my devices and my room. I'm talking about my ear getting sensitive to treble after removing shit load of ear wax which has made me unable to hear lower bass in music. From TV speaker or iem or headphone. I can't listen at the volume level I listened to in the past. And all I hear is mid bass and treble.
All this happened after cleaning my ear
@@prabinpaudel5572 wow man, so sorry to hear that. It sounds like you tuned your system to a sound you liked with muffled ear issues but now with clean ears, your system is not to your liking... Start with what Steve is saying here, to see if you can get some bass back. And of course, as you now know, ear health is important to keep up on... I have sensitive ears to high frequencies and can tell when I need an ear cleaning.
@@mkwilson38 I'm Very very new to the hobby. But I follow Steve's video regularly primarily for his music suggestions. Have some budget iems and headphones which can discern well recorded and poorly recorded. Hoping to save and build a system that would bring me even more joy.
Thank you for your concerns. I had almost gone deaf due to wax accumulation when I was 9. I'm 26 now. This time I can hear the same but I'm too sensitive to high pitch noises and low to mid treble. And the bass guitar pulls and drums sound muted from the same gear which I enjoyed couple weeks ago. It's an adjustment. Hope my ear adjusts slowly.
And wish you best wishes on your hobby too. ☺
@@prabinpaudel5572
Your hearing should even out over a few weeks' time. If it doesn't, then you should have it checked, as you may have other problems.
If you ever want to try a different IEM, I can recommend two.
The BLON BL-03 has good, full range sound for about $40.00. Difficult to beat at that price.
The other one is the IKKO OH10, which is around $200.00.
The OH10 is just amazing. I have asked Steve many times to review it.
Oh, and don't waste your time with the troll, because he is a troll. : )
@GeneralCurtis3LeMay
¡¡¡EREHPS!!!
Steve, can a pair of subwoofers be used as a "room correction"?
Yes! Subs are your best choice to achieve smoother low frequencies. One sub unfortunately can make bass more uneven...you MUST use 2 subs (or more) to hear the effect. You CAN work miracles. I'm not suggesting high levels. Goal is better bass. LF is an animal unto itself.
I added two hsu 15 inch sealed subwoofers placed in diagonally apposed corners and it solved my problem. Previous setup had a huge null at listening position. The engineering group at Harmon has a interesting white paper on multiple subs and placement
Thanks guys,I was eyeing a pair of S- series Rel subs .I tried everything else so fingers crossed.
GeneralCurtis3LeMay I assume you meant older subs had more distortion. Yes, agreed, however, the quality of LF with 2 is improved beyond lower distortion. Try it. Also try stereo vs summed. Engaging bass vs boomy is how I'd describe it.
I think what you mean w speed control is a phase adjustment. Yes, it does fine tune things.
Of course this video is up after ordering a subwoofer.
Is the goal to eliminate the room from the equation totally? So, if you put your speakers outside and sat about 6 feet away, that's the perfect scenario? These were not meant to be stupid questions. I probably failed at that.
I have seen a video where they were measuring speaker performance by hanging them from a tree and playing them to eliminate the room affecting the sound.
Indoor speakers are designed for use in rooms...
@@SteveGuttenbergAudiophiliac I am aware that indoor speakers are meant to be used indoors, that was a hypothetical question.
@GeneralCurtis3LeMay
S P H E R E ! ! !
Where's the confounded Bass?
"Where's the beef?!"
I'm just trying to find the Bass
Has anyone seen the Bass
♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Mine is too much
i had to increase the height of my sofabed, so that i get the sweetest bass sound
How’d Steve know my bass isn’t good over by the plant?!?!
Probably changes after a good harvest eh?
Plants don't like bass, so they will move to avoid it.
Steve, for once :) , I am joking, a sensible video !
A pity you can't buy bass in a box.
Subwoofer
Right, let's say Steve's father never took the t.v. out of the box to "keep it new" -- how much would it be worth today?
Not much, vintage TVs aren’t sought after like vintage Audio.
Excellent vid - thanks Steve - - hey, thanks for the tip of using a phone app for a signal generator - yep, I'm a dumb ass baby boomer and still primarily use my phone to make phone calls and field text messages, and so yeah, I've been thinking I need to get around to buying a "full fledged" signal generator to help address the exact issue this vid is about - Hey! use your phone ya dumb ass!! (meaning me) - - so anyway, thanks especially for that advice.
Using your phone to make phone calls?! * gasp *
Say it isn't so! XD
@@HareDeLune ( : awhh shucks Hare - - "I'd be a lyin' if I were a denyin' !!" geeze Hare, ya made laugh right out loud! oh - I mean LOL !! later my friend - Skip
get lower sensitivity speakers