DB1 and 804Ds (and CP-800)

[londoner]

A question for people with DB1 along with 804Ds.

What settings do you use for them when listening to music and movies?

I'm using with mono XLR input from Classe CP-800 pre-amp. Using the DB1 pre-set low-pass filter to match the 804D then the sub is very quiet at 0db and zero gain.

Is that just a reflection of the fact that the 804Ds go quite low already and that there's relatively little low-frequency information in music as opposed to movies? Or it it normal to need to adjust gain etc. by ear to get a match.

Thanks for any comments.

[windshear]

I think it is more an indication that there is very little real bass in music, that said, it depends on the type of music. I have a pair of DB1's and at times do feel they are lacking in terms of adding something to the music, however for HT they are brilliant. I think it goes back to the point of the source either having the low frequencies or not. the best way to prove this would be if you had some test material and could run a frequency sweep it would highlight if the operation was adequate or not.

[emig5m]

My sub is currently so well integrated with my mains (thanks to Audyssey MultEQ XT and the fact that my sub also has it's very own auto correction) that with most music you can barely tell any difference between different crossover frequencies or sub on/mains small or sub off/mains large unless you get some music with some extreme lows. I'm currently using 80Hz for my crossover for all channels to the sub. Doing a sine wave sweep is sounds very flat and equalized. However CD audio is all over the place. Some recordings have good bass/treble and others do not. So I just use the music restorer and different levels of dynamic EQ to adjust for different recordings. Sometimes even a little manual EQ from the HTPC. With movies it's pretty much set it and forget it, but music recordings is all over the place, sadly. So IMO it's totally normal for the the sub to sound like it's doing nothing for a lot of music recordings on a calibrated system which is the exact opposite of a car system bass head where they have the subs boosted 20dB and a huge gap between the bass and mids.

I think if recording studios started mixing on properly calibrated systems with competent speaker systems to a agreed upon standard other than those crappy Yamaha bookshelfs you see in just about every studio picture with whatever settings and compressed to hell and back only then would we get some kind of consistency with music playing back on a properly calibrated system like you get with modern movies. :

[londoner]

Thanks for both helpful comments. I've been now listened to a wider range of recordings and noticed quite a bit of variation as you say.

I'm keen to get the well-integrated match between sub and mains you describe. I think I'm going to get the new XTZ Room Analyzer Mk II Pro as I don't think I'll be happy with just doing it by ear.