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Sina172
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Joined: 29 May 2007
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 Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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StephenKay
KARMA Developer
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Joined: 18 Jun 2002
Posts: 2979
Location: Scottsdale, AZ
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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| shap wrote: | Subs are definitely the next addition I would make in my own studio. That's been in the queue, but it keeps getting interrupted by cross-country moves.  I'm probably just being ignorant and conservative, but I have to say that I'd be nervous about trading down on the monitors. The A7's really were a sweet spot in the lineup, and I imagine the same is true for the A7X.
I'm very interested to hear what more experienced folks like Sina, Bruce, and Stephen have to say about this trade-off. Always good to learn something new. |
Well, I have no experience with the Adams, but looking at the website, the A5X's *supposedly* go from 50Hz to 50kHz, and the A7X's go from 42Hz to 50kHz, so you're not losing too much there in terms of frequency response, although the A7Xs would be capable of more power and volume. The Sub8 goes down to 28Hz, so you'd get more by adding that I would think than the difference between the A5X and A7X (in terms of a small room). So, while I'm no expert in this, I would tend to go for the system with the subwoofer.
The thing that is great about subs, to me, is not that you get to listen to music with more bass end and oomph (although that's a benefit) - but that it allows you to hear stuff that you might not normally know was there, that can be muddying up your mixes on other systems. If you've got stuff going on down in the 20~30 Hz range that you don't know about, and you keep boosting bass frequencies so that you hear more stuff at 50~200 Hz (such as by using shelving Lo-EQs), you can really add a bunch of mud without knowing it.
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shap
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Joined: 09 Apr 2011
Posts: 194
Location: US northwest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Sina172 wrote: | | You've never had stereo subs, so obviously you're gonna say that, but trust me, once you go stereo, you'll NEVER go back. |
You know what you like, and I'm certainly not going to tell you different about that. OTOH, and far be it from me to steal your lollipop, but there's just no significant auditory stereo perception down in those frequencies. This stuff was carefully measured at Bell Labs many years ago, and every subsequent measurement I know about has confirmed those results.
There are a bunch of other effects you could be getting, e.g. as a consequence of altered transmission through the solid structure of the room and resulting changes in proprioception. So I'm actually kind of curious what's really happening for you (always assuming it's not placebo effect).
You have me a bit puzzled, so maybe I'll double check on this. We all went separate ways, and I haven't talked to those folks in 15 years or more, so I'm overdue.
_________________
Motif XF8, Kronos-88 (ordered), V-Synth GT, DT-Extreme eDrums
PC Core i7-920/24GB/3TB (2x)
Motu 2408mk3 + 24I/O
Sonar Producer, everything EastWest
Brian Moore iGuitar+Roland GI-20, Composite Acoustics 6, 12 string guitars, Multiple Ovations from when they were still worth it
Presonus Eureka (2x), TC Helicon VoiceOne
ADAM A7's and JBL 4328Ps, each for its purpose
Border Collies + Misc. Squeaky Toys |
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shap
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Joined: 09 Apr 2011
Posts: 194
Location: US northwest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:58 pm Post subject: |
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| StephenKay wrote: | | If you've got stuff going on down in the 20~30 Hz range that you don't know about, and you keep boosting bass frequencies so that you hear more stuff at 50~200 Hz (such as by using shelving Lo-EQs), you can really add a bunch of mud without knowing it. |
And when you say it that way, it's obvious. Thanks. It's been 30+ years since I thought about acoustics in my day job. A really clear reminder like this helps a lot to bring some of it back, so I appreciate it on that count as well.
When I bought the A7's I assumed I'd add the sub shortly, but little things like jobs, moves, kids, and so forth kept adding delay. 
_________________
Motif XF8, Kronos-88 (ordered), V-Synth GT, DT-Extreme eDrums
PC Core i7-920/24GB/3TB (2x)
Motu 2408mk3 + 24I/O
Sonar Producer, everything EastWest
Brian Moore iGuitar+Roland GI-20, Composite Acoustics 6, 12 string guitars, Multiple Ovations from when they were still worth it
Presonus Eureka (2x), TC Helicon VoiceOne
ADAM A7's and JBL 4328Ps, each for its purpose
Border Collies + Misc. Squeaky Toys |
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Bruce Lychee
Platinum Member
Joined: 16 Jun 2011
Posts: 856
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:06 am Post subject: |
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| shap wrote: | | Sina172 wrote: | | You've never had stereo subs, so obviously you're gonna say that, but trust me, once you go stereo, you'll NEVER go back. |
You know what you like, and I'm certainly not going to tell you different about that. OTOH, and far be it from me to steal your lollipop, but there's just no significant auditory stereo perception down in those frequencies. This stuff was carefully measured at Bell Labs many years ago, and every subsequent measurement I know about has confirmed those results.
There are a bunch of other effects you could be getting, e.g. as a consequence of altered transmission through the solid structure of the room and resulting changes in proprioception. So I'm actually kind of curious what's really happening for you (always assuming it's not placebo effect).
You have me a bit puzzled, so maybe I'll double check on this. We all went separate ways, and I haven't talked to those folks in 15 years or more, so I'm overdue. |
Although I understand the point you are making regarding low frequencies, there are some sub setups that won't even work properly unless you are using 2. An example of these would be TACT or Lyngdorf corner load subs.
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Shigeru Kawai SK5
Roland Jupiter 80
Vintage Vibe 64 |
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shap
Full Member
Joined: 09 Apr 2011
Posts: 194
Location: US northwest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Bruce Lychee wrote: | | Although I understand the point you are making regarding low frequencies, there are some sub setups that won't even work properly unless you are using 2. An example of these would be TACT or Lyngdorf corner load subs. |
So I looked at both of them again, out of curiosity. I also did some refresher reading, because like I said it's been a long time since I dealt with human signal processing regularly. Re-learned some things that might be of interest to folks here. Nice Wikipedia article on the subject (which of course I found after re-reading the source material  ), though somewhat on the engineering end of the spectrum.
Assume the usual conventions in these matters:
- inter-ear difference of 21.5cm.
- dry air
- 20C (68F) air temperature
- sea-level air density
- therefore interaural time delay of 625us
At 800Hz, the human head is 1/2 cycle wide. At 400Hz, 1/4 cycle, and so forth.
Research measurement results are pretty consistent. At 800Hz and below, humans perceive both interaural phase delay and level differences. Perception of both effects tapers off as the frequency goes down. Perception of interaural level differences is generally gone by 200Hz, and below 80Hz interaural phase difference perception is lost as well. So if your subwoofer's crossover is set near 80Hz, which is what a lot of vendors seem to recommend (ADAM recommends 75Hz, JBL recommends 80Hz), you're not getting any auditory stereo perception.
All right. That's the numbers. So then I looked again at TACT and the Lyngdorf systems.
Lyngdorf
On the Lyngdorf W210 (no longer sold), the crossover recommendation was for 400Hz, and could be set as high as 800Hz. On the successor BW-1, they now recommend a crossover set between 200Hz and 500Hz set according to "individual situation". In both cases, you end up at settings considerably above the usual subwoofer crossover range. And in both cases, you are still in range where humans still perceive stereo behaviors. So having two speakers makes sense, but read on:
As a basis for comparison, the crossover options on the JBL LSR4312P are 50Hz, 80Hz (recommended), or 120Hz. On the ADAM Sub8, crossover can be set from 50Hz to 150Hz, with 75Hz being recommended. Note that Lyngdorf is careful to emphasize that their BassDirect speakers aren't subwoofers. That distinction is probably motivated by marketing, but with the expected crossover at 400Hz it's a technically important point. Their design clearly falls outside of the normal conventions and expectation.
That's very likely a good thing. Now that I've looked, I rather like the decisions they are making about where to put the crossover, My question about the design in connection with monitors would be how they translate. My listeners will be using more conventional speaker designs. If I mix using the Lyngdorf design, will I be able to successfully anticipate what my listeners will hear? Very subjective, and I don't know. And of course I haven't used them.
Aside: I wonder whether the current design practice of subwoofer crossovers between 85Hz and 200Hz wasn't originally motivated by end-user cost concerns. It's easier to sell people one big, expensive speaker than two. Not having heard them, I can't speak to the quality of the result, but the Lyngdorf folks definitely deserve points for designing outside the box here.
TACT
TACT seems to focus on sound processing and room conditioning, and doesn't seem to develop speakers. Did I miss something?
Multiple low-end speakers do help with room conditioning. Certainly the Lyngdorf design, but even at frequencies below 80Hz (i.e. traditional subwoofers). The more signal sources you have, the easier it is to correct a room at a given frequency range. The issue here isn't stereo perception; it's cancellation of standing waves that the human perceives as unbalanced room acoustics. The JBL LSR 4300 series also supports up to two subwoofers for this reason.
Hoist on my own petard! Like I sorta said before: sometimes you can have the facts right, but there's more to the subject at hand than the one part you're considering at the moment. And sure enough, I've just burned a lot of time proving at great lengths that I can't read:
| Sina172 wrote: | | ...I set up the whole rig with the ERGO Monitor controller (which features room correction) |
So thanks to both Sina and Bruce for the education here. Hopefully I'm not the only one getting some value out of the learning process.
Aside: Years ago I did some antenna design, and I've kept up idly with recent work on software-defined radio. The fact that our heads can still to some interaural phase difference detection at 100Hz is quite a remarkable thing. We enginerds can still learn a lot from how humans process sound.
_________________
Motif XF8, Kronos-88 (ordered), V-Synth GT, DT-Extreme eDrums
PC Core i7-920/24GB/3TB (2x)
Motu 2408mk3 + 24I/O
Sonar Producer, everything EastWest
Brian Moore iGuitar+Roland GI-20, Composite Acoustics 6, 12 string guitars, Multiple Ovations from when they were still worth it
Presonus Eureka (2x), TC Helicon VoiceOne
ADAM A7's and JBL 4328Ps, each for its purpose
Border Collies + Misc. Squeaky Toys |
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Randelph
Platinum Member
Joined: 18 Oct 2008
Posts: 604
Location: San Francisco, CA
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| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:16 am Post subject: |
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Yeah subs can be tricky business. Here's a slightly less technical way of approaching it-
Something that I learned from playing hand drums, like djembes, which can have a huge bottom, is how incredibly important it is where I am in the room.
For that reason, esp. if I'm using a smaller drum that doesn't have much bass (and I always want a strong bass note), I walk around the room hitting the note until I find the places of greatest resonance, which is where I'll play.
I've found the reverse to be true as well- some spots in the room will really suck up bass.
So in the case of a 5.1 system I've got that has no adjustable x/o for the sub, a sub that tends to be a bit woofy, I use the same drum technique for finding the most neutral/diminishing place in the room for the sub. Makes a huge difference.
And for my KRK 6000 two ways, having pads under the monitors made a night and day difference.
Randy
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Instruments: Keys / Alto Recorder and Melodica |
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Bruce Lychee
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Joined: 16 Jun 2011
Posts: 856
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| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:44 am Post subject: |
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Tact and Lyngdorf used to be one company. They ended up splitting over internal management issues. When the dust settled it seemed that TACT had the rights over the critical room correction technology and Lyngdorf over some of the hardware and speaker designs. Tact made their own corner loads for a little time but I think they stopped for some time in order to redesign their own corner loads. I owned the Tact corner loads at one time.
The Tact/Lyndorf corner loads can't be used in a normal system and they have to be used in pairs. They have to be in a room corrected system that does time alignment, not just equalization. Many people cross them over extremely high, however I typically crossed them at around 100hz. The Tact software has extensive abilities to modify target response curves and set crossovers so you can integrate the corner loads with just about any speaker. I used them with Eggleston Andra IIs, Epiphany line source speakers and Merlin bookshelf speakers, all with great success.
Regarding the issue of audibility and directionality of low frequencies, I think if you are crossing over at 80hz or lower, one quality sub is all you need. I use one Velodyne DD 15 these days because cornerload subs require a very specific type of room. Some studies in home theater setups advocate multiple subs, but I haven't really kept up with those studies either.
I do happen to be personal friends with some of the executives at Velodyne and could certainly ask a question or two about more recent studies.
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Shigeru Kawai SK5
Roland Jupiter 80
Vintage Vibe 64 |
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shap
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Joined: 09 Apr 2011
Posts: 194
Location: US northwest
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| Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 8:06 am Post subject: |
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Listening to Stephen, Bruce and Sina can be an expensive habit. As noted earlier, I'd always intended to buy the JBL LSR sub, and in response to their comments, I finally got off my ass and did it.
One nice thing about the JBLs is that you can switch the sub in and out at the touch of a button on the remote. This is kinda cute, because it will let me directly A/B the sounds on the K-88 and the Y-XF with and without the sub. Obviously I can build sounds that use the sub's frequency range in any way that I want, but it will be interesting to learn how many of the presets already use that part of the spectrum.
Stephen, Bruce, Sina: Kidding. Your advice was self-evidently sound, and I'm quite grateful you all got me off my duff on this.
_________________
Motif XF8, Kronos-88 (ordered), V-Synth GT, DT-Extreme eDrums
PC Core i7-920/24GB/3TB (2x)
Motu 2408mk3 + 24I/O
Sonar Producer, everything EastWest
Brian Moore iGuitar+Roland GI-20, Composite Acoustics 6, 12 string guitars, Multiple Ovations from when they were still worth it
Presonus Eureka (2x), TC Helicon VoiceOne
ADAM A7's and JBL 4328Ps, each for its purpose
Border Collies + Misc. Squeaky Toys
Last edited by shap on Sat Jul 02, 2011 8:35 am; edited 1 time in total |
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StephenKay
KARMA Developer
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Joined: 18 Jun 2002
Posts: 2979
Location: Scottsdale, AZ
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| Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 8:29 am Post subject: |
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| shap wrote: | | Listening to Stephen, Bruce and Sina can be an expensive habit. As noted earlier, I'd always intended to buy the JBL LSR sub, and in response to Stephen's comments, I finally got off my ass and did it. |
Heh-heh. Sorry about that. 
| Quote: | | One nice thing about the JBLs is that you can switch the sub in and out at the touch of a button on the remote. This is kinda cute, because it will let me directly A/B the sounds on the K-88 and the Y-XF with and without the sub. Obviously I can build sounds that use the sub's frequency range in any way that I want, but it will be interesting to learn how many of the presets already use that part of the spectrum. |
I have that capability as well with the Genelec system - there was an optional remote thingy that lets you switch out the sub-woofer. I sometimes find this very useful to get a reality check on what people without a subwoofer are hearing, and how the addition of the sub might be affecting my overall perception of the mix.
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shap
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Posts: 194
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| Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 8:45 am Post subject: |
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Stephen: I imagine you have more than one keyboard .
What do you use for routing them into your monitors? Standalone mixer? Routing-only DAW configuration using high-quality converters and high-bandwidth I/O? Something else? From your photo and a rough count, I suspect none of the low-end standalone-capable I/O devices have enough inputs to handle stereo for the number of keyboards you have.
_________________
Motif XF8, Kronos-88 (ordered), V-Synth GT, DT-Extreme eDrums
PC Core i7-920/24GB/3TB (2x)
Motu 2408mk3 + 24I/O
Sonar Producer, everything EastWest
Brian Moore iGuitar+Roland GI-20, Composite Acoustics 6, 12 string guitars, Multiple Ovations from when they were still worth it
Presonus Eureka (2x), TC Helicon VoiceOne
ADAM A7's and JBL 4328Ps, each for its purpose
Border Collies + Misc. Squeaky Toys |
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StephenKay
KARMA Developer
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Joined: 18 Jun 2002
Posts: 2979
Location: Scottsdale, AZ
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| Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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| shap wrote: | Stephen: I imagine you have more than one keyboard .
What do you use for routing them into your monitors? Standalone mixer? Routing-only DAW configuration using high-quality converters and high-bandwidth I/O? Something else? From your photo and a rough count, I suspect none of the low-end standalone-capable I/O devices have enough inputs to handle stereo for the number of keyboards you have. |
As was shown in that picture you referenced, I have a 48 x 16 TAC Scorpion mixing console. Analog, and old (a lot of my gear is old by this time, like me, frankly) - but it gets the job done. I also have a MOTU 896.
I'm planning to move in the next year; when I do I'm going to get rid of most of the gear in my studio (with the exception of the keyboards and monitors) and start over. I don't know what I'll get at that point, but I'll probably go the all-computer DAW route (I already use Digital performer on Mac), with several I/O units and some kind of a Mackie-HUI-ish hardware controller...
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Bertotti
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Joined: 10 Jul 2010
Posts: 3384
Location: Middle of nowhere
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| Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 12:22 am Post subject: |
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| Just a note for those of us that are not pro's and do not have big home studios. I use KRK rokit 5 at home but the freq response if less then the low of the Kronos and with volume ti will distort so don't krank it. I use mu QSC k10 for volume and headphones when I want more clarity and quite. I learned about the KRK distorting with the WD which also goes quite low but sounds incredible through the QSC or head phones, the right headphones. |
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JPWC
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Joined: 29 Oct 2010
Posts: 638
Location: Bay Area, CA
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| Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 1:48 am Post subject: |
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I run the following pairs:
KRK 7000B's
JBL 4412B's
Event PS5's
Mackie SRM 450's
I've been wanting more, but these damn keyboards take all my money. Maybe after the Jupiter 80. But....
I've been wanting a sub for a long time.
The Kronos sounds exceptional through all of them. But I do believe there is some frequency content I am missing without the sub.
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Kronos-6, Krome, M3, Radias, KingKorg, microKorg, KP-2, KP-3, KO-1, KO-1 PRO, Karma, microX, monotron, monotribe, PadCONTROL, Wavedrum Mini, Volca Keys, Beats, Bass, Sample, monotron Duo & Delay, microArranger, M1, Wavestation, Volca Sample, Keys, Beats & Bass, MS-20
JD-XA, JD-Xi, Aira (system 1, TB3, TR8, MX-1), Prophet 12, Mopho X4, Jupiter-80, FA-06, D50, CS1x, CZ101, DX200, AN200, analogFOUR, MachineDrum, MonoMachine, Motif XF6, Virus Snow, Nord Lead 2X, OP-1, MFOS, Tenori-on, QY100, QY70, meeblip se, miniBrute, microBrute, Bass Station 2 |
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shap
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Posts: 194
Location: US northwest
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| Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:28 am Post subject: |
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| StephenKay wrote: | | shap wrote: | | What do you use for routing them into your monitors? Standalone mixer? |
I have a 48 x 16 TAC Scorpion mixing console.... I also have a MOTU 896.
I'm planning to move in the next year; when I do I'm going to get rid of most of the gear in my studio (with the exception of the keyboards and monitors) and start over. |
Since I've been thinking about this lately, and the evaluation process always makes my head hurt, and I always find that I'm still missing things on my third pass through the options... Maybe all this is old hat to you, but maybe it will save you an aspirin at some point.
When I went to set up the multi-monitor config here, I was forcibly reminded of something about the MOTU PCI 2408mk3: it has optical ADAT in, and it's not switchable for TOSLINK. One reason I bought the 828mk3 is that it is switchable. I imagine your 896 would be too, but I haven't actually gone and looked. Later on, I can re-task it for use in standalone mode as an ADAT channel extender for my 2408mk3.
The reason I point this out:
However good your converters may be, avoiding the conversion to and from analog will beat them. Which is to say: given that the workstations are doing output at 44/1Khz/48Khz in any case, S/PDIF is worth a second look.
My initial look at the 828mk3 concluded that 8 channels of analog input would get me by for what I was trying to do. Once the gear was on my floor, I realized that I can pull optical S/PDIF off the KRONOS and the V-Synth, and coaxial S/PDIF off the XF, avoid conversion entirely for those, and then do whatever else I need over non-digital cabling. The standalone mixing capabilities of the 828mk3 or the 896 are more than up to handling that many channels.
Which has me looking a little harder about how to pull S/PDIF into the MOTU in the future. I just did some poking around, and offhand I'm not seeing any converter devices that are designed to terminate any significant number of S/PDIF connections in either optical or coaxial form.
If you'll indulge another broad comment, we seem to be living in one of those time windows where I would hesitate to make big commitments to converter gear. With USB3 raising the bandwidth bar to 4.8 GBits, and the Thunderbolt reaching 10 GBits, one gets an itchy feeling that we may be due for another round of link-layer interconnect changes. It doesn't seem crazy that we might see the next generation of 896-like devices providing 32 channels at 96Khz over USB3, for example. For that matter, we may see the synthesizers themselves starting to provide multi-channel audio over USB3. For cost reasons we'll see USB3 a long time before we see optical Thunderbolt.
Anyway, the "link level audio" world looks about due for a change, and I don't feel like I can predict which way it's going to move when that happens. Maybe that existing analog mixer is a good way to buy time while it shakes out.
_________________
Motif XF8, Kronos-88 (ordered), V-Synth GT, DT-Extreme eDrums
PC Core i7-920/24GB/3TB (2x)
Motu 2408mk3 + 24I/O
Sonar Producer, everything EastWest
Brian Moore iGuitar+Roland GI-20, Composite Acoustics 6, 12 string guitars, Multiple Ovations from when they were still worth it
Presonus Eureka (2x), TC Helicon VoiceOne
ADAM A7's and JBL 4328Ps, each for its purpose
Border Collies + Misc. Squeaky Toys |
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