[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Welcome to the Forum, Dave!

I have good news for you. You are making this way too complicated! I found your speakers at AV123's site. The PBS isn't a subwoofer, and AV123 doesn't even call it a subwoofer. They call it a woofer. So set them to "small." It won't be like they're "going to waste". The ELTs only have 5-1/4" woofs; the PBSs' are needed to fill in the mid bass between the ELTs and the new sub.

So, with only one real sub in the equation, just use REW to find the best placement, running sweeps with the sub only. Once you do that you can add back the mains, adjust the phase, etc.

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Thanks for the info, Dave. :T

"Other Features:
8” woofer is high passed at 31Hz <<< for protection, I guess
0-180 phase adjustment, gain, and
crossover adjustments (40Hz-150Hz)" <<< highest freq the PBS woofer plays

and for connections:

"If you have a subwoofer...
Take the speaker cable from your amplifier or receiver and plug it into High Level inputs on the back of the PBS amplifier. Next take the supplied jumper cable and go from the High Level output terminals to the binding posts on the back of the speaker."

(Is does not mention high-passing the speaker).

Hopefully it does that.

So if I understand your suggestion… the whole ELT+PBS will act like just a wider range speaker (which is what I want), and is not going to get much below 80Hz. The PBS woofer will play from 80 to 150Hz and the ELT-1 above that.

That's correct.

But, I was not trying to EQ the sub alone, which is the key to all of this I think. :duh:

Not sure what you mean there. You wanted to EQ the PBS' along with the subwoofer? Sorry, can't be done, unless there are line level inputs for the PBS. And it would require a separate EQ.

Ok, then after THAT, I put it all together and adjust the PBS volume to get the midrange where it needs to be.

Yup.

Not sure yet about the PBS phase, but one thing at a time.

Ditto. Not sure any phase adjustment would be needed, but, the fact that it's there might be is an indicator that the PBS is probably high passing the ELT. Using REW's RTA mode you could see the effects of the phase adjustments in real time. :T

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

1) Sub-only, relative to target level, without any EQ. No smoothing.

2) Sub-only, after adding 4 automatic filters (awesome feature), plus 4 more boosts, staying away from the nulls. Bummer those nulls...

Your sub level was way too high, at least 18 dB above the Target Curve, which I’m confident resulted in some pretty drastic equalizing. The Target should have been reset via the “Set Target Level” function or by lowering the subwoofer level before running REW’s auto EQ function. I imagine those boost filters you added were only needed to counteract some of the effects of the drastic cuts REW recommended.

Do you have any other location options for the sub that might eliminate those nulls?

The sub seems to sound about the right level, at least with music. It is not at all over-powering and actually sounds a bit lower than when I first set it up. The speakers are louder than what I'm used to at the AVR level I usually use because the PBS volume is all the way up. (So I turn down the AVR, no biggie.)

So what's the deal with the graphs which run a speaker cal sweep, showing the bass as so much higher than the midrange? (And I didn't bother with anything above 1kHz.)

The bass just seems too hot, according to the graphs...or the midrange is too low.

I agree, the graph does appear to be low end heavy, but you say it sounds about right. Only you can be the judge of that. But you might try to get things adjusted so that they look more correct and listen to it that way for a week or two. Sometimes people aren’t used to the way a properly calibrated system sounds, if they’ve never had one...

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

It might be the smoothing making it look better...

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Interesting. Is the crossover point between the PBS and ELT anywhere in the 122 Hz range? That would probably account for it.

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

And if the XR55 is setting the fronts to SMALL, and crossing them over at 80Hz, how in the world are the PBS' still playing at the level they are, so far down in the response? Is that another room anomaly?

You might want to consult your manual or do some further testing. We’ve had people here who had this problem and eventually discovered that their receiver’s bass management only worked for digital sources and signals.

That said, you might also want to take some readings of your L/R separately. I expect that the left speaker has much more pronounced bass than the right one.

Still, the ELT's are supposed to be +/-3dB down to mid-60's or so. That's why I'm thinking something about this room is just sucking down that part of the response...

That’s fairly optimistic extension for a speaker with such small woofers, unless they’re unusually inefficient. And yes, the room makes a difference. Small rooms reinforce bass; large rooms “soak” it up. Keep in mind that the speakers “see” all those areas open to your family room.

Regards,
Wayne