I shocks me on how many audiophiles don't know there is a good and bad areas in their own space. You all never got up while the music was on and moved around the room and noticed the difference? You all have never turned a speaker this or that way to change the sound? You all never figured out that speakers are directional? Or being behind a speaker sounds different? Or a hard surface like a floor or walls would be reflective of the sound like echo in a empty room? You all must have got the best of the best and was told how to set it up and leave it alone and never questioned it. As a kid we learned this stuff because we had lower end equipment and you had to compensate some how. Everything from taking the grills off to putting a towel over half the speaker. One set of speakers pointed at you while having a second set face the ceiling or back wall (this was before separate Subs were a thing). Or one of the most radical things we did was lean the speaker box back at a angle so they didn't sit flat on the floor and then one of us went totally crazy and put the speakers on little 2 foot tall tables. The world was never the same.....
I can attest to the fact that Paul‘s book helped me to really get my speaker placement in the exact right positions where I have never heard my music sound like it does now. A major positive change in my listening experience. I was not expecting a change like this when I made the purchase.
without any book: every speaker has one perfect position within your room and you can how much you angle them matters also a lot - a different speaker or a different room results in a different perfect position
That's a really neat trick with the sub that I never thought of, which uses a concept similar to the principle of reciprocity that we sometimes use when preparing EMC radiated emissions/immunity test setups :)
I struggled with my speaker placement for years, then I followed Paul’s suggestions in his book. In an hour, it solved my problems. Most of the time my speakers vanish, and that’s a really weird sensation. I’m still tweaking, but everything else is a bonus. The book and cd is highly recommended.
that the speakers disappear is a complete ordinary and expected thing and by far not a sensation nor does it need a book to place 2 speakers correctly 1/3 or 1/5 away from walls, seat position same distance from speakers as between speakers and than trial&error how much toe in which highly depends on speakers and room until the image is as wide as possible without compromise phantom center
@@Harald_Reindl oooooookaaaaay! With great respect and love I beg to differ. I’ve just visited and audio show in Toronto and in my opinion, there were only two set ups where the speakers disappeared. I’ve been to few stores where they disappeared. I’ve never been to anyone’s home where they disappeared. So no, it’s not “complete, ordinary and expected”. We wish it were.
@@ramsaybolton9099 because most people are too lazy for experiment with placing their speakers (millimeters of toe in and out make a big difference) and don't care for room acoustics and symmetry of the room - when you understand how stereo imaging works it's no magic
Nice! Thanks, Paul! Coming from car audio, i was shocked - almost nobody builds multi way systems for home Hi Fi stereo. In my car i had tweeters, woofers and a sub, actively crossed over and phase aligned with dsp. Digital signal was converted to analog with 3 dacs and amplified with 5 separate channels of amplification. Now i build similar system at home - a pair of decent bookshelf speakers, two 12 inch subs, and im planing to add 8 inch woofers in between. And im planing to use multiple dacs and software crossover and compare it to analog variant. I think with separate sub(s) you can achieve better bass for less money spent.
When you are smart the subwoofer is directly behind your seat and DSP controlled for volume and distance aka delay - less energy causes less room distortion
@@thr0nic why should i want to energize the entire room when only the sweet-spot is relevant? room-acoustics, near-field and DSP will solve all bass problems and my neighbors are happy too
@@thr0nic i go even more far: when you are really smart the subwoofer only plays between 30 and 60 Hz, everything above is for the mean speakers and everything below you don't hear but fell so a bodyshaker inside your sweet-spot is better suited than air around the room
Thanks Paul. That was probably one of your very few clear answers without any ifs and whens. And yes, I understand that often the ifs and whens are necessary to give a correct answer.
When walking back and forth along the scale to find the perfect spot, in terms of bass, for the seat that does not account for the height lost when you sit down. However, when placing the speaker On the seat and then finding the best place for the speaker, that accounts for the loss in height when you sit down.
the subwoofer should be on the same height as your head when you sit anyways - try it out - it makes a big difference get it away from f**ng floor - in the best case use a bass absorber as socket
Paul seus vídeos são ótimos, contudo, se você colocasse um pouco do som dos seus produtos, pré amplificadores, amplificadores e caixas em funcionamento seria mais contagiante, grato.
I went from having a 12" Velodyne and a 8x3 Niles to just the Niles recently and I couldn't be happier. Getting those things to work together in phase was an absolute nightmare. That little dude hits so low and so musically we call it "Noisy Cricket."
Advantages of separate subwoofer is easy to understand. I don't so much understand the advantage of integrated subwoofer, though, although many high-end systems seem to use them, so there must be some advantages other than just fewer boxes?
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but another factor is vibration from large/sub drivers interacting with the lighter cones of mids and tweeters. Imagine a 5oz bass/sub cone banging back and fourth. Unless the speakers have good isolation damping there would probably be some unwanted interaction effects. (Just touch the side of the cabinet when it's playing). For good reason many high end speakers have multiple cabinets for drivers.
Geometry is beautful. Though sometimes, It's like too large of a car stereo, in that amount of area. You can get the Room you need to move, and height. and 45% angled seperatation. These amplified vibrations, vibrate the molicules, of air, the air is vibrated, and in your ears , and It doesn't move all of them from one room end to another. Hopefully the size room will be proportional with the speaker area, and with the wattage. The woofers frequencies won't be bouncing off the stacks, with room to breath. I like to hear a bass guitar, not a bass vibrating chair.
That's what room acoustics and DSP is for - fast, precise and dry bass is possible in small rooms - instead waste money for gear and pervert expensive speakers invest it in your room
Not to mention the damage to the higher frequency driver’s, vibrating in the box the sub built in,never liked the idea and never will buy a speaker 🔊 with a sub built in it
Paul do you have a recommendation for a modern upgrade from a pair of Infinity Kappa 6.2ii, that have a similar presentation? Their staging and timbre/tuning is fantastic! But I think more precision/detail can be found in some higher end/newer speakers.
If you asked me this question next year I would recommend one of our new aspen FR series loudspeakers. They will be exactly what you want. But they are not yet to market. In the meantime I recommend a set of Magneplanars.
Imagine if… you actually treated the room for bass and then could set up your system in a way best for making music… and the bass was even throughout the room. It can be done.
maybe i'm the only one here not knowing, but what monsters are those speaker boxes called ?! i'd really like a stereophonic sample if you know where i can find one
Imagine that your 4K television was shaking, ever so slightly. Would you notice anything with the quality of the picture? Perhaps. Now imagine that you can flip a switch, and stop your television from shaking. Would you see the picture sharpen up? The answer is a definite "Yes". You would instantly notice the improvement. Now consider having sub-woofers in your main speakers. Well, they are shaking your midrange drivers and your tweeters. But you probably do not notice it. When those drivers are shaking (and they are), they are delivering a shaking "sonic picture" to your ears. By having the sub-woofers in a separate box, that allows your main speakers to deliver their sound from drivers that are rock-solid still. And you will hear the better focus. But you will need a high-pass filter to minimize the bass frequencies that are going to your main speakers. Vandersteen's model Seven speakers have built-in sub-woofers, that effortlessly reproduce down to 20 Hz. But Richard Vandersteen sells sub-woofers for those speakers. By using high-pass filters, he reduces the bass being reproduced by the main speakers by quite a bit (I believe 6 db, or so). As to room placement for both the main speakers and for the separate sub-woofers, Richard Vandersteen has a brilliant solution for dealing with room acoustics (valleys and humps in various bass frequencies). From the model Quatro and up (including the separate subs), all of those speakers each have eleven built-in potentiometers ("pots"). Each pot allows you to adjust a specific bass frequency's gain up or down, to compensate for problems with the room (all rooms have problems). You can adjust the pots by ear, or ideally, you use a computer running sound pressure level sensors (fed to the computer with a microphone that is positioned in the ideal seating position), and you play each of the eleven bass frequency tones, one speaker at a time, and check the readout from the computer. You will see how much you need to increase or decrease each of the pots, for each of the speakers. The result is effortless bass that is tight, and balls-on accurate. Add to that that the main speakers do not shake their midrange drivers or tweeters, and you get sounds that are devoid of any sense of fakeness; that are rock-solid stable, even when the subs are shaking the room. If you have a dealer that knows how to set this up, and you are within commuting distance, then make the trip and hear a demo. Be sure to bring cherry-picked recordings, because bad recordings will be revealed for how bad they are, while good recordings will be revealed for how good they are (like you cannot imagine). Lastly, if you have a way of adding lots of weight to your speakers, then do so. When your main speakers weigh a ton, if you could bolt them to your floor, etc, then however much they would normally shake will be reduced, significantly, and your midrange will have a new focus like never before. Cheers!
Get a antimode and you don't need to a special subwoofer for proper setup - crossover and speaker levels makes the Yamaha - case closed, 100% precise and clean bass
@@Harald_Reindl The system / set-up that I described is LaFerrari level compared to what you described being Corvette level. The differences between what you described and what I described are off the scale different in sound quality. Harald, you have a history of posting comments that never gives credit to the brilliant engineers that make the finest audio gear. You never have a kind word for their products. Grow up. Quoting the person to whom I am replying: "case closed"
Sounds good, but highly impractical. People who have HiFi equipment in a living or family room don’t want a subwoofer “in the way”. They want it along, or near, a wall. I could see someone, however, doing as you suggest if they have a dedicated listening room. But how many of us have that? Thanks for the video, as always.
There is almost always multiple places you can put a sub and get 95% of the performance that you would get from optimal placement. Just use one of the spots that is more out of the way, this will usually be in a corner or along a wall. On that note, this is one of the reasons that hifi is often "done best" by folks that are a bit older. They have both the income, and the empty nest.
such people simply buy a antimode and try to get hidden bass absorption like large membrane absorbers with a large and beautiful picture mounted on them
In my system I put subwoofer in a room corner (just under TV) and main speakers are placed on sides. So the distance from a listening point to the speakers are 2m and to the sub 2.5m. After setting the phase correctly everything is on balance with nominal dip switch settings.
@@Alasalmi try to understand where the physical problem with bass waves is coming from - keywords: cancellation, room-gain - typically both spread over different frequencies - that's why instead of speakers 40-60 cm absorbers from floor to ceiling are preferred in all 4 corners
I want to get his book for a friend this Christmas so badly but reasons left unmentioned make it difficult, especially with how garbage the world has become along with the cost of living skyrocketing 😵
i have a weird issue with my subwoofer in my tight living-room in that... no matter where I put it, in the center of the room, where I sit, there's a "hole" in the energy of the bass. And it's not just that it's less powerful than a bit more towards a wall, which makes sense, but actually that it's too faint in tones or frequencies. The phase-switch seems to not make a difference either... - I could turn it up to perhaps compensate, but it will also make the subwoofer too "present", and I actually already set it so that it sits in the mix nicely. - It's just, where I sit for movies, to get a good enough view of the screen, it's like right in a "hole". - I don't have much of an option to change much, so... oh well.
Have you tried placing the sub where you sit and crawling around the room listening for the best bass, then putting the sub where you liked the results? This old trick is hard to beat for simplicity and effectiveness.
one simply don't sit in the middle of the room where modes and cancellation is terrible and you can't do anything against it - standing waves are physics
@@spacemissing that trick is nonsense because room modes are don't work that way - don't sit in the middle of standing waves, get proper absorption and proper hardware with room measurement
you might actually need 2 subs. I had 1 new subwoofer that just wasn't integrating properly. Dialing back the 1 subwoofer so that it was seamless meant there was no bass energy. Adjusting the volume and crossover frequency I just couldn't get a balance of being seamless and having enough low frequency extension. 2 subs solved the problem, allowing for good low bass energy with a seamless transition to the main speakers.
I was fortunate enough to come across a secondary sub recently, oddly enough it doesnt sound as good as my 1st in the same sweet spot, though both ported 12" paper subs! One has a downward port whereas the other fires forward.
the first mistake is randomly mix different subs and the second mistake is you didn't consider a DSP which is able to do proper phase correction - forget about that childish 180 degrees switch
@@Harald_Reindl --using a DSP is only adding a wrong to correct a wrong ! Low frequency phase should be coherent on its own accord ... the only way to achieve this is by using a very large and aperiodic room and a single source ... forget phase correction ... phase meters ... they degrade the sound ...
@@janinapalmer8368 come over here - phase correction works - it's about timing, crossover and volume to let a subwoofer disappear! Mine is physically 40 cm behind the listening position, the fronts are 290 cm away and according to the AVR the subwoofer is acoustically also 290 cm away - you simply don't hear it because it is perfect in time and has a perfect volume matching the fronts
It depends always on the speaker and the room - my subwoofer is flat and designed to be mounted on the wall the same way as on-wall-speakers are, with any other speaker avoid walls and especially corners
I hate to tell ya this .........BUT ! Putting the sun where YOU want to sit and listen for best results doesn't really work ... the speaker transmits .. you receive ! The speaker turns the entire room into a pressure domain at subsonic frequencies and there will be no sweet spot position .... and even less if you employ two sub drivers ..
Audiophiles don't know about room modes and physics :-) but two subwoofers with a proper DSP doing phase correction can help a lot against room modes by make the sound even in the whole room with less power peaks
Yes, but a well tuned clean sounding rig from 1 to 100 on the dial can be other worldly good. Unless you've had the experience, you dont exactly strive for it.
I can't listen to music with bad quality after I heard a real clean and dry bass caused by room acoustics and DSP - sadly most people don't have a clue how music is supposed to sound including the ones with speakers and amplifiers for 100000 dollars
@@Harald_Reindl I know more than you think. I'm a DIY. person who likes good and clear sound but never buys expensive hifi equipment. Brand means nothing to me as long as the quality and end result are good. Look at me as an advanced DIY person. Not many factory made speakers I think are good. often I buy used and modify them. I know what good sound is and I do not use DSP. and EQ. Example, if you buy SEAS 'EXPENSIVE exotic speaker kit and use the included crossover drawing, you will not get good sound!
@@ford1546 after 13 months of room acoustics and 2300 liters of absorbers i still need to see the room which don't need EQ for bass to get the last piece of precision - you can build or buy whatever speakers you want but you won't trick physics
@@Harald_Reindl in a large hifi box with built-in bass / subb, you have a built-in passive crossover filter that lowers frequencies that are too much, just like an EQ. do. A sepparat bass box does not do this and you do not always get the right and pretty bass sound. In many cases you also need to use an EQ. which replaces lowering of frequencies a passive crossover does
A microphone, learn REW and a Minidsp is what you need for proper set up and room integration of Subwoofers. Learn how to phase and gain match them properly would be the 1st step after placement. Placement would be decided by measurements taken using REW. You will never get as close just using your ears.
i was about to comment something similar, there is something special about using full blown dsp. but not the cheap minidsp product with analog section. microphone and REW is a tool for sure, but after using it you still need to adjust with your ears after that. a tone generator lets you do it realtime and its quick. much faster than using music or mic. this is an advanced topic, since now you are free to place speakers and subwoofers where they sound best have have best output. minidsp shd studio is what i recommend, that way you can have a 2 channel hifi with 4 speakers and keep your dac's and power amps.
@@sudd3660 I have fully treated and measured all my room myself. I used REW during placement to find best position for front speakers and my Subs. Then I fully calibrated and integrated the subs. I have a dual system that can move from 7.2.4 to 2.2 to Stereo, all linked with an AV amp/ pre amp and dual power amps and separate chord Dac.
@@BoredSilly666 have you tried a slow frequency sweep on the 2 channel speakers(with subwoofers) while sitting in listening position? how did it sound to you?
@@sudd3660 Ive taken thousands over the years. 2 speakers, 2 subs, subs and speakers, all the other speakers, measured the crossover changes and experimented. Spent weeks and weeks tweeking the phase and measuring as many possibilities as possible from multiple positions. As you probably may tell. I have a problem hahaha. It really is a deep subject. I had no idea when I started hahaha I always have that ' I wonder if ' syndrome. lol : )
I shocks me on how many audiophiles don't know there is a good and bad areas in their own space. You all never got up while the music was on and moved around the room and noticed the difference? You all have never turned a speaker this or that way to change the sound? You all never figured out that speakers are directional? Or being behind a speaker sounds different? Or a hard surface like a floor or walls would be reflective of the sound like echo in a empty room?
You all must have got the best of the best and was told how to set it up and leave it alone and never questioned it. As a kid we learned this stuff because we had lower end equipment and you had to compensate some how. Everything from taking the grills off to putting a towel over half the speaker. One set of speakers pointed at you while having a second set face the ceiling or back wall (this was before separate Subs were a thing). Or one of the most radical things we did was lean the speaker box back at a angle so they didn't sit flat on the floor and then one of us went totally crazy and put the speakers on little 2 foot tall tables. The world was never the same.....
I can attest to the fact that Paul‘s book helped me to really get my speaker placement in the exact right positions where I have never heard my music sound like it does now. A major positive change in my listening experience. I was not expecting a change like this when I made the purchase.
people dont believe it.......till they find _that spot_
without any book: every speaker has one perfect position within your room and you can how much you angle them matters also a lot - a different speaker or a different room results in a different perfect position
That's a really neat trick with the sub that I never thought of, which uses a concept similar to the principle of reciprocity that we sometimes use when preparing EMC radiated emissions/immunity test setups :)
I struggled with my speaker placement for years, then I followed Paul’s suggestions in his book. In an hour, it solved my problems. Most of the time my speakers vanish, and that’s a really weird sensation. I’m still tweaking, but everything else is a bonus. The book and cd is highly recommended.
that the speakers disappear is a complete ordinary and expected thing and by far not a sensation nor does it need a book to place 2 speakers correctly
1/3 or 1/5 away from walls, seat position same distance from speakers as between speakers and than trial&error how much toe in which highly depends on speakers and room until the image is as wide as possible without compromise phantom center
@@Harald_Reindl oooooookaaaaay! With great respect and love I beg to differ. I’ve just visited and audio show in Toronto and in my opinion, there were only two set ups where the speakers disappeared. I’ve been to few stores where they disappeared. I’ve never been to anyone’s home where they disappeared. So no, it’s not “complete, ordinary and expected”. We wish it were.
@@ramsaybolton9099 because most people are too lazy for experiment with placing their speakers (millimeters of toe in and out make a big difference) and don't care for room acoustics and symmetry of the room - when you understand how stereo imaging works it's no magic
Nice! Thanks, Paul!
Coming from car audio, i was shocked - almost nobody builds multi way systems for home Hi Fi stereo.
In my car i had tweeters, woofers and a sub, actively crossed over and phase aligned with dsp. Digital signal was converted to analog with 3 dacs and amplified with 5 separate channels of amplification.
Now i build similar system at home - a pair of decent bookshelf speakers, two 12 inch subs, and im planing to add 8 inch woofers in between. And im planing to use multiple dacs and software crossover and compare it to analog variant.
I think with separate sub(s) you can achieve better bass for less money spent.
Hey Paul. So did you put the subwoofer(s) in your reference system in your seat and walk around the room to find the best bass? 😂
When you are smart the subwoofer is directly behind your seat and DSP controlled for volume and distance aka delay - less energy causes less room distortion
@@thr0nic try it out boy! Less room energy means less problems and whatever is coming back from walls is less problematic in a near-field setup
@@thr0nic learn about near-field
@@thr0nic why should i want to energize the entire room when only the sweet-spot is relevant? room-acoustics, near-field and DSP will solve all bass problems and my neighbors are happy too
@@thr0nic i go even more far: when you are really smart the subwoofer only plays between 30 and 60 Hz, everything above is for the mean speakers and everything below you don't hear but fell so a bodyshaker inside your sweet-spot is better suited than air around the room
Thanks Paul. That was probably one of your very few clear answers without any ifs and whens. And yes, I understand that often the ifs and whens are necessary to give a correct answer.
When walking back and forth along the scale to find the perfect spot, in terms of bass, for the seat that does not account for the height lost when you sit down. However, when placing the speaker On the seat and then finding the best place for the speaker, that accounts for the loss in height when you sit down.
the subwoofer should be on the same height as your head when you sit anyways - try it out - it makes a big difference get it away from f**ng floor - in the best case use a bass absorber as socket
I say having speakers with built-in subs is the way to go.
Because you can always add more subwoofers!!
Thanks Paul! I have used that and it works well.
Thanks for the great videos Paul.
Paul seus vídeos são ótimos, contudo, se você colocasse um pouco do som dos seus produtos, pré amplificadores, amplificadores e caixas em funcionamento seria mais contagiante, grato.
I went from having a 12" Velodyne and a 8x3 Niles to just the Niles recently and I couldn't be happier. Getting those things to work together in phase was an absolute nightmare. That little dude hits so low and so musically we call it "Noisy Cricket."
That's the problem of audiophile hardware: it's lacking even the basics like room measurement
Advantages of separate subwoofer is easy to understand. I don't so much understand the advantage of integrated subwoofer, though, although many high-end systems seem to use them, so there must be some advantages other than just fewer boxes?
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but another factor is vibration from large/sub drivers interacting with the lighter cones of mids and tweeters. Imagine a 5oz bass/sub cone banging back and fourth. Unless the speakers have good isolation damping there would probably be some unwanted interaction effects. (Just touch the side of the cabinet when it's playing). For good reason many high end speakers have multiple cabinets for drivers.
Geometry is beautful. Though sometimes, It's like too large of a car stereo, in that amount of area. You can get the Room you need to move, and height. and 45% angled seperatation. These amplified vibrations, vibrate the molicules, of air, the air is vibrated, and in your ears , and It doesn't move all of them from one room end to another. Hopefully the size room will be proportional with the speaker area, and with the wattage. The woofers frequencies won't be bouncing off the stacks, with room to breath. I like to hear a bass guitar, not a bass vibrating chair.
That's what room acoustics and DSP is for - fast, precise and dry bass is possible in small rooms - instead waste money for gear and pervert expensive speakers invest it in your room
2:05 = Paul’s impressive Bass solo!
Nice Paul
Good information
Thank you!
Not to mention the damage to the higher frequency driver’s, vibrating in the box the sub built in,never liked the idea and never will buy a speaker 🔊 with a sub built in it
Hi Paul
How do I get hold of The Audiophile's Guide with CD if I live in Denmark
Sincerely. Rasmus
Paul do you have a recommendation for a modern upgrade from a pair of Infinity Kappa 6.2ii, that have a similar presentation?
Their staging and timbre/tuning is fantastic! But I think more precision/detail can be found in some higher end/newer speakers.
If you asked me this question next year I would recommend one of our new aspen FR series loudspeakers. They will be exactly what you want. But they are not yet to market. In the meantime I recommend a set of Magneplanars.
Might actually consider getting the book 🤔
🤔😱
Imagine if… you actually treated the room for bass and then could set up your system in a way best for making music… and the bass was even throughout the room. It can be done.
maybe i'm the only one here not knowing, but what monsters are those speaker boxes called ?! i'd really like a stereophonic sample if you know where i can find one
🔥🔥🔥
Imagine that your 4K television was shaking, ever so slightly. Would you notice anything with the quality of the picture? Perhaps.
Now imagine that you can flip a switch, and stop your television from shaking. Would you see the picture sharpen up? The answer is a definite "Yes". You would instantly notice the improvement.
Now consider having sub-woofers in your main speakers. Well, they are shaking your midrange drivers and your tweeters. But you probably do not notice it.
When those drivers are shaking (and they are), they are delivering a shaking "sonic picture" to your ears.
By having the sub-woofers in a separate box, that allows your main speakers to deliver their sound from drivers that are rock-solid still. And you will hear the better focus. But you will need a high-pass filter to minimize the bass frequencies that are going to your main speakers.
Vandersteen's model Seven speakers have built-in sub-woofers, that effortlessly reproduce down to 20 Hz. But Richard Vandersteen sells sub-woofers for those speakers. By using high-pass filters, he reduces the bass being reproduced by the main speakers by quite a bit (I believe 6 db, or so).
As to room placement for both the main speakers and for the separate sub-woofers, Richard Vandersteen has a brilliant solution for dealing with room acoustics (valleys and humps in various bass frequencies).
From the model Quatro and up (including the separate subs), all of those speakers each have eleven built-in potentiometers ("pots"). Each pot allows you to adjust a specific bass frequency's gain up or down, to compensate for problems with the room (all rooms have problems).
You can adjust the pots by ear, or ideally, you use a computer running sound pressure level sensors (fed to the computer with a microphone that is positioned in the ideal seating position), and you play each of the eleven bass frequency tones, one speaker at a time, and check the readout from the computer. You will see how much you need to increase or decrease each of the pots, for each of the speakers.
The result is effortless bass that is tight, and balls-on accurate.
Add to that that the main speakers do not shake their midrange drivers or tweeters, and you get sounds that are devoid of any sense of fakeness; that are rock-solid stable, even when the subs are shaking the room.
If you have a dealer that knows how to set this up, and you are within commuting distance, then make the trip and hear a demo. Be sure to bring cherry-picked recordings, because bad recordings will be revealed for how bad they are, while good recordings will be revealed for how good they are (like you cannot imagine).
Lastly, if you have a way of adding lots of weight to your speakers, then do so. When your main speakers weigh a ton, if you could bolt them to your floor, etc, then however much they would normally shake will be reduced, significantly, and your midrange will have a new focus like never before.
Cheers!
Get a antimode and you don't need to a special subwoofer for proper setup - crossover and speaker levels makes the Yamaha - case closed, 100% precise and clean bass
@@Harald_Reindl The system / set-up that I described is LaFerrari level compared to what you described being Corvette level. The differences between what you described and what I described are off the scale different in sound quality.
Harald, you have a history of posting comments that never gives credit to the brilliant engineers that make the finest audio gear. You never have a kind word for their products.
Grow up.
Quoting the person to whom I am replying:
"case closed"
@@NoEgg4u a Ferrari with manual pots - ridiculous in 2021
Hi Paul can your audiophile guide be applied to surround sound system? My hobby is watching movies dolby atmos 7.1 system.
Sounds good, but highly impractical. People who have HiFi equipment in a living or family room don’t want a subwoofer “in the way”. They want it along, or near, a wall. I could see someone, however, doing as you suggest if they have a dedicated listening room. But how many of us have that? Thanks for the video, as always.
There is almost always multiple places you can put a sub and get 95% of the performance that you would get from optimal placement. Just use one of the spots that is more out of the way, this will usually be in a corner or along a wall.
On that note, this is one of the reasons that hifi is often "done best" by folks that are a bit older. They have both the income, and the empty nest.
It’s your house, act now apologize later.
such people simply buy a antimode and try to get hidden bass absorption like large membrane absorbers with a large and beautiful picture mounted on them
In my system I put subwoofer in a room corner (just under TV) and main speakers are placed on sides. So the distance from a listening point to the speakers are 2m and to the sub 2.5m. After setting the phase correctly everything is on balance with nominal dip switch settings.
Just don't put subwoofers in corners when you care for quality
@@Harald_Reindl It is 80cm from the corner
@@Alasalmi not that much given that bass waves are many meters long
@@Harald_Reindl No kidding, really? I have to buy 10000 Eur wave-cutter then. That enhances the bass remarkable.
@@Alasalmi try to understand where the physical problem with bass waves is coming from - keywords: cancellation, room-gain - typically both spread over different frequencies - that's why instead of speakers 40-60 cm absorbers from floor to ceiling are preferred in all 4 corners
I want to get his book for a friend this Christmas so badly but reasons left unmentioned make it difficult, especially with how garbage the world has become along with the cost of living skyrocketing 😵
i have a weird issue with my subwoofer in my tight living-room in that... no matter where I put it, in the center of the room, where I sit, there's a "hole" in the energy of the bass.
And it's not just that it's less powerful than a bit more towards a wall, which makes sense, but actually that it's too faint in tones or frequencies.
The phase-switch seems to not make a difference either... - I could turn it up to perhaps compensate, but it will also make the subwoofer too "present", and I actually already set it so that it sits in the mix nicely. - It's just, where I sit for movies, to get a good enough view of the screen, it's like right in a "hole". - I don't have much of an option to change much, so... oh well.
Have you tried placing the sub where you sit and crawling around the room listening for the best bass,
then putting the sub where you liked the results?
This old trick is hard to beat for simplicity and effectiveness.
one simply don't sit in the middle of the room where modes and cancellation is terrible and you can't do anything against it - standing waves are physics
@@spacemissing that trick is nonsense because room modes are don't work that way - don't sit in the middle of standing waves, get proper absorption and proper hardware with room measurement
you might actually need 2 subs. I had 1 new subwoofer that just wasn't integrating properly. Dialing back the 1 subwoofer so that it was seamless meant there was no bass energy. Adjusting the volume and crossover frequency I just couldn't get a balance of being seamless and having enough low frequency extension. 2 subs solved the problem, allowing for good low bass energy with a seamless transition to the main speakers.
It worked when I tried it.
I was fortunate enough to come across a secondary sub recently, oddly enough it doesnt sound as good as my 1st in the same sweet spot, though both ported 12" paper subs! One has a downward port whereas the other fires forward.
I'm not a bit surprised... these drivers can cancel each other out at certain frequencies... place them together for best mutual coupling
the first mistake is randomly mix different subs and the second mistake is you didn't consider a DSP which is able to do proper phase correction - forget about that childish 180 degrees switch
@@Harald_Reindl --using a DSP is only adding a wrong to correct a wrong ! Low frequency phase should be coherent on its own accord ... the only way to achieve this is by using a very large and aperiodic room and a single source ... forget phase correction ... phase meters ... they degrade the sound ...
@@janinapalmer8368 come over here - phase correction works - it's about timing, crossover and volume to let a subwoofer disappear! Mine is physically 40 cm behind the listening position, the fronts are 290 cm away and according to the AVR the subwoofer is acoustically also 290 cm away - you simply don't hear it because it is perfect in time and has a perfect volume matching the fronts
@@janinapalmer8368 with a proper DSP and a double bass array you can even to active absorption (controlled cancellation)
Years ago you were told you cloud put the sun anywhere in the room or against the wall how things have changed
It depends always on the speaker and the room - my subwoofer is flat and designed to be mounted on the wall the same way as on-wall-speakers are, with any other speaker avoid walls and especially corners
I hate to tell ya this .........BUT !
Putting the sun where YOU want to sit and listen for best results doesn't really work ... the speaker transmits .. you receive ! The speaker turns the entire room into a pressure domain at subsonic frequencies and there will be no sweet spot position .... and even less if you employ two sub drivers ..
i imagine there may be rooms where this method doesnt work...but after 9 different setups, i havent found it.
Audiophiles don't know about room modes and physics :-) but two subwoofers with a proper DSP doing phase correction can help a lot against room modes by make the sound even in the whole room with less power peaks
You should enjoy listening to music and not just listening to everything that's wrong!
Yes, but a well tuned clean sounding rig from 1 to 100 on the dial can be other worldly good. Unless you've had the experience, you dont exactly strive for it.
I can't listen to music with bad quality after I heard a real clean and dry bass caused by room acoustics and DSP - sadly most people don't have a clue how music is supposed to sound including the ones with speakers and amplifiers for 100000 dollars
@@Harald_Reindl
I know more than you think.
I'm a DIY. person who likes good and clear sound but never buys expensive hifi equipment. Brand means nothing to me as long as the quality and end result are good.
Look at me as an advanced DIY person.
Not many factory made speakers I think are good. often I buy used and modify them.
I know what good sound is and I do not use DSP. and EQ.
Example, if you buy SEAS 'EXPENSIVE exotic speaker kit and use the included crossover drawing, you will not get good sound!
@@ford1546 after 13 months of room acoustics and 2300 liters of absorbers i still need to see the room which don't need EQ for bass to get the last piece of precision - you can build or buy whatever speakers you want but you won't trick physics
@@Harald_Reindl in a large hifi box with built-in bass / subb, you have a built-in passive crossover filter that lowers frequencies that are too much, just like an EQ. do. A sepparat bass box does not do this and you do not always get the right and pretty bass sound.
In many cases you also need to use an EQ. which replaces lowering of frequencies a passive crossover does
You look like your in a forest of speakers. They look like trees😀
A microphone, learn REW and a Minidsp is what you need for proper set up and room integration of Subwoofers. Learn how to phase and gain match them properly would be the 1st step after placement. Placement would be decided by measurements taken using REW. You will never get as close just using your ears.
i was about to comment something similar, there is something special about using full blown dsp. but not the cheap minidsp product with analog section.
microphone and REW is a tool for sure, but after using it you still need to adjust with your ears after that. a tone generator lets you do it realtime and its quick. much faster than using music or mic.
this is an advanced topic, since now you are free to place speakers and subwoofers where they sound best have have best output.
minidsp shd studio is what i recommend, that way you can have a 2 channel hifi with 4 speakers and keep your dac's and power amps.
@@sudd3660 I have fully treated and measured all my room myself. I used REW during placement to find best position for front speakers and my Subs. Then I fully calibrated and integrated the subs. I have a dual system that can move from 7.2.4 to 2.2 to Stereo, all linked with an AV amp/ pre amp and dual power amps and separate chord Dac.
@@BoredSilly666
have you tried a slow frequency sweep on the 2 channel speakers(with subwoofers) while sitting in listening position? how did it sound to you?
@@sudd3660 Ive taken thousands over the years. 2 speakers, 2 subs, subs and speakers, all the other speakers, measured the crossover changes and experimented. Spent weeks and weeks tweeking the phase and measuring as many possibilities as possible from multiple positions. As you probably may tell. I have a problem hahaha. It really is a deep subject. I had no idea when I started hahaha I always have that ' I wonder if ' syndrome. lol : )
Step "N": Explain your wife it has to be so....
best one 🤣😅😅🤣😅🤣