So the Bravus 12D is the first "real" sub I have owned and, yes, it is awesome.  But I am having a different experience than I am used to.  For instance I will get my sub set exactly how I want it and will be so pleased with how it sounds and then while watching a different movie than the one I set it up on it will be overwhelming bass and rumbling.  So much so that it makes me think that it is just a movie with poor sound.  For instance I watched Rush: Snakes and Arrows Live on blu-ray and it was AMAZING.  Transformers on DVD, incredible.  Dark Knight and Incredible Hulk on blu-ray were terrible.  Dark Knoght has constant rumbling throughout the entire film. With a nice sub this is pretty annoying.  If I turn down the volume to get rid of the constant rumbling then the action scenes are lacking in bass.  I experienced the same thing with The Incredible Hulk.  There was rumbling when there was nothing on screen to indicate that there should be any rumbling.  Adjusting the sub and/or AVR to compensate made the action sequences suffer from a lack of bass.  I don't think I had this problem before with my 12" JBL Northridge Series, because it didn't have the performance to be outputting the amount of bass at low frequencies that the Bravus 12D does.  So is this sort of like a "curse" of sorts with owning a nice sub?  Do I need to do some sort of high tech sound level meter calibration or something?  Has anyone else experienced this?

When you get good speakers, you'll find that they will do no favors to bad source material.  So, in general, yes, that happens to most of us.

 

However, your examples puzzle me.  Dark Knight and Hulk (I assume you mean the Ed Norton one) are both great disks for me and my 12D.  No complaints.

 

Having the remote is handy, because not everything is going to sound the same and it's worth making adjustments, but the first thing I would think is that the crossover is set wrong on your sub (through your AVR).  If it's set too high, you will probably get what you're describing.

 

What your crossover set at?

jaylundgreen:

So the Bravus 12D is the first "real" sub I have owned and, yes, it is awesome.  But I am having a different experience than I am used to.  For instance I will get my sub set exactly how I want it and will be so pleased with how it sounds and then while watching a different movie than the one I set it up on it will be overwhelming bass and rumbling.  So much so that it makes me think that it is just a movie with poor sound.  For instance I watched Rush: Snakes and Arrows Live on blu-ray and it was AMAZING.  Transformers on DVD, incredible.  Dark Knight and Incredible Hulk on blu-ray were terrible.  Dark Knoght has constant rumbling throughout the entire film. With a nice sub this is pretty annoying.  If I turn down the volume to get rid of the constant rumbling then the action scenes are lacking in bass.  I experienced the same thing with The Incredible Hulk.  There was rumbling when there was nothing on screen to indicate that there should be any rumbling.  Adjusting the sub and/or AVR to compensate made the action sequences suffer from a lack of bass.  I don't think I had this problem before with my 12" JBL Northridge Series, because it didn't have the performance to be outputting the amount of bass at low frequencies that the Bravus 12D does.  So is this sort of like a "curse" of sorts with owning a nice sub?  Do I need to do some sort of high tech sound level meter calibration or something?  Has anyone else experienced this?

 

If you are still using the low bass boost that may cause it.

 

Cheers 

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Russ

Joined you!

I have similar experiences with my aperions...Just when i think my Aperions aren't up to snuff with bad source materiali put in a good recording like the Diana Krall Live in Paris DVD and am just blown away, it's like these can't be the same speakers i was just lisetning to a few moments ago.  What you put in you get out with Aperions i've discovered.

Hmmm sounds like you may have the sub turned up to high and the receiver level too low still.

What volume level do you typically have the sub at?
 

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Jason Hicks
Aperion Audio Guru

I was happy with my sub volume set at -2 and my AVR sub volume at 9 (it's max is 10)  I have LFE attenuation on my AVR maxed out and I have DRC set to middle because it deosn't reduce overall sound quality but helps compensate for movies and classical music with a big difference in volume level.  My crossover on the AVR only goes down to 100 , which is where I have it set.  My sub is set at 80.  When listening to certain scenes from Hulk (yes the Ed Norton one) I would keep the same scene rolling and adjust only the low bass adjust to either -6, 0 or bypass.  At the time I wasn't sure if 0 was same as bypass, but now I know it is.  I would notice a difference at -6 but there was still way too much bass.  The type of bass that I am talking about is like "ambient bass"  It's almost like the sound engineers do diffeent mixes for DVDs that have more bass to compensate for typical, low-quality HT setups or something.  I am truly baffled by the Dark Knight though, because in the theater this was one of the best sounding movies I had ever heard.  On my setup it is nothing but bass.  My receiver is decent, but not high end.  It also is a few years old and does not have the hi-def dolby encoders.  Is it possible that this is a side-effect of have a blu-ray outputtng Dolby True HD on a receiver that only handles Dolby Digital or DTS?  Though on the Hulk disc I tried switching back and forth between 5.1 and True HD and didn't really notice a difference.

Ok if you back off of the receiver level a bit, say to +6 or 7 does it click into sleep mode when it shouldn't?

If not that's what I would recommend.

You can also try a negative value for the parametric EQ on the 30 Hz band with the wide setting.
 

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Jason Hicks
Aperion Audio Guru

Believe me when I say that unless your sub simply isn't working properly, it's not what happens normally.  As an owner of a 12D with both those movies, I've never had that problem before.

 

It really seems like your receiver is the weak link in this chain (what is the brand/model?).  I'm really surprised it only has a crossover option down to 100hz, and suspect that may be part of the problem.  Regardless of what your sub is set at, the receiver may still be sending signal between 80-100hz, and could be a source of the issue.

 

It's tough to troubleshoot this from afar, but rest assured that what you're experiencing is not normal or something you have to live with.  There's a weakness in there somewhere.

I will try adjusting the Para Room EQ as well as reducing the AVR sub volume a little and see if that will help.  Thank you for the suggestion. 

 My receiver is a Pioneer VSX-D914-K

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Support/HomeEntertainment/AV-Receivers/PioneerReceivers/ci.VSX-D914-K.Support

http://reviews.cnet.com/av-receivers/pioneer-vsx-d914-k/4505-6466_7-31000743.html?tag=mncol;lst

If my receiver sucks, don't be afraid to tell me.  I won't take offense.

jay, I have an AVR that is similar to yours that will only go as low as 100hz on the crossover. It's a HiTB receiver from Pioneer. It's solid, but it's odd that  the cross over can't be adjusted much. the only options I have is 100, 150, 200. 200? yikes!

 So, with that in mind, since I am also looking at the 12D, I will be interested to see how you solve your issue.
 

I think it's likely a setting related issue and not the receiver itself.

If you have the crossover set at 100 on the AVR and 80 on the sub, the sub crossover should override it and filter out any freqs between 80 and 100.
 

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Jason Hicks
Aperion Audio Guru

Success!  I did the following to solve my problem: 

Turned down the sub volume on the AVR a little bit, from +9 to +4.

Turned the volume on my sub down from +5 to -7.

Turned on the Para Eq with a frequency setting of 30hz (the lowest)

 A width setting of WIDE. 

And then experiemnted with the eq level and settled on -6 (the lowest) 

When I switched between -5 and -6 on the para eq leve I noticed just enough of a difference to know that -5 didn't sound "perfect" to me.  But -6, though better, wasn't perfect either.  I was wishing there was a -5.5 or something, but hen I remembered the Low Bass Adjust in the mode settings (music, movie, game)  and thought that might solve my problem.  So I turned on the low bass adjust, hoping that it would not change the way the bass sounded, but just make it a little more impactful.  Voila!  I settled on +2 on the low bass adjust.  So I can yell you first hand that there is a difference to how the low bass adjust affects sound versus the para eq settings.  Now Dark Knight and other material sound like they should. 

Tell me how this would have been possible on a sub with just phase, corssover, and volume?

On source material that sounded great before these changes, the bass is definitely diminished.  The solution for this is an easy one, volume.  By turning the volume back up to the positive range on my sub I get the desired result, not a change in sound just volume. 

Again, if the Bravus didn't have this feature (the remote) my problem wouldn't really be solved since I would have to get up off my butt and change the volume for different source material, but with the remote it is easy as pie. 

I think the the reason why I had to monkey with these settings so much is due to the placement of my woofer.  There is really only one place for it to go and I am sure that being in a corner and near a wood stove (an insulated one, don't worry I won't be toasting my sub) that I was just getting some crazy reflection, resonance, or whatever.  Mind you I don't hear any vibration or rattling on the wood stove, but I think the bass sort of "echoes" in it if the sub isn't set up right.

I can't emphasize enough how impossible this would have been on any other sub.  My previous sub didn't put out this kind of bass so it wasn't an issue.  I originally purchased the Bravus 12D for better sound, thinking I wouldn't mess with the settings at all with the exception of the crossover.  Turns out that the settings ended up being the coup de gras (spelling?)  Had some people over last night as a matter of fact and was able to blow them away with some demos.

Thanks Aperion for making this great product and thanks for patiently answering all my questions and providing me with help.  And thank you to all the forum posters for offering your advice and encouragement as well.

Woohoo!  Love hearing that you found success.  Congrats!

Jay, that great to hear of your success! Things for explaining what you did with all of the settings. Really very helpful! I'll keep that in mind whenever I am able to swing that 12D.