My system isn't terribly high end, but I've certainly known that its big weakness is my budget oriented Audiosource 10" subwoofer, which I've had for the last seven years or so. Today I fired up REW for the first time with a laptop and "trusty" Radio Shack SPL meter. I used the RS calibration file linked with the REW download.
Given that I don't have fine EQ control with my Yamaha receiver, my goals were:
1) See if the levels between the sub and mains were well matched.
2) See how "budget" my sub really is.
3) Experience REW!
All of the above were accomplished, and here's what I generated:
Green = sub alone
Blue = mains alone
Red = mains + sub
The receiver crossover is set to 80Hz. Here are my novice observations:
- The levels seem pretty well matched - even more so than I had expected based on simply using the pink noise generator in the receiver.
- The dip centered around 90Hz isn't due to phase cancellation beween the sub and the mains. Maybe I should try using the subwoofer's crossover, which is variable - and set it a bit higher than 80Hz if my mains are falling off there? Actually I should do a run with the crossover disabled first before making assumptions there.
- The subwoofer doesn't deserve the name, as it runs away in terror when approached by anything under 40Hz. I guess sometimes you don't get what you don't pay for
- REW is a fantastic piece of software!
I have an av123 MFW-15 on order, but it's going to be a few months before it arrives. That should certainly remedy the almost complete lack of LFE. In the meantime I'm not sure there's much I can do to improve things here...?