JBL Control 1 summertime project surround array and more!

[JBL 4645]

Bugger me I forgot the Phantom Menace Power supply unit to power the ECM8000 bugger!

So I’ve just ordered though “digital village” uk a (Behringer TUBE ULTRAGAIN MIC100) should be with me on Friday.

£30.00 pounds.

Digital Village has one of the most relaxed calm custom services I’ve come across, nice friendly all round fast service.

[JBL 4645]

Well it finely turned up and after reading though the pdf manual this morning to get a basic understanding of the MIC100. After switched on MIC100 and giving a few minutes to warm plugged in the ECM8000 and attached the other XLR lead to the MIC100 and plugged it into the Technics SH-8055 I soon noticed I had to reduce the noise floor.










Once done I played some pink noise and monitored the centre channel first off. The response was pick up was far better than my other microphone after making a few adjustments to the left and right I resumed “Dragnet” (1987) that was playing last night but I got a little restless.





The MIC100 is relatively easy to operate once you get used to its functions.

I’ll go a little further later this afternoon or early evening when things quieten down a little bit, I have the sub bass extension to look at and LFE.1 and surround arrays as well.

[Audiobeer]

WTF

P.S. The pic of the Young Lady is absolutely Beautiful Northwood.

[grumpy]

an example comparison of Earthworks S30 (M30) and a Behringer ECM8000
(only one example of each, but I thought someone might find this interesting).
Ignore the small variations... getting -exact- mic placement
vs the test source is tough. Levels have been normalized. If you assume the
S30 is flat in this bandwidth, then the ECM8000 response is what the plot
represents (deviation from flatness).

-grumpy

[JBL 4645]

grumpy

Not sure if I follow you but I do catch on. Are you say the mix is a bit high end on the high frequency response? And that it needs to be calibrated for an even more flatter frequency response.

So far I’ve gotten a bit of usage out of it the MIC100 is a little tricky I can see the level of noise being added on the RTA and keeping a nibble finger on the knobs so that it won’t distract me too much. After which I can do a pink noise check it’s a slight improvement over the other microphone that I’ve been using for the past 6 years.

I’ve done some crazy analyzing with it to check up close and personally on the JBL Control 1 and 5, a better RTA like the DEQ2496 would be good asset in the near future a few as I’d like one for left and right stereo front stereo surrounds centre and centre back and sub bass.

[grumpy]

Not sure if I follow you but I do catch on. Are you say the mix is a bit high end on the high frequency response? And that it needs to be calibrated for an even more flatter frequency response.

Yes. This example of the ECM8000 I tested was roughly 3dB "hot" at 10KHz relative
to a very flat (albeit much more expensive) reference microphone.

If you were to calibrate a system for a flat measured response using the ECM8000,
the high end would actually be somewhat depressed. I don't know anything about the unit
to unit consistency, so I don't know if this is typical for all ECM8000's. A google search
might be worthwhile if interested.

[JBL 4645]

grumpy

I’ll take that onboard noted too high at 10KHz by as much as +3db. Thanks for telling me.

[grumpy]

This link appears to describe a very similar procedure to what I described, and
obtained a fairly similar result:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...libration.html

[JBL 4645]

grumpy

Well, well that is surprising a fall band EQ linked to the MIC 100 output to even out the frequency response might do the trick and then of course there’s the room’s multi chain of EQ to address slight nit picks.

Damn this hobby is expensive thank goodness for Behringer otherwise I’d be spending hundreds if not thousands for a single microphone.

10hz -5.2db
15hz -2.7db
20hz -1.8db
30hz -0.8db
40hz -0.1db
4khz +0.4db
6khz +1.5db
8khz +2.5db
10khz +3.5db

[JBL 4645]

Went walkabout this morning first to make an appointment with my doctor, as I have a middle right ear inner problem kinder like a cold. So I’ll wait until Monday for that. After which I walked over to Boscombe to have look around brought some affordable loudspeaker cable from (Richer Sounds) for the surrounds, and while looking in (Eddie Moors Music) store I saw hiding away behind in the cabinet a (Behringer FBQ2496) for £109.00.

I’ll see if I can get the FBQ2496 powered for sometime tonight using a little improvisation, I need a few XLR plugs so I might have to wait until the morning to a few and some cable, but in the meantime I think I can use some spit and gum to do the trick temporally of course.



So this is how the unit appears for now, nothing is powered up as of yet, I’ll get around to that in a jiffy. I’ll be using the unit for LFE.1 and sub bass extension, I’ve heard some good reviews of the unit working in the home cinema community for about a year now, so I’ll look some details up see what everyone else has done with it and apply some of those techniques to the programming of the FBQ2496.

[JBL 4645]

Well I Googled the name FBQ2496 added forums and found this to be helpfully interesting. So far I’ve taken onboard some of the details and it’s seems to be quite indispensable.

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/bfd-forum/35-bfd-guide-quick-links-faq-tips.html

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/bfdguide/

[JBL 4645]

Well I have found a few phone plug leads with RCA phone on each end and attached those to the FBQ2496 input and outputs, set the operating button that is placed on the rear of the unit to the IN position as described in the link that I found. So far the unit is performing but no settings have been made as of yet, as I’m still reading though the users manual and the link about the use of the DSP1124P and BFQ2496.

[JBL 4645]

Well I’m not sure if I’m winning as of yet I have however managed to use what is called PEQ which works from 1 though 20, that is the whole 20 bands of the parametric EQ, if I understand this correctly.

I programmed a board range of low frequencies from

20 Hz
25.1 Hz
30.2 Hz
35.1 Hz
40.3 Hz
45.2 Hz
50.2 Hz
55.0 Hz
58.3 Hz
60.3 Hz
62.3 Hz
65.4 Hz
70.1 Hz
75.1 Hz
80.5 Hz
85.3 Hz
90.3 Hz
100 Hz
124 Hz
141 Hz

I’ve played a brief moments of wideband pink from the dts demonstration set-up disc CD, track 14 all-channels with all the other channels turned off expect the centre channel which was set at very low volume for the time being as I don’t just want to hear low rumbling sounds I need a little something to help me concentrate, no matter I managed then to adjust the gain + and – this will raise or lower the level of the frequency on the BDF2496 to as much as +15db to -36db.

Next was the quality of the frequency which is called bandwidth this function worked from

1
2
3
4
0.10
0.11
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.20
0.25
0.33
0.50
0.75
1.0
1.5
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0
7.0
8.0
10.0

So I think I’m nearly there expect now I need some sleep as its been a bit of long day so I’ll pick this up later and if anyone has this unit I’d like to hear about you hits and misses with the Behringer FBQ2496.

[JBL 4645]

I’ve noticed that I’m slowly getting surrounded by the “Behringer” there is no escape from the “Behringer!” there is another product that I would like to add to the home cinema and that is the (Behringer Ultrabass Pro EX1200) which was brought to my attention two years ago by a member over on the “Secretes of home theatre and high Fidelity.”

I’ve just done a quick Google Product search and found two places that is doing the (Behringer Ultrabass Pro EX1200) at an affordable low price called (Total Music Solution) £81.99 and UKDJ at £73.00 pounds wow well I never that’s a low price I doubt you could beat! So this will be added soon to the set-up!

So far I’ve added the

Behringer DCX2496
Behringer ECM8000
Behringer MIC 100

And more recently the

Behringer BFQ2496

[JBL 4645]

I plan to run the unit with two outputs one driving the (sub bass extension) that takes the low end from the LCR and surrounds as well.

The other remaining channel on the BFQ2496 will be used for the LFE.1 that drives different sub bass unit in the room. So I have two things to attend to as and when I get the whole thing totally up and running as I’m take this one step at a time no point in rushing.

I’d need to test the frequency response firstly by using the only reliable RTA unit in the room my Technics SH-8055 along with the Behringer MIC 100 pre-amplifier and the Behringer ECM8000 microphone.

I’ll do tests at one meter without any EQ then test it at the listening position not the small differences as well as playing an assorted use of films soundtracks that contain the wildest low end over the five channels and the LFE.1, also noting what it feels like as well so I’ll have a visual guide of what the frequency was and my own thoughts on what it felt like?

So this is going to take me a more than a few simple days of testing, only wished I had a few matching Behringer DEQ2496 to accompany this, because the unit has an RTA wide spectrum band for analyzing, oh well I’ll have to wait, small steps at a time no rush.