Calibrating The Subwoofers With The Main Monitors - Dynaudio AIR 15 Reference Manual

Calibrating the
subwoofers with the
main monitors
About bass management
Bass management is a very important and useful tool
– and it is in general an absolute necessity if you want
to work with a five channel setup in a small room. For
more information, see "Bass management" on page
117.
Calibration – overview
From the home screen, set the volume to -30 dB.
►
Press the ENTER key.
►
"Bass Management" is displayed.
Press the ENTER key again.
►
"Select Mode" is displayed.
Press the UP and DOWN keys until "80 Hz" is
►
displayed.
Navigate to the Calibration submenu – see "Setup
►
menu ► Monitor calibration" on page 26.
Run tracks 40 to 42 from the Dynaudio Profes-
►
sional AIR test tone sets (low frequency sweeps).
If required, adjust level or crossover frequency
►
settings.
Dynaudio Professional AIR reference manual – 2014-09-28
Calibration
Start by setting the volume on the home screen to a
reasonable level – for example, -30 dB.
Set a crossover frequency for bass management – see
"Configuring bass management" on page 21. If you
have no other preferences, we suggest using the 80 Hz
setting.
If measurements or listening to the main monitors in-
dicate uneven level distribution or uneven frequency
response at frequencies above 80 Hz, select a higher
crossover frequency.
Checking the crossover frequency
In order to confirm the selected crossover frequen-
►
cy, use the test Dynaudio Professional AIR test
tone sets . To make sure that you are listening to
one monitor at a time, select one of the main chan-
nels in the Calibrate monitor submenu of the Setup
menu. For a start, select Master Left.
Play back the test tone tracks containing the low
►
frequency sweeps. Listen to the response or
perform sound level measurements if you have a
meter connected.
If you have a spectrum analyzer, you can play
►
the test tone tracks containing full bandwidth pink
noise instead.
Any uneven frequency response across the cross-
►
over frequency should be avoided.
Adjust the crossover frequency in the bass man-
►
agement setup, if necessary.
After adjusting one channel, the other channels
►
should be monitored one by one. Finally, monitor
all channels together.
Your system is now calibrated.
►
Checking and optimizing monitor placement
There are four other parameters that you should con-
sider with regards to the subwoofer. These parameters
are only available in the Calibrate monitor submenu for
subwoofers.
LFE Low Pass Filter (subwoofer parameter)
Settings: On /Off
When you set LFE Low Pass Filter to On, a very steep
(7th order) low pass filter is activated at 120 Hz. This
will filter out all content above 120 Hz. Use this filter
when no media encoder is in use. Switch it off when
your signal has passed through a media encoder/de-
coder. Most media encoders such as DTS and Dolby
employ an anti-aliasing lowpass filter. Therefore, in a
production environment it is important to use this filter
when monitoring the LFE channel to learn how the sig-
nal will sound after encoding/decoding (i.e., in a domes-
tic or cinema environment).
LFE Gain (subwoofer parameter)
Range: 0 to +14 dB
Use the LFE Gain parameter to boost the LFE channel
by up to 18 dB.
Polarity (subwoofer parameter)
Range: 0 or 180º
If the Subwoofer is placed correctly, setting the Polarity
parameter to 180º should result in a full phase cancel-
lation at the set crossover frequency. If this is not the
case , the Phase parameter described below should be
adjusted.
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