69-70 Hz problem: advice requested

ayreman

Well-Known Member
Jan 2, 2017
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Ukraine
In my listening room I have a problem with bass at 69-70 Hz: bass is very boomy at this frequency. Is there a way to somehow mitigate this problem without affecting other frequencies which I'm quite happy with? Any advice and/or recommendations are much appreciated.
 

Bruce B

WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Apr 25, 2010
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the 60-80Hz range is problematic in every room.
Some of the things to help:

Bass traps - never can have too many!
Speaker/Listening positioning.
Subs with DSP - adding more bass seems counter intuitive, but, if you can get an out of phase signal at the problem frequencies, it helps.
 
Last edited:

Mike Lavigne

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Apr 25, 2010
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one thing to try that is cheap and can work is to experiment with speaker and subwoofer height. the floor-bass driver relationship can affect the mid bass quite a bit.

it might not matter, but it might help.

you can get some sort of platform, or longer spikes, or even a few blocks of hardwood. in any case it's small effort to investigate. 2 inches can make a big difference in bass hookup in certain frequencies. the floor has a much larger effect on bass than other surfaces. do experiment with varying heights as small changes in floor-driver distance can make big differences.

in my old room when I had Watt Puppy 5.1's back in 1998 I was able to smooth out my bass in this way. the room was small and I already had tube traps. so my options were limited.

keep in mind raising the main speakers raises your tweeters and mids, so you might need to slant them to keep your listening height the same.
 
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mcduman

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2014
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nope. used to have the same problem. do not blindly waste your time and energy on accessories before finding out the exact boundary that is interacting with your loudspeakers to create this 70 Hz peak. do the (sub) woofer crawl first by placing one of your speakers in your listening position. play a 70 Hz tone and walk along the perimeter of your room to see the what it is that is resonating. you will realize it is shamefully obvious what the exact problem is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4o13mNmlaA
 

andromedaaudio

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Jan 23, 2011
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First i would look at is the speakercabinet .
Is it a boomy design meaning is the bassdriver setting the whole housing in motion ?:p
 

Rodney Gold

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Jan 29, 2014
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You have a PC as a transport.. not using analog sources as per your sig

If your player has a dsp parametric eq section , use it
Programs like J river and roon have them
Program in a dip of -6db , centred around 69hz, vary the Q from 3 to 5 in the parametric eq section

You could also use full time and freq room correction like DIRAC or Acourate and set them only to work below 250hz or so .. so you dont mess with upper freqs and only work in the bass
You should easily tame that beastly bass and more if you want
 

sbo6

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May 18, 2014
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Rel Stentors are great subs, I had one not too long ago. With two of them and careful placement (including potentially lifting off the ground) you should be able to "control" that bass node at the listening seat. Also, more bass traps in corners is not always the best approach, many room have "dead' corners relative to the listening spot and adding traps just deadens the life out of the room and does nothing to manage bass. Room EQ Wizard is your friend. Measure and move, measure and move, then do final listening / placement tweaking for the last 2%.
 

Jim Smith

Industry Expert
Dec 14, 2012
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First, IMO - Move the listening seat forward & back a bit and note the differences.

You will find a position where the peak is less problematic, although other peaks or dips are likely to appear.

If you are measuring, be sure to do all measurements at ear height, so that you seeing the room-height interaction as well as possible, otherwise the measurements won't exactly tell you what is happening.

Choose the seating position where the room interacts least in the bass - in other words, where the bass is smoothest.

This is nearly always the most important (not to mention inexpensive) first step - definitely done before moving the speakers to fine tune.

In fact, without first establishing this 'smoothest bass' listening position (which becomes the anchor point), moving the speakers about is much less useful.
 

ayreman

Well-Known Member
Jan 2, 2017
217
78
158
Ukraine
First, IMO - Move the listening seat forward & back a bit and note the differences.

You will find a position where the peak is less problematic, although other peaks or dips are likely to appear.

If you are measuring, be sure to do all measurements at ear height, so that you seeing the room-height interaction as well as possible, otherwise the measurements won't exactly tell you what is happening.

Choose the seating position where the room interacts least in the bass - in other words, where the bass is smoothest.

This is nearly always the most important (not to mention inexpensive) first step - definitely done before moving the speakers to fine tune.

In fact, without first establishing this 'smoothest bass' listening position (which becomes the anchor point), moving the speakers about is much less useful.

How nice of you to post here, Jim! You are the very person I need now. I've just sent you an e-mail about my issue and hope to hear back from you.
 

Loheswaran

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Dec 19, 2014
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Last edited:

Elberoth

Member Sponsor
Dec 15, 2012
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You have a PC as a transport.. not using analog sources as per your sig

If your player has a dsp parametric eq section , use it
Programs like J river and roon have them
Program in a dip of -6db , centred around 69hz, vary the Q from 3 to 5 in the parametric eq section

You could also use full time and freq room correction like DIRAC or Acourate and set them only to work below 250hz or so .. so you dont mess with upper freqs and only work in the bass
You should easily tame that beastly bass and more if you want

+1
 

bonzo75

Member Sponsor
Feb 26, 2014
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+2
 

bpape

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Mar 28, 2019
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What is the height of the room? If about 2.4m (8') it could easily be a height mode. Try just standing up where you are now without changing anything else and see if the problem is helped.
 

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