I got a slightly early Christmas gift from Outlaw this year - an SMS-1. Well, technically it came from my wife since she wrote the check, but it was apparently at Outlaw's suggestion. It's going to take me some time to get a good handle on it. Tonight I probably won't even get it hooked up and it clearly is a complex enough piece of gear to warrant some thought, but I've got Friday afternoon all to myself to play with it (office closes at noon, but wife and daughter will not be home until later that day). My application is a single subwoofer so the very interesting debate about multiple subs won't factor into my system, but some time next week I'll let you all know how the SMS-1 works for me.

Edit: shortly after posting this, I noticed the Secrets best of 2005 awards . A few notable entries include the often-discussed Oppo (best budget DVD player) and the Velodyne SMS-1 (best audio processor). Neat!

gonk,they didn't even let you borrow another LFM-1 for a review?

I eagerly await your review in this one, Gonk. I am seriously considering getting it for my newly aquired SVS PB12 Ultra/2.

Let us know! One of the reasons that I went with the 970 was that I could put the difference towards the SMS-1.

According to Stereophile it is quite easy to get it up an running on automatic mode. The complexity comes in if you want to manualy tune it up.

Good Luck.
Regards,
Charlie

I've had mine for about a week and a half and I must say that even with my crappy sub, I've noticed a difference. I don't think the auto setup is all that great but the manual setup is quite amazing and not too hard to use. In fact, I have been able to get an almost flat response curve all the way to where my sub starts rolling off.

Forgot to mention... you can move the 8 eq's to different portions of the response curve which is a fantastic feature. for me, i noticed that most of my adjusting came in the 45-70 hz range. using the test tones made it very easy to find the best place to put my sub before i eq'd it. where it had been turned out to be the worst place for it. you also can see how far down your mains will go before rolling off. this is an incredibly powerful device... more so than they are letting on with all the things you can adjust.

A note of WARNING... be very careful about stacking the EQ...especially at lower frequencies. you can burn your sub up in the process. also, apparently it takes way more power to boost a valley than it is to lower a peak.

i thought the manual was a bit vague about things but talking with the tech guy at velodyne was very helpful.

not sure about other processors, but with the 990 that i have, you want to disable the SMS crossover. this is vaguely referenced in the manual.

jongaro,
Why do you not like the auto set up? I ordered one today actually and I should have it by Friday. I like the idea of an auto set up because it's simple but I guess I will have to try the manual deal.

because the processor in the auto setup isn't smart enough to recognize problems when EQ'ing your sub. in my situation the auto setup tried to boost to max(+6) in the lowest portions of the frequency curve while lowering the mid and upper range to almost -12. grantd i don't have a good sub at the moment...waiting on the new HSU VTF3-HO. there would have been a good chance that i would have damaged my sub had i not adjusted it.

what i would do is use a good quality set of RCA cables and backfeed from the sms to your 990 (into analog inputs). this allows the sms to generate test tones through your mains which allows you to see the frequency curve of your mains and your sub. you can mute the tones to your sub to see what your mains produce and then unmute to see what your mains and sub produce together. does that make sense? i'm a bit tired.

what i found is that most of my adjusting came in the mid range of the freq curve for my sub. so rather than having all 8 eq's spread out in areas that my sub either couldn't reproduce or were okay, i moved the eq's to areas of the freq range for my sub that needed the most help.

i hope that made sense. honestly, manual mode is where this product shines. you won't realize the full potential by using the auto setup.

i don't even think the manual covers moving the eq's within the freq range. i was goofing around and realized i could. by this i mean selecting an EQ, and then moving it to the left or right within the freq curve so that you can better correct peaks and valleys.

let me know if you have any further questions.

I don't recall seeing anything about moving the EQ's within the frequency when digging through the manual, jongaro, but I think your idea of moving the EQ's toward the range where the sub is most capable is an excellent one - and one that an automatic process would have a hard time adjusting for without some human assistance. I plan to run the auto cycle once just tomorrow to see what it does and then start tweaking from there.

i was suprised it could be done and only found out by accident. just higlight an eq in manual mode so that the slide show 3 bits of information on the lower right of the screen below the volume(L, F, Q). when this happens, you can then move that eq to the right or left.

when i talked with velodyne, they didn't indicate if putting them too close together was a bad idea. the concern they mentioned was stacking, as stated in the manual, but what there definition of that was was not made very clear to me.

did they mention at outlaw to disable to crossover on the sms? just go to the system settings scree, highligh the low pass xover freq, and reset it. you'll have all zeros in the top two rows.

Cool - that was something I was trying to figure out. I didn't want the crossover active with the 990 already handling bass management, but I found no way to disable the crossover (scrolling up past 199 seemed like a possible method, but it just rolled back around on me). I'll give the reset trick a try.

Make sure your not trying to boost a null... and even if not a null, 2-3Db boost could be ok but no more than that… I don’t remember the "formula" but for every xDb boost, your sub will have to work x amount of time harder to compensate and it can be very stressful for your sub... Good thing you knew about that stuff and didn't trust the auto setup (your poor sub would have taken a big hit)...

disabling the crossover for the sms is in the manual but again it is very obscure. i was tipped off about it by the guys at outlaw tech.

i actually didn't know about how damaging the boost could be until i was told about it. but i wasn't trying to boost areas of my sub output where my sub didn't have any

Sure enough, I found mention in the manual of both the "RESET" trick for disabling the crossover and of the ability to adjust each EQ channel to the desired frequency. It appears that the Velodyne DD sub manual has a few extra screen shots along with nearly the same text compared to the SMS-1 manual.

Does this mean that the auto EQ could possibily fill in nulls to a dangerous degree? I have some serious nullage in my room . I just got this today and I am going to set it up tomorrow.

If a particular dip in your FR doesn't respond to EQ attempts, it's most probably a room induce null. Nulls tend to be sharp and deep. Some people locate their sub where there are fewer nulls and then only cut the peaks... There is nothing wrong with boosting (IN MODERATION) when you are sure it's not a null. You can't overcome severe nulls with EQ, period. Just watch out for cone overdrive, loss of headroom, and amp clipping...

OK but the SMS won't try to fill that in automatically to get a flat response? I am just concerned because I am kind of new at this whole EQ thing that I won't catch it if it does. I was reading the manual last night and my head spun.

Someone else will have to jump in and reply since I don't own an SMS and I'm not familiar with the algorithm it might use in the automatic mode...

The SMS's automatic software most likely leaves the EQ's at their default frequencies (that would massively simplify the number of variables being addressed), so if a null hit at one of those EQ frequencies it would probably increase the EQ to the max. The danger that exists with manual EQ is that you can stack two EQ channels at the same point and push both to the limit to address such a null - at which point the sub's driver is being asked to operate at 12dB higher output at that point than the baseline, which could be considered similar to asking the sub to run 12dB "hot" (something that could be painful to a driver when you throw some deep bass at it).

My brain is still not graspng this. I am sure that it is simpler than I am making it. I am going to give Steve a call.

This is all great real-life info folks. Keep it up!

Jeff Mackwood

ps. Not to sound like a broken record, but now do more folks understand what I was getting at with respect to multiple subs? What I'm hearing for a single sub is that i) as expected, room placement makes a huge difference to begin with and ii) in manual mode there's an awful lot of adjustment going on (not just levels, but frequencies as well) to get it just right. Now add another sub to the equation - in a different location (naturally). Maybe even a different sub than the first. On its own, it's potentially going to require a totally different set of corrections. Combined with another sub, where they share the same output, it's a compromise. Yes it (global equalization) should be an improvement but I would really like to see a v.2 having individual calibrations for each sub. Alas, us multiple sub users are probably in such a minority that it will likely never happen. But since it's Christmas time, one can still wish!

I can offially say that this thing rocks. With much trepidation I set it up tonight but it really wasn't that difficult( even for me :p ). I did the Auto EQ just for kicks and that did help but then I did the manual EQ and Boy! did that make a difference! I have a difficult room and my response now is fairly flat.

With the SMS I learned that my phase setting was way off and that my ideal crossover is 40 with my system. I never would have known this if I did not see it being charted right before my eyes. It was really cool to see the graph start leveling out with the turn of the phase knob on the sub. I did not even need to boost any nulls after doing this which was a big worry for me.

The manual could be a little clearer. There is only a short mention of how to turn off the crossover in the SMS but with the help from Steve and this forum it was relatively painless process.

I am very happy with the SMS-1. My speakers sound clearer and my bass is tighter and more integrated. I have the symbiosis I have been looking for. I highly recommend it.

By the way, I've got my feedback here. Forgot to come back here and mention it earlier today.

Great review gonk! I have a room that does not sound as if it is as forgiving as yours when it comes to peaks and nulls. My main issue is that my SVS subs are so tall, they would block parts of the bottom of the screen if put where the freqency response is best for the room. I may have to check one of the SMS-1s out.

Oh..That's right. It does ..I wonder why I was thinking otherwise? Blonde moment I guess. Thanks Gonk.

It would be great if SMS-1 owners could post a before and after frequency response diagram to see the extent of the change...