Hey Conrad, apologies for the delay in my response to your last post (which was quite excellent btw). I have not yet implemented all of your suggestions from the last post, but to be fair, if I don't fully understand every detail then I tend to take my time with stuff so I don't screw it up. That means that usually I end up being the turtle and not the hare, lol. And I am glad to hear that the full frequency response looks good; I had done some acoustic treatment in the room and was curious on if I had overdone it or anything along those lines. Here are my replies to the parts of your post that I quoted above.
1. - I knew that the VNF subs would be tricky and might not measure as well as the others would, but I had hoped that with those subs it would help to smooth out the overall response and maybe gain some additional output as well. My primary goal though was to provide some really good slam and give a good TR at the seating positions since I had decided against doing butt kickers.
2. - In the connection chain that you listed, you had the AVR's sub output 2 going to input 1 in the minidsp, so I wanted to clarify - I would need to use a Y-splitter (2 female to 1 male) to combine the 2 sub outs on the AVR to have them both going into input 1 on the minidsp, correct?
3. - You are right sir, that is indeed how I was splitting the signal for the 2 sub pairs coming out from the minidsp.
4. - If I am to use a splitter for the 2 sub outputs on the AVR going to input 1 on the minidsp, would that mess with the signal being sent to the minidsp at all? And when you say the trims, I'm assuming that you mean the individual channel trims - I have 3 different ways of adjusting the the levels for the subs in my AVR (levels, trims, and sub adjustment) so I just wanted to be sure.
5. - I do like the small bump in overall output that the front center sub gives me, but to your point, I could simply adjust the sub levels to compensate so I am considering taking it out of the sub chain to flatten my response.
6. - To be honest, I'm not really sure why the subs run that hot. I try to ensure that the Dynamic EQ function is turned off in the AVR when I run my sweeps, and I did level match everything to around 75dB in the minidsp per your advice. For what its worth though, when I watch TV or movies or listen to music the bass doesn't sound too overwhelming or too intense (except on some content that was mixed to be intentionally bass heavy), but I guess that could just be my personal perception/preference.
And as far as craving the ULF bass, I'm not sure if that's what I really want or not since I'm not sure that I've ever had any real exposure to ULF capable subs in a system. So far, I am really happy with the smoothness of the bass response after all the work I had done, and it has been much more refined with your excellent contributions. I just like having a strong 'kick' or 'pop' on the bass effects in a movie when it's called for.
7. - I will take your tip on potentially changing out the 6 subs for 2 or 3 really good ones under consideration. It was a battle to get wife approval on having that many subs in the room so I don't want to revert to a smaller # of subs too quickly, lest I put myself at a disadvantage for future negotiations, lol. What led me to take the approach that I did was a combination of 2 things - budget (I got those 6 subs for under $780 in total) and a desire to get the smoothest response that I could get. So far, I feel pretty happy with how the bass is performing in the system, but who knows how I may feel down the road if I get bitten by the 'optimization bug' again, lol.
I hope you had an excellent thanksgiving holiday; that is if you celebrate it where you are located. I think I remember your post saying 'with you being in the US'. I'll be looking forward to hearing your advice again when I start trying to properly integrate my mains with the subs. Until next time, take care sir!