EQ low Q subwoofers ground plane, in-room, or both?

[Mandroid]

Hopefully this is in the right section.

With low tuned enclosures and/or low Qts drivers in sealed enclosures, native response increases substantially towards the upper end of the usable bandwidth.

I presume it is understood that such configurations use dsp to reach the desired response, but not much is ever said about how it should be done.

As the title asks, is it more ideal to use ground plane first, or just eq them directly in-room?

 

[Tomeh]

Hi Mandroid,

I use whatever gain that I can get in the room first and then EQ.

The distortion will rise sharply with EQ'ed lower end, so why not limit that by using the room?

I have four subs, two stacks, one in each front corner to get the corner gain and use them only from 45 hz down.
Using the room, corner gain and then EQing , lowered the distortion in half from 200 hz down.

First it took everything from 45hz down off of the main fronts and allowed them to operate only above that which lowers both the bass driver distortion and amplifier distortion in the bass, now only >45hz. Secondly it lowers the distortion in the subs (<45hz) by making them more efficient (corner gain), lowering the amount of EQ required because of their increased corner gain and keeping their amps operating in a lower distortion, operating level.

BTW my subs are sealed enclosure, 12" with around 5 or 6 lb magnets and are exactly as you described "native response increases substantially towards the upper end of the usable bandwidth."

Cheers,

Tom eh