Subwoofer connected to a different wiim?

[rjw]

Here is what I want to do:

In ceiling speakers fed from a wiim mini and a power amp sitting in one location. Elsewhere in the room a powered subwoofer with its own wiim mini feeding a signal. Synch the two wiims so that they play together as a group, eg, Spotify connect.

Now one reason I want to do this is so that the sub takes the bass load off the little in ceiling speakers and lets them focus on mid and upper. However, I can't get a cable between them so they will be two different wiim.

To achieve this I need the equivalent of a high pass filter on one wiim, and a low pass filter on the other, to achieve a crossover where the low pass for the sub is on one wiim, and the high pass for the ceiling speakers is on a whole different wiim/amp.

Possible? How?

 

[Mr Ee]

Here is what I want to do:

In ceiling speakers fed from a wiim mini and a power amp sitting in one location. Elsewhere in the room a powered subwoofer with its own wiim mini feeding a signal. Synch the two wiims so that they play together as a group, eg, Spotify connect.

Now one reason I want to do this is so that the sub takes the bass load off the little in ceiling speakers and lets them focus on mid and upper. However, I can't get a cable between them so they will be two different wiim.

To achieve this I need the equivalent of a high pass filter on one wiim, and a low pass filter on the other, to achieve a crossover where the low pass for the sub is on one wiim, and the high pass for the ceiling speakers is on a whole different wiim/amp.

Possible? How?

With wiim minis?
Best I can think of is trying some EQ settings to make the unwanted frequencies per mini as attenuated as possible.
No idea what it'd sound like!

 

[rjw]

With wiim minis?
Best I can think of is trying some EQ settings to make the unwanted frequencies per mini as attenuated as possible.
No idea what it'd sound like!

Or a pro if it makes any difference. The subwoofer can probably filter itself. The more difficult side is establishing a high pass filter on the in ceiling speakers.

Just looking for ideas here. I don't want the ceiling speakers to be trying to do frequencies under about 100hz or maybe even 120hz that the sub could be doing instead.

 

[rjw]

With wiim minis?
Best I can think of is trying some EQ settings to make the unwanted frequencies per mini as attenuated as possible.
No idea what it'd sound like!

Looks like I can't do this. Once you put a WIIM in a group it seems you lose the EQ setting on the synched WIIMs. Only the primary WIIM that controls the group has EQ so you can only EQ the group as a whole.

That seems like a miss in the design. The reason to EQ is to fix room effects and speaker deficiencies so obviously different locations and different speakers need different tweaks.

A sub is just an extreme case.

It would also be great to have low pass and high pass filters. A WIIM on the front speaker should have a high pass filter applied that a WIIM in the same group but connected to the sub does not.

 

[Brantome]

Looks like I can't do this. Once you put a WIIM in a group it seems you lose the EQ setting on the synched WIIMs. Only the primary WIIM that controls the group has EQ so you can only EQ the group as a whole.

That seems like a miss in the design. The reason to EQ is to fix room effects and speaker deficiencies so obviously different locations and different speakers need different tweaks.

A sub is just an extreme case.

It would also be great to have low pass and high pass filters. A WIIM on the front speaker should have a high pass filter applied that a WIIM in the same group but connected to the sub does not.

Set the EQ on each before you group them?

 

[Wiimer]

Looks like I can't do this. Once you put a WIIM in a group it seems you lose the EQ setting on the synched WIIMs. Only the primary WIIM that controls the group has EQ so you can only EQ the group as a whole.

That seems like a miss in the design. The reason to EQ is to fix room effects and speaker deficiencies so obviously different locations and different speakers need different tweaks.

A sub is just an extreme case.

It would also be great to have low pass and high pass filters. A WIIM on the front speaker should have a high pass filter applied that a WIIM in the same group but connected to the sub does not.

I don't think so.

When I make my Pro a master and multi-room link it with the Mini, the pre-set EQ on the Mini is still intact.

 

[rjw]

I don't think so.

When I make my Pro a master and multi-room link it with the Mini, the pre-set EQ on the Mini is still intact.

OK, that's good. So then, the next question, how bad of an idea is it to you use EQ as a substitute for crossover settings?

A good sub probably has its own built in crossover, so on the low pass it's less important. The bigger problem is going to be creating the equivalent of a high pass filter -- dropping the first two bands by, what, 12db? Is not really the same as a crossover.

I don't have the sub yet, so I'm kind curious about whether this is going to work, before I go buy a sub.

 

[Wiimer]

OK, that's good. So then, the next question, how bad of an idea is it to you use EQ as a substitute for crossover settings?

A good sub probably has its own built in crossover, so on the low pass it's less important. The bigger problem is going to be creating the equivalent of a high pass filter -- dropping the first two bands by, what, 12db? Is not really the same as a crossover.

I don't have the sub yet, so I'm kind curious about whether this is going to work, before I go buy a sub.

This is just my personal opinion.

Of course, it would be ideal if you had a high pass, but if you can set the PEQ appropriately, you can expect a result close to a high pass.

In my case, when I use a subwoofer, I plug the bass reflex port of the main speaker with a sponge.

 

[Wiimer]

However, when using WiiM's PEQ, lowering the low frequency range by 12db will also reduce the output from the subwoofer. Problems may arise if you compensate for this by adjusting the volume of the subwoofer.

 

[rjw]

Wait, will it? These will be two different Wiim. My plan would be a Wiim pro driving the main speakers (and controlling the group) and a Wiim mini hanging off the back of the sub, doing nothing but drive the sub, in synch with the Wiim pro.

So, are you saying I can't EQ them separately?

 

[Wiimer]

Wait, will it? These will be two different Wiim. My plan would be a Wiim pro driving the main speakers (and controlling the group) and a Wiim mini hanging off the back of the sub, doing nothing but drive the sub, in synch with the Wiim pro.

So, are you saying I can't EQ them separately?

Sorry,
If you use two WiiMs, this is not a problem.
I was missing it.

 

[rjw]

Sorry,
If you use two WiiM cameras, this is not a problem.
I was missing it.

Ok. I'm going to give this a try. Just went to the Rhythmik website and ordered an L12. It's too small for my room but if this works I'll get a second one and have two of these going and that will be sweet.

My plan right now is to get another Wiim mini and use line in on the L12. It's a shame none of the "preamp" Wiims have a proper LFE, but it should work.

 

[Raphaellus_GC]

Ok. I'm going to give this a try. Just went to the Rhythmik website and ordered an L12. It's too small for my room but if this works I'll get a second one and have two of these going and that will be sweet.

My plan right now is to get another Wiim mini and use line in on the L12. It's a shame none of the "preamp" Wiims have a proper LFE, but it should work.

Hi, did it work? I just found this thread and am very curious to know how it turned out, since I would like to try it myself at home, cheers!

 

[planetti]

Since rjw does not report his experiences, I will do instead.
Coupling a mini to a pro was possible via linkplay. But 2 basic drawbacks are apparent:
You get a huge delay of both, i.e. you get them syncronised (also adjustable), but long after a tolerable lipsync period (for e.g. video), and
you cannot save these settings.

 

[Raphaellus_GC]

Since rjw does not report his experiences, I will do instead.
Coupling a mini to a pro was possible via linkplay. But 2 basic drawbacks are apparent:
You get a huge delay of both, i.e. you get them syncronised (also adjustable), but long after a tolerable lipsync period (for e.g. video), and
you cannot save these settings.

Thanks

 

[rjw]

Since rjw does not report his experiences, I will do instead.
Coupling a mini to a pro was possible via linkplay. But 2 basic drawbacks are apparent:
You get a huge delay of both, i.e. you get them syncronised (also adjustable), but long after a tolerable lipsync period (for e.g. video), and
you cannot save these settings.

It works for me. I do not use the WiiM for video, only to drive music and radio over speakers in several rooms. I do not use this setup to watch movies and until WiiM supports HDMI/HDSC multi channel with some kind of AVS device this seems like it cannot be possible - sync will ALWAYS introduce significant delay.

You will need a feature request for a WiiM AVS that controls the delay on the video so that it would match the delay on the audio. But then that WiiM would need to be licensed to deal with video and those licenses aren't cheap, WiiM would have to make a big bet they they could sell lots of units to make it worthwhile to them (5.1 etc is controlled by a cartel that needs to get paid).

But I use this strictly for multi room music and streaming radio and it works. The WiiM syncs speakers in my kitchen, living room and dining room on the ground floor of my house. I have a subwoofer in the living room with its own WiiM mini. It works.

My TV is on the 2nd floor TV room and driven by a Denon AVS. I do have a WiiM plugged in as an input to the AVS. In that case there is another to sub, two tower speakers and two surround speakers but they are all wired to directly to the AVS and treated as a single WiiM in the sync setup. The AVS is managing room correction and crossover in that case

In the living room in the ground floor the sub there is directly fed by a WiiM mini and synced with other speakers in the same room that are driven by a wiim pro.

 

[Raphaellus_GC]

It works for me. I do not use the WiiM for video, only to drive music and radio over speakers in several rooms. I do not use this setup to watch movies and until WiiM supports HDMI/HDSC multi channel with some kind of AVS device this seems like it cannot be possible - sync will ALWAYS introduce significant delay.

You will need a feature request for a WiiM AVS that controls the delay on the video so that it would match the delay on the audio. But then that WiiM would need to be licensed to deal with video and those licenses aren't cheap, WiiM would have to make a big bet they they could sell lots of units to make it worthwhile to them (5.1 etc is controlled by a cartel that needs to get paid).

But I use this strictly for multi room music and streaming radio and it works. The WiiM syncs speakers in my kitchen, living room and dining room on the ground floor of my house. I have a subwoofer in the living room with its own WiiM mini. It works.

My TV is on the 2nd floor TV room and driven by a Denon AVS. I do have a WiiM plugged in as an input to the AVS. In that case there is another to sub, two tower speakers and two surround speakers but they are all wired to directly to the AVS and treated as a single WiiM in the sync setup. The AVS is managing room correction and crossover in that case

In the living room in the ground floor the sub there is directly fed by a WiiM mini and synced with other speakers in the same room that are driven by a wiim pro.

Thank you this is really useful. Do you set a low/high pass filter for your sub/mains using Wiim's EQ?

 

[rjw]

Thank you this is really useful. Do you set a low/high pass filter for your sub/mains using Wiim's EQ?

I put a feature request in the OP for a high pass filter. The sub itself has a built in low pass filter so on that side I'm good. The problem is the rest of the speakers where I want them to only play sounds over 80-100hz so that they don't waste energy (and should therefore distort less) on frequencies the sub does better.

On my long list of projects is to get a uMik and one day do proper room correction to see how well this REALLY works, but I have never gotten around to that. All I can say for now is to my untrained ears it sounds OK.

 

[Raphaellus_GC]

Thanks!

 

[Smartplug]

What I find very strange if I set the crossover let say 80hz rc will cut big on this range as much as 10db. If I set 100 I get cut on the range around 10db as well.