AudioKinesis Swarm

tmallin

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May 19, 2010
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Sonically, I think Robert E. Greene's review of this subwoofer system in The Absolute Sound nailed this. I've had dual JL Fathom f113 subs as well as other sub pairs, but while the bass from those was certainly strong enough and went at least as low as the Swarm, the quality of the bass produced by the Swarm is in a whole different realm, and the spatial envelopment enhancement provided--especially with two amps driving the woofers in stereo and in quadrature (left woofers 90-degrees out of phase with the right woofers) is something far beyond what the JL pair provided in my old basement concrete bunker room. Even though this is a small room (161" L x 132" W x 103" H) even as USA home listening rooms go, the bass quality is much closer to what I hear in a concert hall than what I've been previously able to achieve at home.

Having had the Swarm set up in my small upstairs stereo room? (the one with the Stirling LS3/6 main speakers) for awhile now, I will just offer a few set-up hints and observations not covered in REG's review:

1. The amp(s) AudioKinesis has chosen for powering the Swarm is the Dayton Audio SA1000. One is provided in the now-$2,800 price for the Swarm. If you want two, so you can operate the woofers in stereo, that will cost a few hundred extra. These amps are well-packed and should arrive undamaged. They look and feel more expensive than they are, but don't be expecting sheet metal or cosmetics of the type you get with many multi-thousand-dollar amps.

2. The transformers of the amps may well put out some mechanical 60 Hz hum. Not through the speakers, just directly mechanically from the chassis. My two samples both hum, about equally. They are both attached to the same dedicated 20-amp electrical line. It is not the worst transformer hum, I've heard, but is clearly audible from the listening position and elsewhere in the room. Unlike my old basement concrete bunker room, this second story converted bedroom is not anechoic chamber quiet, either. I live very close to a commuter train line and there is a lot of audible air traffic from O'Hare, as well as vehicular traffic on my street. I still clearly hear the hum. None of the other components in either of my stereo systems produce any audible transformer hum.

3. This transformer hum was totally eliminated by plugging both amps into a single Audio by Van Alstine Humdinger with the Hundinger plugged directly into one of the wall sockets which previously powered the Dayton amps. That Humdinger device costs $140, plus shipping.

4. The speaker terminals (as well as the port) for the Swarm woofers are on the bottom of the cabinets. The one-inch-tall feet will give adequate floor clearance if you are using bare or tinned wire, pins, spade lug connections or normal banana plugs. However, with the extra-long locking banana plugs on my Blue Jeans 10 White speaker cables, you will want taller feet to prevent the long, inflexible locking banana from touching the floor and perhaps creating stress on the plug connection or allowing some rocking of the cabinet. The angled entry of the locking bananas into the binding posts gets the cable end of the bananas very close to or in fact touching the floor a bit. Fortunately, drop-in replacement 1.5" tall feet are inexpensively available from Parts Express here. The mounting screws AudioKinesis supply are long enough to work fine with these taller feet. The taller feet provide plenty of clearance even for the Blue Jeans locking bananas. I'm using these taller feet.

5. Two of the woofers have two sets of binding posts. The other two woofers have only one set of binding posts. You hook two of the woofers in series connection by connecting the woofer with two sets of binding posts to the amp and then connecting that woofer to a woofer which has only one set of binding posts. Hot goes to hot in all connections; the series connection part is taken care of via connections within the woofer box so as to prevent the hookup from being any more complex than necessary for the user.

6. Here are some additional details about the Swarm set-up I've taken from an email Swarm designer Duke LeJeune sent me in response to my questions:

The way to connect two subs in series is this: Connect one set of speaker cables from amp to the "lower" set of inputs on a dual-input sub, and then connect another set of speaker cables from the "upper" input set on that sub to a single-inputs sub. Internally, the two "-" tabs on the dual-input terminal cup are jumpered to one another, and the lower "+" input goes to the + terminal on the woofer while the upper "+" input goes to the - terminal on the woofer. At this link is a picture of the terminal so that you can see what I mean by "upper" and "lower" sets of inputs:


The number of ports that should be open or plugged depends on how much low-end reinforcement your room provides. If it's a small dedicated room where you normally listen with all the doors closed, then you're probably going to want to plug all the ports. If it's a large and/or "open floorplan" room, then you're probably going to want most if not all of the ports open. In your case, I'd start with them all plugged.

When you remove a plug, make sure you also remove the black rubber threaded piece, as that's part of the plug, not part of the port.

I normally face the woofers at the wall because this way they just look like blocks of wood on little feet, and I think that's kinda cool. Not many subwoofers look like that. Also, that saves me the trouble and expense (and hence saves you the cost) of grilles. I hate doing grilles.

If you have total freedom to place the subs as you see fit, you might want to try the "golden ratio" configuration shown on the attached drawing. Don't worry if you can't do it exactly, as the effective room dimensions at low frequencies will be different from the room's actual physical dimensions anyway.

And definitely try the two sides in "phase quadrature"!


7. Given my small, relatively bass-retaining room, I have all the ports closed and all the woofers facing the wall as Duke recommended. The "golden ratio" set-up diagram is attached. In my room, I am able to get all the woofers except the .15L one placed as specified in the diagram. For that one, I currently place it as closely as possible to the recommended position. To get it at .15L, I'd have to move the right Stirling further away from the side wall than it is now so that the Swarm woofer could fit between the side wall and the Stirling.

8. The Swarm set up has given me more reasons to love the Lyngdorf TDAI-2170 which powers the Stirling LS3/6s in this system. The Lyngdorf's main speaker outputs, its analog line-level outputs, and its digital outputs are all independently adjustable in terms of level, high pass or low pass filtering, crossover frequency (Hertz by Hertz precision), and crossover slopes (choices of 1st-order, 2nd-order, or 4th-order Butterworth or 8th-order Linkwitz-Riley). All these functions are executed by the Lyngdorf in the digital domain. These controls are in addition to the analog high- and low-pass crossover, parametric EQ, phase, and gain controls of the Dayton subwoofer amps. In my system, there are obviously a lot of possibilities to explore in terms of integrating the Swarm with the Stirlings.

9. So far, I have been using the LS3/6 as REG apparently did--full range. So far I like the full and punchy bass quality of the Stirlings and don't want to diminish that quality. With my current speaker and listener positioning, they produce rising output down to 45 Hz and produce usable but diminishing output down to around 30 Hz, as measured by the Omnimic system.

10. I do like the sonics and measured response of the Swarm system best so far using the 4th-order Butterworth low pass of the Lyngdorf. The 1st- and 2nd-order slopes affect the measured range above the crossover too much for my liking. The 8th-order L-R crossover sounds a bit "strange." I bypass the Dayton amp's analog crossover by feeding the analog line out of the Lyngdorf into the LFE inputs of the Dayton amps. That definitely makes the subs sound a bit cleaner than feeding the signal through the Dayton's analog low-pass filters. I have been adjusting the crossover frequency and slope using the Lyngdorf's digital controls.

11. I have been using the Dayton's analog gain control to adjust the overall level of the subwoofers. This is actually easier to adjust while watching the real-time Omnimic measurement display than is watching the display while changing the analog output level of the Lyngdorf.

12. I have not yet tried the Dayton amps' parametric notch filter to attack the primary bass resonance. In my room, the biggest resonance seems related to the floor-to-ceiling mode and is in the 70 Hz range. With my current speaker placement, however, this resonance is not very noticeable sonically and measurably.

13. I adjust the phase for quadrature using the phase control on the Dayton amps. There are many ways to do this, but works for this system is as simple as leaving the left channel amp phase control at zero degrees and setting the right channel amp phase control to 90 degrees.

14. In this system, in this room, with the Swarm set up as described, the response of the system measured with the Omnimic is basically a pretty flat line from 20 Hz up to the chosen crossover point. In my current arrangement, I have the crossover set at 45 Hz. In prior set-ups, I had it set as high as 60 Hz and as low as 40 Hz.

15. If I want a higher crossover from subs to Stirlings, I would high-pass the main speaker outputs from the Lyngdorf at a chosen frequency and low-pass the analog output of the Lyngdorf at that same frequency. That would be a way to erase some of the low-frequency room lift I'm getting right now since the lift is coming from the Stirling output into the room, not the Swarm output, which is basically a flat line as configured.
 

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FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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HI

I haven't heard Duke's SWARM yet but have been a fan and an advocate of the Geddes multi-subs approach. Currently experimenting it with Kef LS50 and some old Sunfire subs ... Will eventually try the MSO software along with a Behringer DCX 2496 ...

Great to see you posting again. Do that more often!
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Indeed good to see you again Tom. I always learn something new whenever you post. Plus it's written so well that I can almost hear it in my head. I have dual Fathom F113 as well so this truly is of interest to me
 

Folsom

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I've heard them. There is no better immersion quality that the swarms offer. They are not for producing stand up bass and such.

They bring you into the music so much farther when it has the low frequency information. Brian Walsh played a track at Axpona where he said, "The bass comes up from the earth on this one." Yes you have no idea what that really means more than I did.... then I heard it. It was pretty damn awesome.

Duke turned them off for us during the playback of something, and the immersion quality dropped to the point it was as if you flipped the music off entirely for a moment. Yes it was regained once the brain adjusted to the speakers playing alone, but not at the same level - that's for sure.

Humdinger fixing DC is not the fault of the amplifiers Duke sells with the swarm; it was on your power from wall to start with. They only play very low so that cheaper amp is more than good enough for what they need to do. Your main speakers will still provide kick drums and such for definition.

The biggest trick in my book is having a good enough active crossover... oh wait I wouldn't. I'd probably just use an adapter cord off of my main amplifier into the Dayton. The only possible problem is one might have to use a different amplifier if you have a balanced output main amplifier; in that case the Crown XLS series could easily be adapted since it can do balanced inputs.

I'll let you guys know if I hear any fancy subwoofers add a better quality to immersion than this system. As far as I'm concerned subwoofers of typical variety can do nothing more than add power behind explosions for movies, and huge burps for electronic and such. They do not give an immersive quality that is just... so damn cool for music. You can't actually spend enough money to overcome the attributes of the Swarm, with traditional configurations for subwoofers. I suppose you could just buy lots of subwoofers and use them like the Swarm, but Duke's very smart so his may do this type of job much better no matter where you're looking.

In the past I used OB speakers and dual subwoofers, it was pretty neat because they had a lot of musical power but due to being only two and forced to be near the OB speakers for time alignment, I never got immersion qualities. It just doesn't work that way. Hell, I'd even vote that it wouldn't be unreasonable to use subwoofers for music range, AND the swarm for immersion.
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
6,455
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405
I've heard them. There is no better immersion quality that the swarms offer. They are not for producing stand up bass and such.

They bring you into the music so much farther when it has the low frequency information. Brian Walsh played a track at Axpona where he said, "The bass comes up from the earth on this one." Yes you have no idea what that really means more than I did.... then I heard it. It was pretty damn awesome.

Duke turned them off for us during the playback of something, and the immersion quality dropped to the point it was as if you flipped the music off entirely for a moment. Yes it was regained once the brain adjusted to the speakers playing alone, but not at the same level - that's for sure.

Humdinger fixing DC is not the fault of the amplifiers Duke sells with the swarm; it was on your power from wall to start with. They only play very low so that cheaper amp is more than good enough for what they need to do. Your main speakers will still provide kick drums and such for definition.

The biggest trick in my book is having a good enough active crossover... oh wait I wouldn't. I'd probably just use an adapter cord off of my main amplifier into the Dayton. The only possible problem is one might have to use a different amplifier if you have a balanced output main amplifier; in that case the Crown XLS series could easily be adapted since it can do balanced inputs.

I'll let you guys know if I hear any fancy subwoofers add a better quality to immersion than this system. As far as I'm concerned subwoofers of typical variety can do nothing more than add power behind explosions for movies, and huge burps for electronic and such. They do not give an immersive quality that is just... so damn cool for music. You can't actually spend enough money to overcome the attributes of the Swarm, with traditional configurations for subwoofers. I suppose you could just buy lots of subwoofers and use them like the Swarm, but Duke's very smart so his may do this type of job much better no matter where you're looking.

In the past I used OB speakers and dual subwoofers, it was pretty neat because they had a lot of musical power but due to being only two and forced to be near the OB speakers for time alignment, I never got immersion qualities. It just doesn't work that way. Hell, I'd even vote that it wouldn't be unreasonable to use subwoofers for music range, AND the swarm for immersion.

Folsom... Multi-Subs is all that you describe. It is not plug-and-play. Duke's SWARM maybe that, I don't know. This is an idea that many audiophiles actively reject. But it seems that best bass requires the room Bass reponse to be smooth. Not the FR at one seatin point but rather that in many positions in the room that the response be smooth and similar... I have no way to explain this except that with 3 lowly Sunfire subs and the LS50 I get the type of bass one has to hear to believe. It takes a while and in my case there is still a dis-junction when the volume level rise that is most bothersome but ... As REG put it. It is the future. I would like to see some here try it... There is no coming back once that this is properly set-up. The beauty of Duke's solution is the low cost.. Something unfortunately many associate with low-quality. Definitely in my sights to try ...
 

Folsom

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Yes Duke's price is very good. Honestly it's lower than it needs to be... so you're right about the stigma. I highly suggest talking to Duke anytime about speakers. He understands how they work better than most speaker manufacturers; because he understands how they work in the environment. I'm not saying his main speakers are everyone's cup of tea, but he really knows what he's doing. He's the type of guy too busy enjoying speakers he makes of different varieties than to engage deeply in the market, but it still selling them because they're great speakers. He'd probably gain a lot of interest in the even higher end market if he got into paint finish and such.
 

DaveC

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Nov 16, 2014
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I've heard Duke's systems many times at RMAF, the Swarm sounds great and is a very logical way to tackle bass, it addresses the root cause of the problem and is far better than any room correction eq could possibly be. His price is also more than reasonable.

I agree with Folsom on the Crown XLS amps, they are moderately good amps (with a few weaknesses that can be tackled by some diy) in general and excellent amps when used for bass, and they have a built in 24 dB LR crossover so they can function as sub amps without a separate eq. The Crown's class D output has a very firm grip on the woofer, actually too much for speakers with bass that's already well damped. They make for very clean low frequencies with limitless power on tap. No transformer = no mechanical hum too. :)

I tend to use preamp outs to drive my bass amps but I'll be experimenting with using speaker level, I know some people like it better and it's what REL always recommended. Folsom, have you found a circuit you like best for that? For me, I'm thinking I can completely omit the input buffer/opamp pcb for my nCore NC500 amp modules (balanced input required), just replace it with ~10k series resistors and whatever I need to get the right voltage to the input for the shunt leg.
 

Rodney Gold

Member
Jan 29, 2014
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11
18
Cape Town South Africa
I wanted to get the swarm.. but living in south africa it wasnt a feasible option as transport would have cost the same as the swarm and amps. Very good price for the system in US .. not as good an option here.

I tried the swarm approach proof of concept with 4 cheapy Yamaha subs .. and it worked extremely well.

I have now gone for 4 SVS sb13 ultras as my "swarm"

I use a miniDSP 4x10 hd to control the subs .. bypassing all the subs DSP.

With the minidsp , you get up to 8 chanels analog output (8 subs?).. preamp output from my Devialet feeds it .. the subs have some serious amplification built in
The huge advantage of using the miniDSP is that you can change sub parameters on the fly ..whilst you listen

You can ser crossovers , slopes , invert , levels , PEQ , mute and all manner of things individually for each sub.. infinite tuning abilites.

And yes , the swarm approach works a bomb.. articulate bass down to subterranean levels...

I use DIRAC to see the mains and swarm as a whole and do correction with it...the cherry on the top

I can switch my swarm in and out at will .. you can plainly hear and feel the difference...

I run my G1's full range .. by themselves , they can do the levels of bass the swarm can , with the swarm engaged , it just takes the bass to another level.
I like electronica and other genres that have serious bass .. not a big classical buff.
 
Last edited:

Folsom

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Oct 25, 2015
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I

I tend to use preamp outs to drive my bass amps but I'll be experimenting with using speaker level, I know some people like it better and it's what REL always recommended. Folsom, have you found a circuit you like best for that? For me, I'm thinking I can completely omit the input buffer/opamp pcb for my nCore NC500 amp modules (balanced input required), just replace it with ~10k series resistors and whatever I need to get the right voltage to the input for the shunt leg.

It's just a few resistors. I'd like to see a datasheet on the NC500; hard to say what's possible without that.
 

tmallin

WBF Technical Expert
May 19, 2010
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I've heard them. There is no better immersion quality that the swarms offer. They are not for producing stand up bass and such.

They bring you into the music so much farther when it has the low frequency information. Brian Walsh played a track at Axpona where he said, "The bass comes up from the earth on this one." Yes you have no idea what that really means more than I did.... then I heard it. It was pretty damn awesome.

Duke turned them off for us during the playback of something, and the immersion quality dropped to the point it was as if you flipped the music off entirely for a moment. Yes it was regained once the brain adjusted to the speakers playing alone, but not at the same level - that's for sure.

Humdinger fixing DC is not the fault of the amplifiers Duke sells with the swarm; it was on your power from wall to start with. They only play very low so that cheaper amp is more than good enough for what they need to do. Your main speakers will still provide kick drums and such for definition.

The biggest trick in my book is having a good enough active crossover... oh wait I wouldn't. I'd probably just use an adapter cord off of my main amplifier into the Dayton. The only possible problem is one might have to use a different amplifier if you have a balanced output main amplifier; in that case the Crown XLS series could easily be adapted since it can do balanced inputs.

I'll let you guys know if I hear any fancy subwoofers add a better quality to immersion than this system. As far as I'm concerned subwoofers of typical variety can do nothing more than add power behind explosions for movies, and huge burps for electronic and such. They do not give an immersive quality that is just... so damn cool for music. You can't actually spend enough money to overcome the attributes of the Swarm, with traditional configurations for subwoofers. I suppose you could just buy lots of subwoofers and use them like the Swarm, but Duke's very smart so his may do this type of job much better no matter where you're looking.

In the past I used OB speakers and dual subwoofers, it was pretty neat because they had a lot of musical power but due to being only two and forced to be near the OB speakers for time alignment, I never got immersion qualities. It just doesn't work that way. Hell, I'd even vote that it wouldn't be unreasonable to use subwoofers for music range, AND the swarm for immersion.

Perhaps what I posted was not clear. The external-to-the-subs Dayton Audio SA1000 subwoofer amp(s) provided as part of the Swarm system do in fact have both a low-pass crossover and the ability to send a high-passed signal from the Daytons to your main speakers. In this the Swarm system is similar to many actively amplified subwoofers. The Dayton amps also have available a single-band parametric notch filter as well as a low bass boost. I do not use either of those. All these controls of the Dayton amps operate in the analog domain.

In my particular system, I'm using a Lyngdorf TDAI-2170 amplifier as the main preamp/amp to drive the Stirlings. That amp also has full low- and high-pass crossover controls, but done in the digital domain. By experimentation, I determined that the Swarm system sounded a bit cleaner when this processing was done by the Lyngdorf rather than the Dayton amps. Thus, I feed low-passed analog line level signals from the Lyngdorf to the analog LFE inputs of the Dayton amps, bypassing the Dayton amps' crossover circuitry.

I do not doubt that in other systems the Dayton amps may not put out audible physical vibrational hum from the transformers. Duke says such hum this is rare. All I'm saying is that I had such hum, but that the $140 AVA Humdinger cured it, and that no other components in either of my current audio systems put out such hum. All my equipment operates via dedicated 20-amp circuits recently installed all at the same time by the same electrical contractor from the same electrical service box.
 

alfa100

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2014
262
49
258
South Africa
Looks like the kind of subwoofer system i need. Can i feed signal from my main speaker to the swarm amplifier like the REL?
 

tmallin

WBF Technical Expert
May 19, 2010
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No. Unlike the REL, the Swarm is a passive subwoofer system. This means it has no internal amplifier or crossover. Those functions are provided by an external metal chassis amplifier, the Dayton Audio SA 1000 Subwoofer Amp. Inputs to this amp must be at line level. You would feed a volume-controlled analog output from a preamplifier, pre-pro, or AVR to the Dayton sub amp. The Swarm subs then connect to the speaker outputs of the Dayton. The set up is explained more fully in my first post in this thread.
 

ferrox

Well-Known Member
Jun 16, 2016
262
55
158
Jakarta, Indonesia
www.primes.asia
Waiting for my Audiokinesis Jazz Module 2.0 + Sound Generators. It will arrive perhaps in February next year because of the long process of sea shipment. :)

I've heard them. There is no better immersion quality that the swarms offer. They are not for producing stand up bass and such.

They bring you into the music so much farther when it has the low frequency information. Brian Walsh played a track at Axpona where he said, "The bass comes up from the earth on this one." Yes you have no idea what that really means more than I did.... then I heard it. It was pretty damn awesome.

Duke turned them off for us during the playback of something, and the immersion quality dropped to the point it was as if you flipped the music off entirely for a moment. Yes it was regained once the brain adjusted to the speakers playing alone, but not at the same level - that's for sure.

Humdinger fixing DC is not the fault of the amplifiers Duke sells with the swarm; it was on your power from wall to start with. They only play very low so that cheaper amp is more than good enough for what they need to do. Your main speakers will still provide kick drums and such for definition.

The biggest trick in my book is having a good enough active crossover... oh wait I wouldn't. I'd probably just use an adapter cord off of my main amplifier into the Dayton. The only possible problem is one might have to use a different amplifier if you have a balanced output main amplifier; in that case the Crown XLS series could easily be adapted since it can do balanced inputs.

I'll let you guys know if I hear any fancy subwoofers add a better quality to immersion than this system. As far as I'm concerned subwoofers of typical variety can do nothing more than add power behind explosions for movies, and huge burps for electronic and such. They do not give an immersive quality that is just... so damn cool for music. You can't actually spend enough money to overcome the attributes of the Swarm, with traditional configurations for subwoofers. I suppose you could just buy lots of subwoofers and use them like the Swarm, but Duke's very smart so his may do this type of job much better no matter where you're looking.

In the past I used OB speakers and dual subwoofers, it was pretty neat because they had a lot of musical power but due to being only two and forced to be near the OB speakers for time alignment, I never got immersion qualities. It just doesn't work that way. Hell, I'd even vote that it wouldn't be unreasonable to use subwoofers for music range, AND the swarm for immersion.
 

nefilim

New Member
Mar 8, 2018
2
0
1
San Francisco
Howzit Rodney! (Grew up in Stellenbosch myself:)

It's with great interest that I've been exploring different interpretations of the "swarm" concept, I'm curious as to exactly how you integrated it with the miniDSP in your system.

You mention that you're feeding the miniDSP with your Devialet preamp out, I assume the Devialet is still propagating the signal to the internal Class D amps for output to your main speakers at the same as outputting line level post volume control through the preamp outs, is that correct? With the miniDSP is the signal going through another AD/DA cycle to do the processing/filtering? Do you think there's a potential time alignment problem related to the signal going to the main speakers?

Where do you fit the DIRAC processing in? Dont you need a different miniDSP device to do that?

Cheers!
Peter

I wanted to get the swarm.. but living in south africa it wasnt a feasible option as transport would have cost the same as the swarm and amps. Very good price for the system in US .. not as good an option here.

I tried the swarm approach proof of concept with 4 cheapy Yamaha subs .. and it worked extremely well.

I have now gone for 4 SVS sb13 ultras as my "swarm"

I use a miniDSP 4x10 hd to control the subs .. bypassing all the subs DSP.

With the minidsp , you get up to 8 chanels analog output (8 subs?).. preamp output from my Devialet feeds it .. the subs have some serious amplification built in
The huge advantage of using the miniDSP is that you can change sub parameters on the fly ..whilst you listen

You can ser crossovers , slopes , invert , levels , PEQ , mute and all manner of things individually for each sub.. infinite tuning abilites.

And yes , the swarm approach works a bomb.. articulate bass down to subterranean levels...

I use DIRAC to see the mains and swarm as a whole and do correction with it...the cherry on the top

I can switch my swarm in and out at will .. you can plainly hear and feel the difference...

I run my G1's full range .. by themselves , they can do the levels of bass the swarm can , with the swarm engaged , it just takes the bass to another level.
I like electronica and other genres that have serious bass .. not a big classical buff.
 

Rodney Gold

Member
Jan 29, 2014
983
11
18
Cape Town South Africa
Hiya Peter , were you ever on IRC ..that nick looks familiar..I was Drgfinger....
My daughter is 3rd year at stellies

As to the swarm , well I upgraded to G1 spirits which are bass monsters in themselves so use no subs now , I also use a trinnov ST2 room correction device instead of dirac..

However to answer , the minidsp 4x10hd for the subs did do an ADDA from the analog pre outs , I never noticed any latency , but with the devialet you can actually delay the mains if needed And you can delay the subs in the minidsp 4x10 (or the devialet)

Dirac is used right at the beginning of the system physically and used after all the subs are set to clean it all up

source>minidspd dirac (ddrc 22)>devialets>speakers/subs
Regards
Rodney
 

nefilim

New Member
Mar 8, 2018
2
0
1
San Francisco
Hiya Peter , were you ever on IRC ..that nick looks familiar..I was Drgfinger....
My daughter is 3rd year at stellies

As to the swarm , well I upgraded to G1 spirits which are bass monsters in themselves so use no subs now , I also use a trinnov ST2 room correction device instead of dirac..

However to answer , the minidsp 4x10hd for the subs did do an ADDA from the analog pre outs , I never noticed any latency , but with the devialet you can actually delay the mains if needed And you can delay the subs in the minidsp 4x10 (or the devialet)

Dirac is used right at the beginning of the system physically and used after all the subs are set to clean it all up

source>minidspd dirac (ddrc 22)>devialets>speakers/subs
Regards
Rodney

Yes! I thought your name seemed VERY familiar - memory is letting me down, more often than not lately ;) Good ol' days on IRC with kuma & dave too. Went to Stellies too, 25 years ago, wonder what it's like today.

Thank you for the input, good to hear the latency is negligible! Do you feel there's a significant difference between the Trinnov and Dirac systems? Both appears to operate in the time and frequency domain.

Best
Peter
 

Rodney Gold

Member
Jan 29, 2014
983
11
18
Cape Town South Africa
The trinnov is in a league of its own re room correction , way better than dirac sonically and infinitely more configurable. however its 10x more expensive than dirac , but imho , worth every penny.

https://www.avforums.co.za/index.php/topic,69055.0.html

The entry level models are 4 chan tho , so in effect mains and 2 subs...2 subs , in my experience is almost as good as 4.

Stellies is the same , just more representative of demographics. She loves it there , but its a schlep as she commutes from Cape Town
 

Kingrex

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2019
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Has anyone done a SWARM with Rel T5 or T7. I ask as I don't want boxes the size of the Audiokenisis in my room. They are just too bid. This is my living room and audio does not trump a pleasant living space. I need very small and able to be hidden. I would probably use the Longbow to get signal to the subs.
 

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