Newbie - Is this what I am looking for?

[TobyAnscombe]

Hi, I have recently aquired a BFD and am slowly getting to grips with it in conjunction with the rest of my kit.

Now I have a very silly question. Aside from not having a house curve set am I looking for a flat curve from as low as possible up to about 20kHz?

I ask because I have the following set up at the moment:

I have a Pioneer 2016 which has Audussy built in, from looking at curves without the sub plugged in and changing the speaker size and crossover. All speakers are set to small and are B&W 603's so have a reasonable bass response.

I then plug the sub in and get it calibrated which leaves it low in terms of dB so I boost the sub out by about 10dB as well as removing any amp EQ that is lower than the crossover freq.

I then use BFD to flatten the curve to follow the target line as best as possible - obviously if I add a house curve that will effect the dB level and that will come later...

Does this make sense as the right way of working? I am assuming that using the amp to set up the other 5 speakers and then configuring the sub to give me a flat line is what I am after initally. Once I have a flat in room response I then need to add a house curve and (as long as it sounds good to me in my room - I know that this is subjective!) then that should be it?

Many thanks in advance!

[brucek]

Post your graphs with a vertical scale of 45dB to 105dB and a horizontal resolution from 15Hz to 200Hz. Set the sweep end to 200Hz. This is the standard we use at the shack and it allows us to all be comparing the same scale.

Normally you do your sweep with the sub only and the mains disconnected. It's much easier to equalize this way. Once equalized, then you add the mains and fix any problems around the crossover area.

Your response looks quite good.

Hint: did you know the filter panel in REW had a sort button? It sorts your filters from high to low..

brucek

[DrWho]

What are you using for a sub? Boosting the output by 10dB so that you can EQ peaks down and achieve lower frequency extension is going to reduce your headroom by about 10dB...so unless you've got a potent system, you might want to consider sacrificing some low frequency extension for cleaner output at the higher frequencies.

[TobyAnscombe]

I'm using a BK Monolith (which is well regarded over here) stuck in the corner of the room (with wood floors and not a lot of absorbing furniture!)

I suppose that this is my question: with amps with inbuilt eq do you run the eq first and then use REW to sort out the bass response or do you sort out the bass response and then let the amp (possibly) change it with the auto eq?

As to running without the mains - the wireing is all hidden but I can get the same effect by disabling the second chanel as I have bi-amped the fronts.

So, does this sound like a plan of attack? Fronts are rated to 50Hz, center is rated to 78Hz so start with a 100Hz xover.

Disable the fronts by using the A+B speaker switch on the amp, get the sub so that it is tidy at roughly the same level as the mains and then run the auto eq function?

Sorry for the graph; I will make sure that they are correct next time round..

[brucek]

I suppose that this is my question: with amps with inbuilt eq do you run the eq first and then use REW to sort out the bass response or do you sort out the bass response and then let the amp (possibly) change it with the auto eq?

I think most people with the auto eq capabilities are running the auto first and then the BFD eq last. After the BFD is eq'd, then running the auto could mess things up, so be careful with that.

I think you will also find that most filters past 100Hz have very little effect. You could shut off your last three filters and remeasure and see if that's so.

brucek