B&W 802D Boomy Bass - Not Happy!

[bass007]

Hi, after trying to get a home demo of these speakers it proved impossible, anyway, I took the plunge and got a pair (802D) looks fantasic, extremley heavy, except in my room it sounds extremley bass heavy., not the speakers fault but most likely my room.

I have a Musical Fidelity KW500 Amp driving them, and a wadia 302 Cd player. Playing jazz is fine sounds classy and detailed, play some music with a hint of bass and the whole thing drown in the bass, even at very very low volume, I have had them for about 2 months now they have been playing 24/7 isoteck test disc goes in at night to exercise the bass and the rest of the day normal music, at very low volume because of the bass.

I am now considering selling it beacuse of this problem just wonndering if anyone has any ideas which may help?

[JürgenW]

I read when the box gives to much bass, partially closing the front-opening with some demping material wil help.

[sikoniko]

pull them away from the wall.

[bass007]

Hi,

I have trised pulling them away from the walls, no difference whats so ever, I tried porting the reflex port but seems almost impossible.

Do you think that putting the speakers on a concrete slab would help?

Just to put things into perspective, my room is 4x4m ( 13Fx13f approx)

Tried different cables Nordost Red dawns but still.

[miner]

A smallish room for such large speakers. Maybe a 804S or 803D would have been a better choice for your room. I have some N804 & ASW800 that I would gladly trade you for your 802D. :lol:

[jim777]

Your room is square and small... the room is your biggest problem.

The square room amplifies the same frequencies in each direction so any bass problems at specific frequencies are very loud. Then the small size means that shorter waves are multiples of the room. That means that you have low frequency problems up to higher frequencies than normal and 802D's go very low..

So it is definitely a room/speaker mismatch.

[JimTW]

Wow, that's a TINY!!! room for the 802D.

[weijst]

802D speakers for a 4 x 4 room, you're funny!! But hey, at least you can say you have a pair of 802 right...

[goffriller]

Definite: you need Soundanchors.
I always buy them to de-couple the speakers from the floor.
No question in your case- with too much bass.
Goffriller

[Karma]

HI goffriller,
Just to clarify a point, stands with spikes couple energy from the energy source to a mechanical ground. In the case of speakers, the direction is from the speaker to the floor (the mechanical ground). Thus, the stands and spikes reduce speaker induced mechanical vibration in the cabinets down to ground (the floor) where they are dissipated as heat.

The best mechanical ground is stone or concrete. Wooden floors are not nearly as effective.

In any case, the problems here are not going to go away due to stands but they may help a little. The square room is, no doubt, the culprit.

Sparky

[PewterTA]

Lots and lots of sound treatment will be your friend in such a small room to put the 802s in.

[GregLett]

802D speakers for a 4 x 4 room, you're funny!! But hey, at least you can say you have a pair of 802 right...

The room is 4 x4 meters so that's actually not that small .. I think.
That's 12 feet x 12 feet. bass007 does the room have wooden floors?
If it does a thick piece (2" +) of Granite would help. With speaker that
big, on wooden floors you are playing the room.

[ThomasW]

Without knowing the offending frequencies you're just guessing. Run some test tones to see where the bass peaks are. Once you have that info, it will be easier to offer something to remedy the situation.

[DrJRapp]

When I auditioned new speakers I listened to 802Ds in three different rooms. One was considered acoustically correct, the second two were nearly so. My impressions of the 802D never varied, it sounded "tubby" in every instance.

[RobP]

Jerry, I had the chance to own a pair of 802's at a very reasonable cost and still went with the 803's, your description of "Tubby" is exactly what my wife and I said about the sound of the 802's. Not knocking them but I guess it comes down to taste.

[Phil Rose]

Dang!! I wish I could get more bass out of my N802's but, they're in a huge open room without good side walls. Still they sound very good but, certianly not tubby. In my previous room they sounded much fuller. The room is the biggest component of your system. Someday I'll get them into a good room.

[dknightd]

I have a pair of 703's that I'd happily trade for your 802's :W
The 703's have nice tight bass but could never be accused of
being bass heavy. I'll pay shipping

Realistically with a square room you are going to have to do some
serious bass absorbtion. You might have to EQ out some of the resonances.

[DeepEndX]

My friend had a similar problem, except he had 800D's. He has a 5mx5m room with wood floors. He solved it by:

1) Placed 800D's on marble blocks
2) Sound proofed the surrounding walls esepcially the walls that was within 2m of the speakers (behind, side)
3) Placed a rug on the floor
4) Changed to thick curtains for his windows
5) Estimated the trajectory of the sound and sound proofed the walls that the speaker was facing.

Now, his system sounds great!

[Karma]

HI All,
I'm reading a lot of good suggestions here. But why is nobody mentioning the floor to ceiling distance? That dimension is equally valid as a resonant distance.

I concede that not much can be done to deal with that dimension but tube traps can be placed along the wall/ceiling boundary, positioned horizontally, to help dampen those resonanant frequencies. Then again, they may not play into this problem. We don't know because this room boundary has not been mentioned.

If the wall to wall distance is 16 feet and the floor to ceiling distance is 8 feet, the floor to ceiling will be resonating at the second harmonic of the wall to wall distance. This is not good. It's something to be aware of and is a common problem.

Sparky

[dyazdani]

You can calculate the modal frequencies based on dimensions, but the test tone method is the best way to tell where the issues are at.

[tboooe]

all of this talk about room size has me a bit concerned since I am seriously considering 802D. Right now I am in a 15 X 20 room but I intend on moving my setup into my den which is not much bigger than 13 x 13. Do the 802D really need a big room to sound their best? I dont mind putting some room treatments up but if it is going to take a huge effort in order to make the 802D sound good in my den then I may have to rethink this. I have read other members with 802s in small room and no one mentioned any problems before.

By the way, what does "tubby" mean?

[DrJRapp]

Do the 802D really need a big room to sound their best?

By the way, what does "tubby" mean?

They are designed to put out a lot of sound as a larger room would require.

To me tubby means slightly fat and loose....not quite boomy yet, but almost.

The 803D didn't exhibit those characteristics.

My den (which I call my study library) is also 13' x 13'. I couldn't imagine 802Ds in here, either spacially or sonically. The XT4s even seem big. 804s would do well perhaps, or ML Vantage.

[rolski]

bass007,
Most of the advice given here so far is good - you can basically fix the room or fix the source - or both.

My room is 3.68m wide * 5.10m long * 2.5m high & I have really significant resonances at 22 / 33 / 99Hz - this is purely a function of the geometry of the room & the fact that my 802D's must be right in the corners & my listening position is 3.8m from the front.
Without changing the SIZE OF THE ROOM this will never change !
There are also plenty of other resonances due to various reasons, but these major "room-modes" will always cause the greatest problem - and identify themselves as "boom".

There's plenty of software that can help you pinpoint problems with your room - and they can tell you specifically where NOT to sit ! One of the best is CARA and the following website has a "free" online CARA-calculator that may give you some idea of where your problems are.

http://www.fastaudio.com/INT/rechenservice.html

I personally am moving things around a little to improve the situation and am using a little acoustic treatment to cope with the higher frequencies, but have to use the room-correction software within my TAG-McLaren AV32RDP to deal with the lower frequencies.
There are alternatives - I think that Behringer (?) sells a room-correction gizmo relatively cheaply - and I mean cheap with respect to the cost of the 802D's !

There's a fantastic free room-correction Wizard (if you get a Behringer) at :-
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/john.mulcahy/roomeq/

Personally, armed with this knowledge, and after spending a little money & time on the room treatment & room correction, my 802D's really sing ! The bass is extremely well controlled & the mid-range clarity is extraordinary.

Over to you....

[bass007]

Hi, thanks for all the replies, I will try to get some Marble/thick concrete slabs this weekend, and try.

How do I find out at which frequencies I have the ressonace?

Not sure if this has any significance, when bass heavy music is playing, and I walk around the room there is a spot near the door where all the resonant bass iis gone.

Does anyone know a safe way to block the ports? would it help?

The floor is woodern but carpeted with very high grade undelay, and very thick carpet, plus a rug on top, in the alcoves 2 of them its full of magazines, cd's, Lp's dvd'd top to bottom. The window has think heavy curtains.

Celling height is standard, about 2.4m.

Just too add, I was suprised I have seen many pictures on this forum, with people with relativley small rooms, so I took a chance and expensive one!!

Model frequencie I have no idea where to stat, I downloaded the free one suggested by ROLSKI thank, but I'm a bit ignorant when it come to things like this is this the simplest way?

DeepEndX, what to mean that your friend soundproofed the walls? stud walls or bass traps?

[Aussie Geoff]

Not sure if this has any significance, when bass heavy music is playing, and I walk around the room there is a spot near the door where all the resonant bass iis gone.

This is very significant. Basically it confirms that the problem is largely related to room effects with standing waves being set-up due to the square shape of the room... Fixing this in the same room means some combination of moving the speakers (even inches can help) and bass traps. Try and get them more way from the side and rear walls and ty toeing them in... Bass traps can be fancy devices (padded accousitng foam in corners) or even strategically placed couches... Also if moving the speakers only helps a little - try moving them to be off centre a little in the room (e.g. one more to the left or right than the other - this will make the reflection pattern non symetrical and could move the boom away from your listenning spot...

This is not to say that the granite etc won't help - it's just that in my experience this is more marginal than the moving / sound traps if you are getting room related boost / cancellation of the bass...

Geoff

[bass007]

hi, Aussie Geoff, Well I started off with the speakers quite close together which really didn't sound good sounded muffled and congested. I have put the abot 2.5 apart sounds a bit better. But the moving the speakers doesn't see to have an effect on the bass.

The speakers are toed in and pinpointed in my listening position.

I will try moving just on of the speakers too see if I can reduce the boom as you've suggested this evening.

Bass traps are probably a no no My other half will definaetly go mad!!

[chinets]

Mr. Bass 007,
I will help!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will buy your 802D if you are willing to sell ,and How much are you asking???????
Chinets

[bass007]

At this stage I am willing to sell. I am in the UK London not sure where you are but this forum seems to be more international. Looking for £6700

[ThomasW]

IT"S THE ROOM/PLACEMENT, not the speakers. B&W doesn't 'voice' their speakers to be bass heavy.

I know a bit more than the average person about B&W since I use to co-own a high-end audio store and guess what? We sold B&W....

Placing any speaker in a room, one gets boosted output in the lowest octaves, this is called "room gain. It's literally a function of the geometry of the room reinforcing the sound waves from the speaker. The area where you heard the output drop is called a 'room null'. This is where an in-phase and an out-of-phase wave are meeting, and lowering the output at a particular frequency.

Below is a link to a subwoofer guide I'm writing. It's underconstruction so not every page is complete. Reading it will give you some understanding of what's happening and how to fix it. Most people would die to have "too much" bass. If nothing else you can plug the port IF that's what causing the problems.

http://home.comcast.net/~thomasw_2/SubwooferSetupandEQpage.html

[Whistler]

802D speakers for a 4 x 4 room, you're funny!! But hey, at least you can say you have a pair of 802 right...

Haha, such speakers need big rooms 4 x 4 is way to small for them :rofl: . These kind of speakers need a room which is at least 7.0m wide and 5.0m long and 2.5m high. But that's really the minimum for them...

My friend had a similar problem, except he had 800D's. He has a 5mx5m room with wood floors. He solved it by:

1) Placed 800D's on marble blocks
2) Sound proofed the surrounding walls esepcially the walls that was within 2m of the speakers (behind, side)
3) Placed a rug on the floor
4) Changed to thick curtains for his windows
5) Estimated the trajectory of the sound and sound proofed the walls that the speaker was facing.

Now, his system sounds great!

I think you never heard them in a good environment, get real 5 by 5 :roll: .

[bass007]

Hi,

I already have a subwoofer REL STORM V on my HT systen which is totally separate to my hi fi. This doesn't cause me any problems at all.

I will look into link you provided thank you.

[dyazdani]

I've heard (and owned) 802s in many rooms sizes and shapes. I haven't noticed that a small room necessarily contributes to poor performance. I HAVE heard them sound terrible in a big room due to poor setup and lack of treatments.

Using CARA to model your room is one way to do it, but it is a little time consuming and then you still need to verify the results. It's easier to just use test tones and a meter to see what's going on.

Now that I have a BFD and have been using Room EQ Wizard, it's even easier. You can set up a set of tones and let the computer record data while you're sipping a cocktail. It takes about an hour or so to do a 1Hz increment test by hand.

[bass007]

dyazdani, how do I do this?

[Recruit]

Bass007 - I had a similar problem with my Wilson Benesch Discovery's although they still will not be as bass heavy as the 802D's but i still had some slight boom in the lower frequencies.

I basicly solved this with room treatments and the bass is now nice and tight

I used this kit by Auralex -

http://www.auralex.com/sound_control_project2/sound_control_project2.asp

Worth trying 8)

[dyazdani]

dyazdani, how do I do this?

You will need a SPL meter at a minimum - I'm not sure what you have in the UK, but I use a Radio Shack meter. You'll also want something to hold it, a camera tripod is what I use.

The next piece of the puzzle is a source for test tones. I downloaded some from a room treatment manufacturer's site - they are in 1Hz increments (I can PM them to you if you want). You play the tones (I burned them to a CD and used my system's CDp) and record the SPL level on paper. The tones, in this case, lasted for 10 sec each. You will end up with a table of freq/SPL like 20Hz - 75dB, 21Hz - 76dB...50Hz - 85dB, etc. Wherever there is a peak or dip in the SPL number, that is a problem freq, either being reinforced or cancelled by room geometry.

If you want to use Room EQ Wizard (REQW), you still need a measurement device, the RS meter works. You also need a computer with a sound card capable of duplex operation. Most desktop models will be OK, laptops will probably require a supplemental sound card - I just bought a Sound Blaster MP3+ USB device, it works very well. REQW is much faster as you can set it up to automatically produce the tones and record the data. Like I said, kick it off and grab a beer...

The only issue with using REQW is that you have to do a bit of configuration before you can make proper measurements. The "by hand" method requires little except for patience. There are some other RTA type programs out there, but I don't have much direct experience with them. In fact, I only just started using REQW, but have done it by hand too many times...

[Seeme]

If you place your speakers in the middle of the room, does it still sound boomy? "Running speaker in Full with no sub" If that is the case, I feel that theirs not much that will help you. All the suggestions are great and those are the steps one would normally do, espescially the post from ThomasW. The low freq is the hardest to control unlike anything about 120hz. Maybe it's just too much speaker for your room and your taste.

Is it too boomy are too much? Moving it away from wall boundries will reduce the boomines but too much bass is hard to control outside of reduce it in the level adjustment.

[UCLAman]

Just Do It!

all of this talk about room size has me a bit concerned since I am seriously considering 802D. Right now I am in a 15 X 20 room but I intend on moving my setup into my den which is not much bigger than 13 x 13. Do the 802D really need a big room to sound their best? I dont mind putting some room treatments up but if it is going to take a huge effort in order to make the 802D sound good in my den then I may have to rethink this. I have read other members with 802s in small room and no one mentioned any problems before.

By the way, what does "tubby" mean?

Since you are a fellow Bruin, why don't you get the 802s. If you don't like them you can have my 803s and I will take your 802s. We'll just call it an even trade!!! I have always wanted 802s. And I am in the LA area - so easy transaction! :rofl:

[Indytown]

As most of the members have mentioned, room treatment in specific locations will help out tremendously. The 802's are very good speakers.

I would try a different pre-amp and amp.

Try to demo the McIntosh C46 pre-amp it has a very good built-in EQ feature ranging from 20hz to 2khz. The adjustments are very good on it.

I would try a slightly bass shy amp like the Classe Delta series amps with a pre-amp the doesn't load bass frequencies. The Classe stuff is very accurate and airey, a good pre-amp is needed to bring the bottom out.

The Mac piece will give you solid accurate full bass with no boom or sound tubey. It does emphasis bass and upper bass frequencies but you can adjust them.

The Ayre pieces are very nice, good top end air accurate bass.

Just some thoughts.

[EastCoaster]

Below is a link to a subwoofer guide I'm writing. http://home.comcast.net/~thomasw_2/S...andEQpage.html

Thomas - this is a great guide. Would you consider adding a button to the page where one can get the whole document in one page to print it? (I'd like to print this out, then curl up somewhere and do some reading, thinking, doodling in the margins, etc.). Many thanks!

[EastCoaster]

Since you are a fellow Bruin, why don't you get the 802s. If you don't like them you can have my 803s and I will take your 802s. We'll just call it an even trade!!! I have always wanted 802s. And I am in the LA area - so easy transaction! :rofl:

I've got one better! He gets the 802s, doesn't like them, gives you the 802s in exchange for your 803s, then you don't like the 802s, and give them to me in exchange for my 805s? To sweeten the deal, I will give you the B&W demo dvd... :B

[RebelMan]

It's not the size of the room that matters so much but instead the construction and makeup of the room that does. I have seen the mighty 800D's employed in a room less than 14 feet wide with great success. Calling the B&W 802D's bass heavy is like calling a Porsche Cayman poor handling. If the conditions aren't ideal then the performance won't be either. A sports car wasn't meant to be taken off-road any more than pair of reference class speakers were meant to be placed in a room plagued with multiple coincident resonance modes.

Square or cubical rooms are notorious for their excessive contribution of "room boom." Speaker placement (proximity to the front and side walls) and the listening position (proximity to the rear wall) can exacerbate an already difficult acoustical problem. Heeding many of the fine suggestions in this thread to pin point the source(s) of the problem and ways to treat them will go a long way to address this issue.

It was previously stated, which bears repeating, "IT"S THE ROOM/PLACEMENT, not the speakers."

[tboooe]

UCLAMan: You are my kind of guy. Its a deal! To make it even, you will have to host me for all USC/UCLA football games (and supply the beer and food!). BTW, we are going to the FINALS babeee!!!! LSU does not stand a chance!

Eastcoaster: you are on to something! To sweeten the deal, I will include the B&W pen I was given when I registered my 804S.

Rebelman: the size of the room does matter because it affects how and where one can place speakers. In my case, this is a mute point because my wife informed me that I am not getting my den back anytime soon. So my speakers will stay in the living room which is pretty big (at least for the next few years).

[Race Car Driver]

I wish my 802s were too boomy......
Prolly has to do with my 3 walled room

[DeepEndX]

My buddy used bass traps. He also bought some modern art painting (cloth) and hung them around the room. Just like what Rebel Man said, "It's the room/placement, not the speakers."

At the beginning I felt sorry for my friend when he had this problem. We bought the speakers together, I got the 800D. My room size is approx of 400 square feet, so I did not have his problem, but i still had to move the speakers around for a bit to get the perfect sound stage. But after he room treated it, it was fine.

[ThomasW]

Thomas - this is a great guide. Would you consider adding a button to the page where one can get the whole document in one page to print it? (I'd like to print this out, then curl up somewhere and do some reading, thinking, doodling in the margins, etc.). Many thanks!

You're welcome. Hopefully someday I'll get it finished. I know little about webpage coding (what you see was created with Frontpage), so the print button you requested isn't something I know how to make.