Subwoofer Optimizer System results

avanzato

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Following on from my being nominated as forum Guinea pig in the previous SOS thread, the SOS I ordered arrived last week. I've been busy :rolleyes: so the first SOS to be exported from the USA has only just been set up and run.

The result? It works!

Calibrating the unit is a breeze. Connect it between the amp and sub, turn it on, plug in the mic and flick on the calibrate switch. Hold the mic where your head will be and a minute or two of built in test tones later it's all done.

Just to make sure I took a couple of before and after measurements to see if it was really working or my imagination.

This graph is with the sub in the corner (Yellow: no SOS)

corner sub.jpg


and this is where I originally decided the sub sounded good (Pink: no SOS)

second test.jpg


It has done a good job on the sub in corner (and was faster to calibrate) where the room modes were larger. The second graph it took at least twice as long to work it out.

Both times the calibrated bass was a clear improvement over the uncalibrated but the second one was more subtle. So it does improve the sound but now we get to the main problem with the SOS, including taxes it was £260.

Is it worth it?

I can only say maybe. If you are happy to play with a BFD then it's clearly too expensive, if you aren't then it's still expensive but worth it. Whether the SOS being an analogue filter makes it sound better, I just don't know :)

More info can be found on the manufactures site ACEI
 
Mat,

I can see what you mean about the improvement on the corner placement, although that's a BIG trough @ 78Hz!!

Looks like your preferred location (blue trace) is quite good even before you did the eq!

What was the xover setting for the sub? The broad peak that has been addressed is somewhere around 80Hz, which is a common xover fq. for AV.
Were the measurements & eq. made with just the sub, or with the other speakers in the system too? Would you say that the integration of main speakers and sub has changed?

See what responsibilities you have as forum guinea pig? :D

cheers,

drago.d
 
The plots were done with just the sub running and with my Yamaha's 'small speaker' 90hz crossover. The SOS is self contained so you are only correcting the sub, with the subs crossover bypassed or at maximum. The manual actually recommends you turn off all the other components.

I'm not sure how it would work if you were using a crossover much lower than 80hz, you might be able to force the SOS by lowering the subs frequency control.

Integration seems to be good although I haven't had a really good listen yet and I don't really use the sub for music as I prefer to go full range fronts. In movie mode I use small all round bass managed to the sub. So integration is basically setting the sub volume and choosing which of the phase settings is best.

If you go to subwoofer-sos they have the manual downloadable as a PDF it's worth a look. I also see the SOS has a Stereophile 'Editors choice' award now, I've never owned a Stereophile award winner before :D

Hopefully I'll be getting some bass room treatments in the next few days and it will be interesting to hear how they work together with the SOS.
 
Bass room treatments!!! :smashin:

Keep me posted,

drago.d
 
So basically this thing is a 1-band parametric equaliser costing £260? Why would you prefer this to a BFD, which is a 12-band parametric equaliser costing under £100? I dare say the Signal-to-Noise and THD figures are better for the SOS, but the BFD really isn't that bad if you're using only one channel of it, and you're outputting to a subwoofer. There are plenty of subs which introduce 20% distortion to the signal at high volumes and low frequencies - you're not going to notice the effect of the BFD on top of that.
 
Convenience?

drago.d
 
NicolasB, did you miss the 'is it worth it?' part of my post?

"The SOS isn't for those who are happy to setup a BFD."

Like drago.d says convenience is part of the appeal but also the "less is more" principle. The minimum amount of signal manipulation is best.

Should I have got a BFD and used 6-7 overlapping filters to create a frequency flat 'house curve'? After all it's only the bass and subs have plenty of distortion anyway, so no one will notice. Not sure I would want to be the 'other' listener in a room eq'd like that.

As for the cost, why buy Meridian or Tag when Yamaha's have more features for a fraction of the cost? I said it was expensive. I made my choice and don't think my mini review was trying to justify my purchase.
 
Hmm

To me it looks more like the peaks have not really been taken care of, it's looks more like the individual relationship between them is the same. It's just the overall part that's been lowered (45Hz- 75Hz?) a few db.

The big dip is probably room induced and can be tricky as changing the listening position probably isn't an option.

However, some is better than nowt.

:cool:
 
Bogi: To get rid of all the peaks you would need to set several and probably over lapping eq's. Something I'm not willing to do.

The plot for the Corner sub with SOS is roughly +-4db that's not bad in my opinion. Remember many speakers are specified at +-3db anechoic not in room. The dip is a room problem which the Bass traps will hopefully help.
 
Good post avanzato. Always interesting to hear about different products etc.

I agree that it's probably not worth the investment if you are happy with a BFD. For only about £50 more you can buy the Behringer Ultra-Curve Pro DSP8024 locally, which has an auto-calibrating, 31-band Graphic/3-band Parametric EQ, a pair of decent 24-bit DACs, a few other DSP features (Limiter, noise gate etc) and is software-upgradeable.

MuFu.
 
avanzato

+-4db is pretty good. And, yes, you'd probably have to use a couple of filters to take care of the peaks.

Please post your findings regarding the bass treatments. I have some dips in my room that I haven't figured out yet how to solve as changing the speakers or the listening position isn't an option.

So more postings with graphs before and after bass treatment will be great!

cheers

:cool:
 

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