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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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In Reply to: Re: Best bass posted by Q-Bert on September 26, 2002 at 18:24:16:
I just stumbled across the Infinity Kappa Perfects, actually, and managed to find someone that sold them to me at whole-sale. This was a start. Actually, with regards to subs, most of the game is in the box than with the drivers, but at the same time, the drivers need to be matched well to the amp. I'd give it 65/35 weighting, with 65% of it in the box and 35% with the drivers (maybe less).With regards as to why I chose the Kappa Perfects, well, they're extremely efficient, and this seems to help keep them fast and tight. They also have a high wattage capacity, so I didn't want to have to worry about that since a lot of great-sounding sub boxes are really hard on drivers, esp the clam-shelling method of mounting (even though I just used a single driver in each box, clam-shelling two into one box will lower the overall response by about 10-20Hz). Also, most good hifi amps have no problem driving a single 4-ohm woofer. Of course, it's always good to keep the amp happy by crossing over prior to amplification, which is why I used a tunable crossover. (I selected the Bryston 10B because it was ultra clean and seemed to have had no effect on the music as far as soundstage or anything.) The Bryston 4BST amp I used was a nice match, but the Coda Class A SS amp was a better match for these drivers. It's hard to imagine clean bass until you've heard it! I sold the Coda amp and Bryston crossover and still have the Decware subs and 4BST amp. In my 13x21' room I had a flat response down to 50Hz, with a roll-off starting there. I'd say that 40Hz was down about 6db and 30Hz 12db (using my Stereophile test CD,... doesn't sound too low, but it is). I had chosen my high-pass at 100Hz with a 2nd order slope and the low-pass was set at 70Hz with a 2nd order slope. I still had a 3db bump at 100Hz, but that was okay most of the time. My subs were located just behind and offset from my mains (Silverline SR17 on Sound Anchor stands). Freeing up the mains from reproducing low frequencies helped make the music very fast, but sometimes I'd still struggle a bit with coherence with the subs (and this was being very, very picky). (In fact, many floorstanders have trouble with this.) As for why I chose the Decware sub boxes, well, I could get them prefabricated (and they did a very professional job and a slick design to ensure that they were air-tight). As an extra measure, though, I sealed the inside of the box. The box is also semi-tunable. First, you either accept the default tuning position or you play for a while in your room acoustics. I just accepted the down-most default position and it worked great. I had a friend finish them with red oak veneering and professionally painted black with conversion varnishing. Some music already has a lot of bass, and you'll notice this easily with this type of arrangement. For matching with your amps, using the Bryston 10B crossover it's easy since you can adjust the level of the high-pass out. Again, the Bryston was very clean at doing this. I didn't mind spending lots of money on high-dollar cables with fear of destroying the signal. The 10B came through. However, there were times when I still with I could have advanced the phase of the subs by about 90 degrees but wasn't able to with the Bryston crossover.
Oh yeah, someone mentioned Kodo. I saw them here in FL a few months ago. They were great. I went home and listened to them afterwards and man was it real! I did't miss a beat from any of the drums, esp. that big one that they didn't bring to the USA but had to keep in Japan because it was so big.
At any rate, hifi sound with great stand-mounted speakers a using a nice crossover with a nice amp and passive subs (highly recommend those Decware 12" Deathboxes!) is a great way to go, but it's expensive and you'll have a lot of cables and power cords and more rack space, as well as more floor space occupied. You gotta go all the way or else you might as well pick up a powered sub and mid-fi it. The rewards are great. Sometimes I really regret trading in that 10B crossover and Coda amp just to get into tubes! Oh yeah, the Bryston 10B in 17" silver faceplate is just georgous. about <2" tall, it fits anywhere, is heavy, and has the highest quality switches and knobs with lots of options. Personally, I'd avoid 24dB (4th order) crossovers (Linkwitz-Riley) because it makes the subs a little more disconnected. I found better coherence with either 6dB or 12dB slopes. The 10B keeps these all in phase, too, but once again, I wish I could have controlled that, too.
Lastly, I can't stop without mentioning this. I said that the 10B has an output adjustment for the high-pass out. It seems that I was always turning this up to keep the bass from overwhelming the sound. Getting true deep bass is one thing, but too much bass energy is another, and is bad most of the time. In retrospect, if I used a Bryston 4BST (305Wpc) to drive my 88dB SR17, I could easily get buy with just a 50 or 100Wpc amp to drive these particular subs.
Sorry to ramble on, but after spending lots of money on this and working hard at it, these are just some of the things I've learned.
Stephen
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Follow Ups
- Re: Best bass - seasterl 09/30/0218:03:34 09/30/02 (1)
- Re: Best bass - doug s. 05:53:54 10/1/02 (0)
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