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Hey guys, I am currently looking into all possible options which might help cut down on my bass vibrating everything when I turn it up.
I looked at each option listed under Oscilloscope but can use some help optimizing them. First question though is how might I set BAE’s volume to match windows sound card’s volume please?
Obviously, if everything in your house is vibrating with the bass, it’s probably too loud. LF sound (bass) moves a lot of cubic feet of air, so many things will try to resonate along with the speaker.
You have two controls over the bass. The “Bass” slider is essentially flat at 50, is boosted from 50 upwards and reduced from 50 downwards. Some presets will already include some boost or cut, so you may need to adjust again if you change presets.
The “Bass Shape” adjusts the frequency range of the bass. In this case, zero is the midpoint, but you can increase the very low frequencies by moving towards -50, or the higher frequencies by moving towards +50. As the tool tip says, if you have small speakers, make this a higher value, as the physical driver simply can’t reproduce the frequencies if you go lower.
Unless you have the perfect listening environment, there is always a bit of a compromise between what you would like to hear, and what you have to settle for because of the acoustics of the room, the position of the sub-woofer and where you sit in that environment.
You also have to make allowances for your own hearing ability. I have walked into rooms that were booming, but the owner of the room simply couldn’t hear the very low frequencies and so kept cranking up the levels to compensate. The furniture was more sympathetic than his ears, unfortunately.
I would assume that you’re playing vinyl records and the feedback is because your turntable is sitting in an easily “vibratable” location. I had a similar issue and had to choose a different location for my turntable (a heavy 1967 vintage TV console with heavy glass picture tube ;-D ). Then I found small foam rubber squares to place in key locations under the “belly” of the turntable to dampen the resonance (even though there were “fancy” anti-resonance feet on the turntable). Also had to place the turntable at a specific location on top of the old TV (off to one side). It worked in my case but it took quite a lot of trial and error. I had friends that thought their records sounded “boomy” versus the CD or digital version. It was this same issue.
Oh gosh, so sorry I did not give enough details guys, my apologies. Here’s the whole shebang and where I’m at currently. Playing mp3’s there are some tunes which vibrate different things, some may vibrate the speakers sitting on top of my sub and other tunes will vibrate the shelves and ceiling. I am trying to find some way to have every tune play without any vibration issues, at loud volume.
I don’t seems to have as many problems whenever playing internet Radio though.One guys aid that most likely the Radio is not allowing more than normal bass to come through plus they might be using expensive compressors and limiters on their end.I will get back to this vibrating issue after I address this other issue.
Milky, you know how long I have been battling this issue with my garage room’s acoustics but this is the latest development on a related matter which I can use some advise/opinion on please.
I have cabinets, shelving and whatever else placed along the back and side walls of the rectangular shaped room which measures 10’W x 25’L and 8’H.
I have always had an issue with hearing the bass in different ways or lower tones at different spots in my Garage. I can’t do anything about the room itself, it is what it is. Few days ago, I wasn’t getting any sound from my EAW SB1000 Sub so I pulled it out and plugged it’s cable from the Amp into my Full Range EV Eliminators to rule out any equipment issues. I then checked and it was the SB1000’s speakon connector which had failed.
Thing is when I plugged the Bass Amp into the EV’s, the EV’s was in the middle of the room facing the side walls and I noticed that no matter where I stood in the room the bass was constant. So I decided to experiment further and placed the EV’s where the EAW Sub was but placed them facing sideways towards the side walls between the 2 Shelving at the back wall and now the bass sounds equal at any spot in the Garage.
Please see attached pic of the back wall of my Garage. I am thinking of trying the EAW sb1000 sub in the same position but right now those are the EV’s showing on the bottom of the pic facing sideways between the 2 storage shelves. As you can see there is some space like maybe 10″ on each side facing the shelves. Now if I were to place the EAW sub in that same way there would hardly be any free space on either side so might this be safe for the woofers please, if I should get the same results? Thanks guys.
Oh that problem… ;-D Your system is a lot more powerful than mine. What about large old heavy bed blankets to cover the shelving (and whatever is buzzing)? That might reduce the acoustic energy moving stuff on the shelves and it might attenuate the buzzing several dB by covering it also.
I usually pull my subs away from the wall somewhat (sometimes that’s awkward in a room) to reduce the room resonance. That will alter the response of the system somewhat which may or may not be acceptable. Got yelled at by my wife for putting tiny rubber pads under different “knick knacks” and behind picture frames and cabinet doors in our house to stifle the buzzing. I’ll listen to music (or a musical TV show) and suddenly I’m up off the chair twisting my head around tryin’ to find the buzzing (a picture frame, a cabinet door, some decoration, whatever). She always rolls her eyes and says, “don’t know what you’re hearing!?” The room will have strong sound energies at specific locations and these locations will vary with the frequency of the sound also. Like I said… Find what is vibrating and move it to another location or find small rubber or foam pads to dampen the buzz. Sometimes moving the speakers will also help the resonant locations. I can’t imagine how difficult that’ll be in a garage (let alone in my family room).
Now with digital audio it is possible to find music recorded with loose stuff in the background or distortion in one channel (making me think I’ve popped a speaker driver). Then I listen on headphones and the same sound is there.
Good luck.
Sound is transmitted as vibrations. That is how we hear – the speakers vibrate, and our eardrums vibrate in sympathy with the speaker cones. Unfortunately, anything, particularly smooth, hard surfaces either reflect or also vibrate with the same stimulus. Sometimes, these vibrations enhance the original sound, and it gives a more “live” feel, but, in other cases, the vibrations occur out of phase with the original source, and this causes cancellation of some frequencies and “colouration” of others, depending on the natural resonant frequencies of the reflecting materials.
If you moved all that equipment into an anechoic room, lined with foam to prevent secondary vibration, it would lose all of the colouration cause by secondary vibrations, but it would also probably sound “dead”. The trick is to design a listening environment which does not produce significant secondary reflections of the original sound, but without completely suppressing the “pleasant” sounds we like to hear. This is not easy, and there are companies who make a lot of money to design radio studios and auditoria which only let the real music through. They use specially placed microphones to listen for secondary vibrations, and then design baffles to break them up.
Obviously, avoid hard, reflective surfaces, particularly made of plasterboard, as that will literally shake itself loose over time. We all have walls, but they can be broken up with acoustic tiles, adjustable drapes, even random timber lengths to reinforce and reflect the sounds. Bricks are better as a building material, because they don’t resonate as easily. However, they are hard and reflective, so need drapes or random surfaces to scatter the vibrations.
The playback equipment also needs to fit comfortably to the room size. Your room is 2,000 cubic feet in volume, yet your picture shows drivers more suited to a very large auditorium, or even an outdoor concert area. Size isn’t everything, particularly in a badly reflective room. An 18 inch woofer can move a massive amount of air, and all that air has to go somewhere.
I have a purpose-built music room, and that has some serious music equipment in it, but I also have a “normal sized” family room, where we watch movies on a widescreen TV. It only has a 100w 5.1 amp driving a set of Jamo speakers which are smaller than those in my car doors. The sub is the size of a beer carton, yet it delivers excellent sound up to the levels that the room (and our ears) can tolerate. Timber strips glued to the flat wall surfaces, as well as drapes over the windows absorb or scatter unwanted reflections.
As you have discovered, equipment placement can make a huge difference. Slightly wider apart, slightly closer, sub at the front or back, maybe right in the centre of the listening area. Try lifting the speakers off the floor, so that the drivers are at or above ear level when in your favourite listening position. All these things need to be experimented with, noting the changes with each configuration until you get the right sound.
I remember that your original query about BAE was because you like everything to be heavily compressed. Personally, I couldn’t think of anything worse. I like the “light and dark” of the different instruments and the way they blend together, but, to each their own. Suffice to say that compression increases the liability of hard surfaces reflecting.
@pickyaudioguy Welcome to the forum and thank you for your comments.
Turntables are particularly susceptible to vibrations. If you are using a moving magnet cartridge, it only generates something like 2 to 5 millivolts of signal which must be “pre-amplified” before passing it on to the main amp. Of course, some of that signal will be not of the record surface, but from vibrations picked up from the room and playback equipment. By the time it has gone back through the pre-amp, it is now out of phase with the original sound, and this will result in either frequency doubling, where certain frequencies will be heard louder than the original recording, or frequency cancellation, where the opposite occurs.
Furthermore, if the preamp is designed for vinyl, it has an inbuilt “RIAA curve” to alter the frequency bands. This was introduced back in the day to adjust the signal to match the original recording equipment characteristics. It is not necessary nowadays, and a lot of modern records have dropped the process, so you may have a mixture of RIAA and non-RIAA records to contend with.
I have a Technics SL1210 turntable, which comes with a very heavy marble plinth and stands on “shock absorber” legs. However, I also have it on a concrete paving slab, which is hinged and chained to a brick wall. This minimises the contact area, so the transfer of vibrations is very, very small.
Fortunately, I don’t have a wife to explain the intricacies of sound management to, so I can go crazy with rubber pads and never have to make excuses.
All great advice guys, thanks!
I have planned to get some of these cork/rubber feet
https://www.supplyhouse.com/Pads-11752000
to place between the sub, mid and horns to help with the speaker cabs vibrating and will need to check on what else is vibrating around the room.
Yes Milky I had realized before getting that Monster EAW that I would be using it in an environment for which it was not built. Also, since the vibrations only come at high volume I may need to be content with keeping it al a certain level.
I will try to work on adjusting BAE in a few days after I should have done the placement testing with the EAW. If the EAW’s new positioning [facing sidewall] should not work as well as the EV’s then I will try to get the Sub 18″ version of my EV’s and experiment with placing one under the other speakers at the back wall facing sideways and the other at the middle of the side wall [flanking] to see if that will help even more.
Regarding Compression, my only reason for looking into this for the bass is to try to get all mp3’s bass at a constant level so no vibration issues.I can’t think of any other way to do this.
Actually guys, on further testing with using the full range EV’s as subs. I realize if i keep the bass volume level high but at a certain level and not overdriven there is only one area in the room like 8′ away from the speaker where I hear a vibration type nolse but nothing is actually vibrating.
There is a sidedoor at that location, the door is closed but it’s along the line of that door from left to right that I hear the noise and that spot seems to be where the bass is the weakest. This was the same situation with the EAW’s placed in it’s normal spot at the back wall and facing forward.
Every listening area comes with its own challenges. Rooms actually resonate anyway, although usually at rates way below our hearing capabilities. They are called “standing waves”.
Sound is produced as waves, and the lower the frequency, the more widely spaced the waves are. It stands to reason that, if you sit in certain places in the room, you will experience the top of the wave, and in others, you will feel the bottom. Furthermore, these waves bounce off surfaces and return out of phase to cancel some of the energy from the original sound. This leads to bright spots, where the reflected sound augments the original, and dull spots where the reflection cancels some of the energy. Bottom line, every room has a sweet spot, not necessarily in the centre. This sweet spot is modified by the shape of the room, the building materials, the frequencies being generated – even your own body will absorb some frequencies and bounce others.
You have many options. Moving yourself around, moving the speakers around, varying the levels of the various drivers, using mobile baffles to reflect the sound to your listening area and cancelling reflected sounds etc, etc.
Provided you can do all of this without having to appease a significant other, you should arrive at a pleasing place to enjoy your music. I can’t offer any advice for appeasing partners.
I’m interested in your comment about using compression to adjust the bass. This is not what compression does. It “squishes” the dynamic range of the music so that quiet and loud passages meet in the middle. Typically, it is used in FM broadcasts so that all the music (and voice) comes out of your speakers at about the same level, so you are not diving for the volume control in quiet passages, and then turning it down again in louder passages.
If you are going to place subs at the front and rear, you will need to experiment with the phasing of the speakers, else they will cancel each other out. The theory behind it is that, by the time the waves get to the back of the room and meet the waves coming forward, they are a half-wave out of phase, and so cancel each other out. If your subs have a phase control, try various settings with the same piece of bass-heavy music, and settle for the one that sounds smoothest when you are in your listening position. If you don’t have phase control, try swapping the + and – cables so that one speaker is pushing forward on a positive pulse (the “normal”) and the other speaker is pushing backwards on the same pulse.
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