In-Room Program Source Subwoofer Testing

[Nfrasotoo]

I've been thinking about this for a little bit, and I'm very interesting in seeing Bosso's vision here for testing subwoofers in-room with program material come to life.

I think the GP tests Illka did and Ricci is doing now are invaluable, and I'm glad we'll start to see more objective comparable data to sink out teeth into.

But I do really like the idea of seeing what a sub is capable of in our rooms with real world full spectrum material testing it for output and accuracy. What else do we use our subwoofers for anyway, right? :biglaugh:

If we can come up with and nail down points 3-5 in Bosso's list below, I think we could have a good way of starting at the very least a "for fun" thread to post the results of our subs in our rooms.

If we can take it a step beyond that and try and nail down some sort of standard way to do these comparisons between multiple different subs in a given room, I think it would help those who try to organize "shoot outs" to be a bit more... productive, or useful in the objective data they are able to provide.

The last tier I think would be figuring out how Bosso's 1 & 2 points would work, and see if using control GP response in combination with a standard room is something that could ever be done.

The best use for SL is actual soundtrack program source, a la Yates' test, but I've always felt that Yates missed the boat by conducting this comparison outdoors.

As it stands now, informed people say things like "the native FR is (or isn't) conducive to working with typical room gain to extend the native response to 'x' Hz". But, that's a very general statement that hold little meaning for the average enthusiast.

I prefer to see the creation of:

1) The definition of a "Typical Room", the example in which room the tests would be conducted.

2) The definition and a graph of "Typical Room Gain", as measured in the typical room example against a control subwoofers GP FR.

3.) A standard of selected soundtrack scenes comprising a good mix of ULF content, content to high teens and content with little info below 20 Hz, which will be used in a specific order for all subs tested.

4.) A specific set of parameters for SpecLab, which will be used for all tests, which can then be used by any enthusiast who wants to post scenes of movies in the forums or post results of his own in-room tests.

5.) A standard for player and receiver settings and FL/FR mains info.

IMO, only then would the outdoor GP data take on a new and more relevant meaning and content vs capability from 3-120 Hz will be examined for the first time. It don't get more real world than that, IMO.

Once you know the best placement for sub/mic in the room you'll use, the rest would take nothing to set up and run and you'd already have the digital SLs on file.

It's been my opinion for quite a while now that this sort of test holds the most value for expectations of real world performance, which up until now has been pure speculation, GP results notwithstanding.

Bosso

C'mon guys, sure there is. The standard room would be the one you choose. Varieties of that room are not so infinite as you suggest. I've set up plenty of rooms that one could argue were technically no 2 alike, but all calibrated to at least +/-4dB at the PLP.

How do you propose to educate me as to how a subwoofer performs, show me the GP sine wave data and postulate how it will perform with actual program in an actual room? Like "This is a sealed sub, so it will work better with typical room gain" or, "This is a ported sub, so it will be bottom heavy in a smaller room"?

This is what we have had so far, save for Ed Mullen's reviews, which I found very informative back when much of what has been discovered since (and is largely taken for granted, so props to Edward) was not known.

Are we doomed to have a fence with GP sine data on this side and these goofy and utterly flawed shootout threads on the other?

Again, just my 2 cents, and I don't want to take anything away from the whole GP effort, but the sine stuff in a parking lot hasn't been all that useful to me, and people are buying subs based on the whole "wow, waves of ultra clean bass washed over me as my pants flapped and my teeth rattled" shootout nonsense.

You model the sub and you have the general scoop. That is, unless you're using Tom Danley's software.

FWIW, most all of the improvements I've realized in designing and building my latest subs, which are substantial as a cumulative bottom line in an actual room, would be completely lost in outdoor testing.

Bosso

Just looking at HT systems of users here you have rooms such as MK's and rooms such as Warp's. Warp has a small fraction of the free gain that MK does. That is just HT and not even getting into car cabins or large pro audio type spaces.

Actually, these 2 examples are perfect for what I was suggesting. It would be very useful to have GP sine data, a standard room with real program data and these 2 rooms data for comparison.

Bosso

Context of these quotes: http://ww.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showth...7#post20057137

[Nfrasotoo]

I tried bosso here via PM, but I don't know if he gets email notifications, and I don't think he's been here recently. If someone could PM bosso on AVS for me, maybe we can get some input from him here to try and flesh this out with the details.

[Nfrasotoo]

The best use for SL is actual soundtrack program source, a la Yates' test, but I've always felt that Yates missed the boat by conducting this comparison outdoors.

I haven't come up with anything yet, does anyone know where we can find some info on Yates' tests?

[mojave]

I haven't come up with anything yet, does anyone know where we can find some info on Yates' tests?

Yes

Way Down Deep Part One

Measurements and Meaning: Way Down Deep

[Nfrasotoo]

Yes

Way Down Deep Part One

Measurements and Meaning: Way Down Deep

Awesome. Thank you, mojave.