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I was discussing my bass journey and current status of my HT on a popular home theater forum when something kinda weird happened. A guy named Scott Newbey chimed in. He’s a self-proclaimed “bass expert” with a cult following similar to Amir’s over on ASR. Anyway, this Scott guy commented on my system and said that I could get way more bass with just a dual 18” ported sub from GSG, pairs with a Crown amp, and that I was “wasting my time with sealed subs in a home theater”. i replied tactfully and directly that I wasn’t looking for “the most” bass, but rather “the best” bass. This didn’t sit well with the bass guru, and he marshaled his minions to his defense. I don’t really care, and I am a firm believer in the accuracy and speed of sealed subs. Sure, ported subs have prodigious output at the tuned frequency, but well designed sealed subs just make me smile at all low frequencies….

Agreed. Many, many years ago when I was really into car audio I always used sealed subs for optimum sound. I never needed to blow the windows out with a ported design because I could get tight bass response from a sealed unit. Personally, I find that some ported designs actually muddy the sound a bit (at least to my ears).

Hi fellow Carverites, I’ve been curious about Carver Holography since its inception. Yes, I’m 76 and was budded to be an audiophile since buying a Grado FCE+ cartridge for my Garrad TT in the late seventies. I’ve read about every issue of audio mags and newsletters from Stereo Review and The Audio Critic to Stereophile and TAS. I built what I consider to be a very economical high end system using suggestions from trusted reviewers with the Blessing of my wonderful understanding Wife who’d since passed. Feeling somewhat unworthy since then, I seldom visit the required ‘Dedicated Listening Room’ where it resides. Instead I’ve used that acquired HiFi knowledge to scour EBay, Mercari and USAduiomart to find known quality units at cut rate prices. From them I’ve found: an NAD CD, Sangean HD FM, OPPO DVD and pairs of KEF Q150s and ELAC Atmos speakers. I bought a Dayton Audio HTA100 tube buffered integrated amp from Parts Express and quality cabling from Usedcable.com Then one day at work scanning the Audiomart I saw a C9! I’d all but forgotten about it. I thought “Why not?” I’ve got a clear, fairly phase accurate system, what with the two pairs of speakers with coaxial point sources drivers. All of the sources (save the TV, whose sound is served addiquitly by a ZVOX soundbar) pass through an Andover Audio SongBird streamer that’s probably the best $89 I’ve ever spent to the C9 and then to the HTA100. I downloaded the C9 manual from here and though I lack the space behind the speakers to meet the required parameters, I do sit in the proper location and have toed in the speakers as advised. Well sorry that I’ve “gone ‘round Robin Hood’s barn” to get to the conclusion that it sounds magnificent! Despite the Vienna Acoustic Bachs and Cary amp upstairs, I’m locked into the brilliant spacious soundstage the C9 has brought to my couch. Combo Jazz to live BSO concerts or DVD Opera, I’ve found the long sought after audiophile ‘Holy Grail’! Thank you Bob and Greg, HiFiRich 😎

The rebuild of my HT after the flood of 2023 was just recently completed a couple months ago. As I was rebuilding it anyway, I decided it was a good time to transition to a 4K Atmos 7.2.4 setup, from my previous 1080p 7.1 setup. As part of this change, virtually all of my components changed - in fact, only my trusty Oppo 105D made the cut to the new system (playing FLAC and DVDA, which the 4k Atmos Panasonic won’t play). I also pulled the Velodyne DD18, and added 2x SVS SB4000 subs. This is where the headaches started. Headache #1 - In order to get the Marantz SR6015 receiver to apply the Audyssey calibration to the subs correctly, the main speakers must be set to “small” - even though my RF7 mains are more than capable of playing down to 40hz. Headache #2 - Integrating two subs is a royal PITA. do you tune them together or separate? Do you make adjustments in the Marantz, or in the EQ suite of each sub via the mobile App? Headache #3 - what frequencies do you boost for the “punch” of movies, and then how do you restore some sense of fidelity for music listening? As a solution to all of these headaches, I purchased a Velodyne SMS-1 on the local classifieds. Anyone that has used one of Velodyne’s DD series subs has experienced the electronic tuning interface. It’s a brilliant system that feeds a sweep tone (and on-screen GUI) into an input of your pre/receiver, then utilizes a microphone to measure the sweep tone, displays the results on screen and allows a plethora of adjustments via an 8 band parametric EQ. The SMS-1 takes this electronics suite and puts it in a stand-alone component that goes in the equipment rack (mine is on top of the power conditioner on the left). Well…. Even with the SMS-1, I wasn’t getting anywhere near the bass response I wanted. My frequency graph looked more like a hockey player smile than anything resembling a straight line, and I had no “punch” or “impact”. So I decided to move my Velodyne DD18 into the room (back left corner), bringing me to 3 subs in a 17’ X 13’ room. The DD18 has its own electronics suite, so I just fed it from one of the “through” outputs of the SMS-1. I set the DD18 low pass at 45hz - just looking for it to fill in the lowest of the Lows. I was still not getting what I wanted, when it hit me - phasing. I have the Klipsch RF7 mains playing down to 60hz, the SVS pair playing up to 80hz, and the DD18 playing below 45hz. So I switched the SVS pair 180 degrees out of phase. Boom - everything fell into place. I now have a VERY flat bass curve. I “think” that the SVS pair is now cancelling out any overlap they have with the RF7 mains, and the DD18 is cancelling out its overlap with the SVS pair. another benefit of the SMS-1 is SIX (6) presets. So for movies, I have a couple settings with various bumps at 40hz, 50hz and 60hz, and for music a couple that are pretty flat. heres the curve (I didn’t take a shot of the pre-phase shift, but trust me - it was BAD…

Thank you all for your kind replies. Let me ask this: What recordings have you had success with to demonstrate and fine tune the Holographic effect? I've used this before to lock in the phase response of my Shiit Stack headphon setup with the five band Loki. The recording was done live with two mics and I believe straight to tape: Also please advise on your preferred settings of the Injection and Listening control buttons: in or out? My speakers are six and a half feet apart. That's my photo bomber Pebbles. HiFiRich 😎

I am new to the group and currently own a Sunfire CG1 and Sunfire TG1. I purchased these items new and have been in love with them up until recently. My TG1 has gone bad with several of the channels no longer working. I am in need of wiring schematics to aid the tech working on the unit currently, specifically the opto amp circuits.

Welcome - great story and good to have you here with us!!!

Welcome @HiFiRich1409. That's a great audio backstory and it's good to hear you're enjoying the C9. And the KEFs would be a great combination!

Hello HiFiRich1409 and welcome to thecarversite.com. Glad you found us! Great story! Thank you for sharing it. Congratulations on building it again, and I'm sorry for the loss of your wife.

The Moody Blues Nights In White Satin

Well. If a little (or a lot) is good, then a whole lot more is great. Right? In the case of bass in my HT, the answer is a resounding YES! I had my 2nd Velodyne DD18 just sitting around collecting dust. It got wet in the flood about a year and a half ago, and to be honest I was afraid to plug it in. With some of the proceeds from selling my 2nd pair of Silver 9ts, I sent the plate amp off to EBC in New Jersey. They are reasonable ($400) for plate amp repair/refresh, and do great work. Even if it wasn’t damaged, the amp is getting on past the 30 year old mark, and due for some attention. Well, I got the amp back a couple days ago, so today was the day. Had a bit of a panic and detour that I’ll detail in another thread, but after some ingenuity I got it up and running. I now have a 7.4.4 HT system, with two SVS SB4000 and TWO Velodyne DD18. Don’t get me wrong, the SVS are very nice and stout subs, but the Velodyne DD series…. They are on a whole different level. An 18” Kevlar cone (that’s just about 255sq inches) with a TWO INCH peak to peak excursion, and a 1,500 class D amp… they move some air. By comparison, the SVS uses a 13” driver (133sq inches) with a 1.25” excursion. playing Top Gun Maverick, Lord of the Rings (the underground battle) and Days Of Thunder (all on 4k), I’m in bass heaven. The two Velodyne subs are kind of hidden behind the seating, but they make their presence known when called upon….

"My speakers can rattle the windows."

You can't fight the BASS GURU you fool. Kowtow to the expert. Your opinion has been disabled due to crowd pressure.