Reading Paul’s post this morning on subwoofers summarizes the benefits I hear in Chris’s sub creation. When properly placed (two in my case), they are an honest extension of the main speaker while reducing room anomalies that effect sound top to bottom.
Things are not perfect yet, as I’m tweaking locations, as well as app driven gain, x-over point, delay, and phase. Graphic auto and manual EQ readouts are available as well but I haven’t used that function yet. The subs currently sit between the
FR30’s but there have been good results taking one of these subs and putting it on the rear wall.
I have this fantasy of four subs surrounding the listening position and creating a null-free zone there. It could happen.
Full disclosure, I’ve had a few subs and found they were often not a seamless extension to my planar or electrostatic speakers. The FR12’s draw no attention to themselves and speak only when asked to. There isn’t much music down there, but that last octave carries a lot of weight. Feeling, as well as hearing. The FR30’s are no slouch on the low end but that extra air movement, moves me.
On top of the increased emotion, the room-smoothing effect of the subs reduced my mi-bass hump and revealed more precise instrument and voice placement. The room is still far from perfect, and active devices like the PSI C214 do much more, but it’s getting better.
The FR12’s are a positive work-in-progress that improve with moving them around and fine tuning with the app parameters. This is easily achieved with the wireless transmitter, no down-sides seen. I guess that leaves only a potential power cord upgrade, but I will leave that to the super tweakers.
Thanks for that. Indeed I have been preaching the subwoofer gospel for many, many years and it constinues to amaze me how many folks still don’t have a world beater sub like our new Foundry: again, not supplement the bass response of the main speakers but to make up for the room. I have yet to find a room/system that doesn’t significantly benefit.
A pair of F12s is one of the best improvements you can make and one significantly more important than a cable upgrade etc.
Are the Foundry avaialble to order for Canada , would your distributor have them at the Montreal Audio show? I just bought my M700 and love them paired with my Speakers and Eversolo A8, but it take over 30 days to get them delivered, not sure why, in any case hope to see them there to to try them out as my local reseller for PS Audio does not have the FR5 or FR10 so I can listen to them in person.
Hi @Paul
I haven’t seen the Foundry on the Australia PS Audio website either.
Cheers,
Phil
What’s your cross over point and volume setting for pairing with the FR30?
Still trying different ones. Currently at 40 and 50 respectively. When asked Chris, he suggested a higher x-over point, yet up to individual room and taste.
Good news, I will be up in Montreal next month and we will have them playing at the show! They should be available to demo very soon. As for Australia, they should be coming soon.
I will be at the show in Montreal as well!
Thanks @jamesh !
Any indication of AUD$ price yet?
Hello Folks:
Are the Foundry Subs being shipped out of California rather than Boulder? I just got a notice from FedEx that a shipment is on the way from Cal.
Yes, they are in a warehouse of ours in California where most of our loudspeaker products ship from.
Good to know. I’ll assume I can’t pick one up in Boulder. Running out of room already!
We have some units in Boulder available for pick up too. Just let us know.
My apologies Philip but I’m not sure. VAT and duties in different regions usually drives the pricing which I’m not familiar with.
Thanks, Paul for clearing that up.
Some impressions. I have 2 of the F12’s. I also have a larger SVS 17-inch Ultra sub. I started with the two F12’s between the FR-30’s. After listening to Chris and starting to learn REW, I have been moving things all around.
I was thinking of a double bass array at first, but after reviewing REW simulation information for my room and various sub locations for 2, 3 or 4 sub options, I have moved to a setup that is more focused on reducing room mode frequency drop offs. All of my subs are on ASC sub traps.
Currently I have one F12 close to front wall right corner, and the other on the left front wall, but I have a large membrane bass trap in that corner, so the sub is 1/3 from the side wall. The other large sub is diagonally set in the rooms’ left rear corner. This arrangement removed most all major mode dips. Low pass filters are set in the 60-75hz range. I use balanced line outputs for all subs and find I needed to turn the F-12’s up to 90-92 to get volume balanced with the FR-30’s. In my room on my dB meter the 400-1000+ hz range on the upper cabinet of the FR-30 is a few dB louder than the bass cabinet. This could be related to replacing the stock jumpers with Audience speaker cables that are lower inductance than the internal wiring, increasing sensitivity. Not sure.
Anyway, the F12’s heat sinks on the back do get slightly warm, but the subs do not need much driver movement to get balanced bass with the FR-30’s. The subs have a 24 dB slope by default. I am thinking of changing this to a smoother low pass slope to allow a bit more of the sub to supplement the FR-30’s in the 70 to 200 hz range.
The FR-30’s did not perform as well with the subs in-between them. Moving the subs to the front wall opened up the space between the subs and the soundstage benefitted significantly as the passive bass drivers seem to fill the space in better without obstructions.
I think the larger sub also helps to fill in some 15-25 hz low bass where the F12’s drop off. I suspect a future F16 would be well received. Plus, it is a great fighter.
That is something I have noticed when I switched from my two G25HP dual cone 15” subwoofer wired via CR-1 and XLR to two smaller F12SE wired high level to amps. The super low end is not gone, but not as dynamic. But the increase in SQ in the rest of the range is worth that sacrifice IMO. The 12” being smaller and faster is a better match for music IMO. I kept the 2 G25HP’s for HT duty..in that case the 12” could never keep up. Nothing wrong with 4 subs…
Relative to the influence of room acoustics, I found this video very informative:
Thanks for the detailed setup for your FR12’s. So many variables to consider as everyone’s room and system are different. I am still playing around with placement and everything else.
I do agree that getting the subs out from between the FR30’s works best, causing less interference with the passive radiators and retaining a more focused center image.
And, to your point and Brian’s, four subs might be the ticket.