Vantage Bass Boom in small room, options?

[malcesine]

Looking for some expertise and experience on this.
Loving the Vantages but struggling to tame the bass in my small, rectangular and not ideal listening room.
It's 4.5m long by 2.2m wide, vantages at narrow end and around 0.8m from rear wall, toed in slightly (I've established this as best location having tried every possible combination).

Problem is the bass is boomy (as it is with other floorstanding speakers, not just the vantages) especially around 63Hz.
When I dial in my usual 1 or 2 SVS sealed subs and only feed 80hz and above to the Vantages it improves significantly (no surprise) but integration isn't wonderful and bass lacks the punch of the Vantages.

Room correction solves bass boom problem but destroys everything else (ie Dirac).

The 35Hz adjustment potentiometer literally does nothing, again not surprising as issue seems to be at higher frequency.

So last resort feels like a cleaner DSP that doesn't kill everything else?
or perhaps full length bass traps in the corners behind the vantages, combined with plugging the vantage rear port.
I can't do much more than that room wise unfortunately.

Or is simply that the Vantages are never going to work.in.a room that size?

Thoughts, experience from other Vantage/Summit owners?

 

[Paul172]

This solved boomy bass in my room and I was very skeptical but it works! The Synergistic Research Black Box it is a miracle worker. I can’t live with out it. They are expensive but can be found for $1200-$1300 on the used market. I have a SR dealer if you are interested.

 

[Robert D]

This solved boomy bass in my room and I was very skeptical but it works! The Synergistic Research Black Box it is a miracle worker. I can’t live with out it. They are expensive but can be found for $1200-$1300 on the used market. I have a SR dealer if you are interested.

How does that work? It says it doesn't need power. What connections are there? I don't understand what it is. Do you run a RCA line through it?

 

[DanR]

How does that work? It says it doesn't need power. What connections are there? I don't understand what it is. Do you run a RCA line through it?

Robert, it’s a passive component. So no connections. Do a search on audiogon forums (speakers) there are some real good user reviews of it. It’s no magic and most everybody there says it imparts it’s own sound changing both highs and lows. So as I kind of figured there really is no magic. But for folks with rooms that are just a mess for sound reproduction those trade offs may be totally acceptable and an improvement big enough to make sense for them. They have a 30 day return policy so it seems like a no brainer to try it and draw your own conclusions if you have room limitations.

 

[Robert D]

Robert, it’s a passive component. So no connections. Do a search on audiogon forums (speakers) there are some real good user reviews of it. It’s no magic and most everybody there says it imparts it’s own sound changing both highs and lows. So as I kind of figured there really is no magic. But for folks with rooms that are just a mess for sound reproduction those trade offs may be totally acceptable and an improvement big enough to make sense for them. They have a 30 day return policy so it seems like a no brainer to try it and draw your own conclusions if you have room limitations.

I did look at the forum and it still makes no sense. If it's just a box sitting in the room, how does it do anything? There has to be some kind of connection somewhere. Is it just like a sound treatment you hang on the wall? Hard to believe enough sound would pass through a box that small to make much difference.

 

[malcesine]

Thanks for link and advice but won't be buying any 'magic' boxes, sorry
Any other real world Martin Logan experience?

 

[DanR]

I did look at the forum and it still makes no sense. If it's just a box sitting in the room, how does it do anything? There has to be some kind of connection somewhere. Is it just like a sound treatment you hang on the wall? Hard to believe enough sound would pass through a box that small to make much difference.

Well it works similar to a bass trap from what I can see. It’s basically a resonator. But let me say this Robert, I am no fan at all of synergistic research. They are one of the companies I stay away from on the used market. I may be odd with this but I stay away from brands that have high numbers of their products for sale on Audiogon or US Audio Mart. I believe there is a reason that these companies have so many items that owners have listed for sale and very few of those reasons are good ones. Just how I am. My room isn’t huge 15’x 34’ and my multiple subs were set up using REW, and all controlled with a dsp (behringer 2496) they are dialed in from 20hZ to 100hZ. 2 in front of the listening position and one behind the listening position, all synched with delay to reach the listening position at the same time. So no black box here

 

[amey01]

But let me say this Robert, I am no fan at all of synergistic research. They are one of the companies I stay away from on the used market. I may be odd with this but I stay away from brands that have high numbers of their products for sale on Audiogon or US Audio Mart.

Any company that sells "audiophile" network switches and routers, you've got to ask some questions.

Layer 2 switches don't even understand IP.

As I've said before - if there was some sort of problem with data transmission apparatus that only small, low budget, sparsely resourced ** audiophile companies have discovered (let alone devise, engineer and implement an acceptable solution), then we'd have much bigger problems in this world than bad sound quality.

If they can show me objective evidence as to what these products are changing (either technically, or the resulting soundwave that is produced in the listening room) then I'll listen and critically assess. My offer has been open for a while now.

As for now - all they can offer me is statements like "condition the entire unit with harmonics of the Earth’s Schuman Resonance."

mmmmm - okay then.

** Compared to multinationals like HP, Allied Telesys, ABB, Cisco, Alcatel, Huawei, et al.

 

[malcesine]

Hey guys, respectfully please don't clutter the thread with the magic box circular argument.
It's simply not a solution I can consider.

Any real world experience from others for the question asked?

 

[DanR]

Circular argument or not sir, you are asking the impossible, the fact of the matter is your room is too small to do low bass well at all and there is nothing that is going to change that. I’ve attached a link to show you how long sound waves are at different frequencies. You can see a 20hZ wave is 56 feet long and there is just no way you're going to stuff that in a box the size of your room and have it sound anywhere near good. It’s why you don’t hear improvement in the sound until about 80 hZ, that wave is close to the 13 or so feet of the length of your room. I know it’s not what you want to hear but it is a fact. So you may just need to set up your system to sound the best it possibly can at 80hZ and up.
https://www.acousticfields.com/wavelengths-in-our-rooms/

 

[DanR]

Also if you read my previous reply, I said my multiple subs are set up from 20hZ to 100hZ and they are, but listening to the system at that setting it sounds like hell compared to where I run the subs at thru the dsp I limit them to 30hZ because that wave fits the length of my room much better and also sounds noticeably better.

 

[Robert D]

Circular argument or not sir, you are asking the impossible, the fact of the matter is your room is too small to do low bass well at all and there is nothing that is going to change that. I’ve attached a link to show you how long sound waves are at different frequencies. You can see a 20hZ wave is 56 feet long and there is just no way you're going to stuff that in a box the size of your room and have it sound anywhere near good. It’s why you don’t hear improvement in the sound until about 80 hZ, that wave is close to the 13 or so feet of the length of your room. I know it’s not what you want to hear but it is a fact. So you may just need to set up your system to sound the best it possibly can at 80hZ and up.
https://www.acousticfields.com/wavelengths-in-our-rooms/

Thanks for posting that. I learned a few things with that, especially about half wave length. My room is only about 25 feet deep. So when building a home theater, youd want that room to probably be close to 30 feet deep.

 

[amey01]

Circular argument or not sir, you are asking the impossible, the fact of the matter is your room is too small to do low bass well at all and there is nothing that is going to change that. I’ve attached a link to show you how long sound waves are at different frequencies. You can see a 20hZ wave is 56 feet long and there is just no way you're going to stuff that in a box the size of your room and have it sound anywhere near good. It’s why you don’t hear improvement in the sound until about 80 hZ, that wave is close to the 13 or so feet of the length of your room. I know it’s not what you want to hear but it is a fact. So you may just need to set up your system to sound the best it possibly can at 80hZ and up.
https://www.acousticfields.com/wavelengths-in-our-rooms/

56 feet is 17 metres! To be fair, not even the largest rooms are 17 metres long (or wide).

Most rooms need some treatment, and you're absolutely going to need treatment to solve that problem.

I don't know enough about acoustic engineering to offer suggestions, but you have two options - you can experiment, or you can engage an acoustic engineer to fix the problem for you. Experimenting will be made harder because the frequencies we are talking about won't be treated with a towel or a fluffy blanket. Maybe our resident expert @JonFo might chime in.

The final option would be cheating DSP. For a sub, yes. But the Vantage bass drivers go way too high in the frequency spectrum to not have to worry about how DSP will impact the sound. You could bi-wire the Vantages and only use DSP for the bass drivers, but you'd have to be very careful whatever apparatus you choose isn't affecting phase or time-delay.

So one final option - invest in a sub, DSP it - then run the Vantages clean from 80-100Hz up.

 

[DanR]

Thanks for posting that. I learned a few things with that, especially about half wave length. My room is only about 25 feet deep. So when building a home theater, youd want that room to probably be close to 30 feet deep.

Yes it sure shows how much of a challenge it is in most of our listening rooms, that are living rooms or existing rooms in our homes. So unless you are specifically building a listening/theater room the challenges are many. The best thing I’ve found to do is to not expect your system to sound better than the room will ever allow by size. And that half wave length is key to good sound, but even that needs room treatment to make it work well and for all different reasons we can only add so much treatment to say a living room before it starts looking ridiculous, or you end up in divorce court and then have only half a system

 

[malcesine]

Thanks everyone, really informative!

Advice helps me understand more about the inherent limitations of my room and also saves me from trying potentially expensive but ineffectual room treatments etc.
Will give low frequency DSP on my subwoofers a try to at least rame the most obvious boom at round 63Hz.

 

[DanR]

Thanks everyone, really informative!

Advice helps me understand more about the inherent limitations of my room and also saves me from trying potentially expensive but ineffectual room treatments etc.
Will give low frequency DSP on my subwoofers a try to at least rame the most obvious boom at round 63Hz.

That’s a great place to start as well as the most cost effective as well. And we all fight this battle to one extent or the other.

 

[Brandon Hartwick]

- speaker placement

- subwoofer placement

- high pass the front speakers

- lastly you can try DSP on the subwoofer

Those are all the easiest things to try.

 

[malcesine]

Thanks.
Already have sub and high pass filter to vantages. Definitely helps but still boomy.

Is plugging rear bass slots/ports effective at all?
Speakers are 1m from rear wall.

 

[Robert D]

Yes it sure shows how much of a challenge it is in most of our listening rooms, that are living rooms or existing rooms in our homes. So unless you are specifically building a listening/theater room the challenges are many. The best thing I’ve found to do is to not expect your system to sound better than the room will ever allow by size. And that half wave length is key to good sound, but even that needs room treatment to make it work well and for all different reasons we can only add so much treatment to say a living room before it starts looking ridiculous, or you end up in divorce court and then have only half a system

Yeah. Right now I'm just using our family room for music and home theater. It sounds pretty good IMO, but I'm sure it could be much better. I've got no sound treatments and a hardwood floor.
My plan for the future is to build a home theater room in the basement, and for that I'll try to do everything just right.

 

[Brandon Hartwick]

Thanks.
Already have sub and high pass filter to vantages. Definitely helps but still boomy.

Is plugging rear bass slots/ports effective at all?
Speakers are 1m from rear wall.

Stick some socks in them and give it a shot lol.

You lose absolutely nothing to try.