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McCauley M421 Quad 21" Subwoofer
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<blockquote data-quote="Bennett Prescott" data-source="post: 31916" data-attributes="member: 4"><p>SFN Expo 2011</p><p></p><p>A few days before the truck was due to get loaded to head up to the SFN Expo I got a call from Steve Petrak, all around great audio guy who leases space in Asbury Audio's shop. "What the hell have you shipped here? These things are enormous!" he said. I figured they had to be pretty big, but still hadn't seen them. Apparently they arrived palletized and somewhat the worse for wear, they had been bounced around enough for their wheels to break through the pallet, and it looked like they'd been bounced off a few other things as well. Fortunately, aside from causing some major inconvenience to the guys unloading the truck, the subwoofers bore only cosmetic damage from their trip up from Texas.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]149754[/ATTACH]That weekend's shows finished up and subwoofers and other gear made it on a truck, which made its way up to CT to rendezvous with me. David Karol and I drove the whole mess up to the Expo and conveniently arrived about 1:00 a.m. day of the show. I had hoped to spend some hands on time with these subs before subjecting them to use in front of other people, but as it was we had enough energy to load in for the next day's events and hit the sack. Cracking the truck door in Westminster, MA I had to agree with Steve, these things are massive. Their height lying down isn't so unexpected, but they are wide and deeeep! Not really surprising given the output and claimed LF response, but definitely the largest subwoofer I've ever encountered. Fortunately, as promised, they really aren't that difficult to move around. They seem to have a relatively low center of gravity, so as long as you keep them on their wheels one guy can easily maneuver them, and two guys can take one from wheels to flat on the ground and back. God forbid you have to lift one, though. I'd be finding 5 other guys.</p><p></p><p>Day of the Expo, I spent a lot of time running around, meanwhile trying to get the M421s prepped so I could use them with the Tyra Penn band that evening. The problem ended up being that, while McCauley was kind enough to provide big amps in a rack all set to go with an L21-30 inlet broken out to three L5-30s internally, we were in a room with only Edison outlets available and I didn't have an L21-30 female cord end. I was hoping the amps would have removable cordsets, but the plug end is molded and the amp end is hardwired. Unwilling to do major surgery on amplifiers I didn't own, I ended up taking apart the power panel on the rack, scavenging the L5-30 outlets, and hard wiring some Powercon cables to them. Ugly, not something I'd want anyone touching, but it got the job done.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]149756[/ATTACH]In a break between presentations I finally had a chance to power up the amps, plug the subs into an output of the system DSP, and put some music through them. The instructions from the factory were to put a 20-25Hz (depending on how hard I was going to run them) 8th order L-R HPF and another 8th order LPF at a reasonable frequency, say 90Hz. Since I wouldn't use an 8th order filter to save the life of my own mother unless the President of the United States was willing to sign off that the resulting sound was not my fault, I used 4th order L-R.</p><p></p><p>Playing a test track I was immediately unhappy. Something had to be wrong, there was energy but it was undefined and it had a weird fluttery time domain component. Frequency response was wildly unbalanced, if there was 20Hz coming out of the subwoofers it wasn't apparent to me. The boxes weren't rattling or anything, they didn't sound like they were fighting each other, but they couldn't have been doing things right. Short on time, I broke out Smaart and took a few measurements... Measuring in a medium sized room is never a treat, but I was reasonably sure I had to axe a big hump out of band around 180Hz as well as one in band around 75Hz, plus if I was going to get 20Hz there was going to have to be a big boost down low. The LF rolloff certainly didn't look like it made it to 20Hz, and McCauley's frequency response specs are stated without processing.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]149757[/ATTACH]So I equalized the subs, relatively wide filters, to the best of my ability trying to work around what I could measure as the room versus the loudspeakers. I was sure I'd taken a photo of the laptop screen with both my measurements and the resultant EQ in the lake, but I can't find it now. I only had enough time to get it "close enough" before it was time for the next presentation on stage, and I was still very unhappy. One thing led to another and the next time I got to use the subs was that evening for the band. Soundcheck, and I was fighting the subs. I just couldn't get anything to sound like anything. The energy was there, but it was all mushy... every note played by the upright bassist sounded the same, and the kick drum seemed to just move the air in the room around rather than really thump. My EQ changes were definitely having an effect, but that effect was not making things better.</p><p></p><p>People started trickling back in from dinner and the band started playing, and two songs in I had to stop them. There was no way that all was right in the world, since I didn't have time to really break them down and look over every component, and since I couldn't even be sure that the room wasn't a total mess, I got a few guys and flipped the subs up and replaced them with three ADRaudio JD21s, a known quantity for me. Instantly all the problems were fixed, the kick drum thumped, the bass sounded musical, and I didn't have to fight the mix anymore. I desperately needed to spend more time with the M421s, preferably outside, and go through them from the ground up so that I could develop an honest and complete opinion. In front of a bunch of other sound folks was not the time and place to do that.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]149755[/ATTACH][ATTACH]149758[/ATTACH]We did, naturally, take them apart... This is the only isobaric horn loaded design I am aware of, and the fact that both sides of the radiator drive the air makes them a very interesting design as well. I have a great photo of Bill Hanley poking around inside. Another advantage of disassembling them was that we could check the wiring. Internal sub wiring seemed to be OK, but I still needed to check the amp rack so the M421s hid in the coatroom until the evening of the next day.</p><p> </p><p>On day two Dave Rat showed up and gave a great talk on his past, present, and future as well as his thoughts on arena scale subwoofer arrays. Since I knew he'd had a bunch of the M421s out to test, I asked him afterwards if he'd take some time to play with ours. Dave, always willing to try and make incredibly loud noises, obliged. While I reconfigured the setup in the main room again and ran signal, Dave setup both subwoofers in the hallway as a sort of gate. Meanwhile he also checked the wiring in the amp rack, which must have been satisfactory as he didn't report any problems to me.</p><p></p><p>I have a great track I like to play called "Bass, I love you" that has extremely loud notes down to about 25Hz with appropriately quieter stuff happening at higher frequencies. It's a fun test track because you can crank it and the HF stuff is enough to give you something to listen to, and the LF stuff will cause diarrhea. Long story short, I put that track on and cranked the gain to the M421s out of the processor... no signal. So I walked towards the subs to try and diagnose the problem and was about to walk between them when Dave plugged the signal line back in.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]149759[/ATTACH]I almost got knocked right on my ass. I've heard some loud shit, I've certainly had my bell rung by higher frequency stuff out of a monitor before. I have never in my life gotten my bell rung at 60Hz. By far the loudest thing I have ever heard, it was a full body experience as both subs unloaded right into me. I was stunned, and the only thing that got me out of the way was Dave running out from between the subwoofers with the biggest grin you can imagine. As Dave said in conversation later that night, they are "game changingly loud".</p><p></p><p>We turned them down and spent some more time listening. While I was more satisfied with the M421s I still wasn't thrilled. These subs should blow me away! 20Hz at decibel levels in the 150s... I've never heard such a thing! As it was I wasn't experiencing anything I couldn't get elsewhere, albeit there was more of it but it was indistinct. I didn't want to go on because I hated to think how much the venue and lack of time spent verifying the whole system were clouding my perception. </p><p></p><p>Frequent breaker resets were the name of the game, I don't know exactly how loud we were getting it but any extended periods of fun were sure to pop a breaker. We needed more power, and we needed to get these guys outdoors so that I didn't have to worry about how much of an influence on my opinion the room was having. As it was, while they could obviously get much louder than we were using them they couldn't get that loud and stay on. The amount of output they had on the available power was actually kind of disappointing, either the amps or the subs like to pull a lot of juice and wall outlets are just not an option.</p><p></p><p>The M421s got put back away, to be a source of fun some other time. As it would turn out, it would be about a month before I got to use them again but this time in much better circumstances and with happier results.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bennett Prescott, post: 31916, member: 4"] SFN Expo 2011 A few days before the truck was due to get loaded to head up to the SFN Expo I got a call from Steve Petrak, all around great audio guy who leases space in Asbury Audio's shop. "What the hell have you shipped here? These things are enormous!" he said. I figured they had to be pretty big, but still hadn't seen them. Apparently they arrived palletized and somewhat the worse for wear, they had been bounced around enough for their wheels to break through the pallet, and it looked like they'd been bounced off a few other things as well. Fortunately, aside from causing some major inconvenience to the guys unloading the truck, the subwoofers bore only cosmetic damage from their trip up from Texas. [ATTACH=CONFIG]149754.vB5-legacyid=1577[/ATTACH]That weekend's shows finished up and subwoofers and other gear made it on a truck, which made its way up to CT to rendezvous with me. David Karol and I drove the whole mess up to the Expo and conveniently arrived about 1:00 a.m. day of the show. I had hoped to spend some hands on time with these subs before subjecting them to use in front of other people, but as it was we had enough energy to load in for the next day's events and hit the sack. Cracking the truck door in Westminster, MA I had to agree with Steve, these things are massive. Their height lying down isn't so unexpected, but they are wide and deeeep! Not really surprising given the output and claimed LF response, but definitely the largest subwoofer I've ever encountered. Fortunately, as promised, they really aren't that difficult to move around. They seem to have a relatively low center of gravity, so as long as you keep them on their wheels one guy can easily maneuver them, and two guys can take one from wheels to flat on the ground and back. God forbid you have to lift one, though. I'd be finding 5 other guys. Day of the Expo, I spent a lot of time running around, meanwhile trying to get the M421s prepped so I could use them with the Tyra Penn band that evening. The problem ended up being that, while McCauley was kind enough to provide big amps in a rack all set to go with an L21-30 inlet broken out to three L5-30s internally, we were in a room with only Edison outlets available and I didn't have an L21-30 female cord end. I was hoping the amps would have removable cordsets, but the plug end is molded and the amp end is hardwired. Unwilling to do major surgery on amplifiers I didn't own, I ended up taking apart the power panel on the rack, scavenging the L5-30 outlets, and hard wiring some Powercon cables to them. Ugly, not something I'd want anyone touching, but it got the job done. [ATTACH=CONFIG]149756.vB5-legacyid=1579[/ATTACH]In a break between presentations I finally had a chance to power up the amps, plug the subs into an output of the system DSP, and put some music through them. The instructions from the factory were to put a 20-25Hz (depending on how hard I was going to run them) 8th order L-R HPF and another 8th order LPF at a reasonable frequency, say 90Hz. Since I wouldn't use an 8th order filter to save the life of my own mother unless the President of the United States was willing to sign off that the resulting sound was not my fault, I used 4th order L-R. Playing a test track I was immediately unhappy. Something had to be wrong, there was energy but it was undefined and it had a weird fluttery time domain component. Frequency response was wildly unbalanced, if there was 20Hz coming out of the subwoofers it wasn't apparent to me. The boxes weren't rattling or anything, they didn't sound like they were fighting each other, but they couldn't have been doing things right. Short on time, I broke out Smaart and took a few measurements... Measuring in a medium sized room is never a treat, but I was reasonably sure I had to axe a big hump out of band around 180Hz as well as one in band around 75Hz, plus if I was going to get 20Hz there was going to have to be a big boost down low. The LF rolloff certainly didn't look like it made it to 20Hz, and McCauley's frequency response specs are stated without processing. [ATTACH=CONFIG]149757.vB5-legacyid=1580[/ATTACH]So I equalized the subs, relatively wide filters, to the best of my ability trying to work around what I could measure as the room versus the loudspeakers. I was sure I'd taken a photo of the laptop screen with both my measurements and the resultant EQ in the lake, but I can't find it now. I only had enough time to get it "close enough" before it was time for the next presentation on stage, and I was still very unhappy. One thing led to another and the next time I got to use the subs was that evening for the band. Soundcheck, and I was fighting the subs. I just couldn't get anything to sound like anything. The energy was there, but it was all mushy... every note played by the upright bassist sounded the same, and the kick drum seemed to just move the air in the room around rather than really thump. My EQ changes were definitely having an effect, but that effect was not making things better. People started trickling back in from dinner and the band started playing, and two songs in I had to stop them. There was no way that all was right in the world, since I didn't have time to really break them down and look over every component, and since I couldn't even be sure that the room wasn't a total mess, I got a few guys and flipped the subs up and replaced them with three ADRaudio JD21s, a known quantity for me. Instantly all the problems were fixed, the kick drum thumped, the bass sounded musical, and I didn't have to fight the mix anymore. I desperately needed to spend more time with the M421s, preferably outside, and go through them from the ground up so that I could develop an honest and complete opinion. In front of a bunch of other sound folks was not the time and place to do that. [ATTACH=CONFIG]149755.vB5-legacyid=1578[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]149758.vB5-legacyid=1581[/ATTACH]We did, naturally, take them apart... This is the only isobaric horn loaded design I am aware of, and the fact that both sides of the radiator drive the air makes them a very interesting design as well. I have a great photo of Bill Hanley poking around inside. Another advantage of disassembling them was that we could check the wiring. Internal sub wiring seemed to be OK, but I still needed to check the amp rack so the M421s hid in the coatroom until the evening of the next day. On day two Dave Rat showed up and gave a great talk on his past, present, and future as well as his thoughts on arena scale subwoofer arrays. Since I knew he'd had a bunch of the M421s out to test, I asked him afterwards if he'd take some time to play with ours. Dave, always willing to try and make incredibly loud noises, obliged. While I reconfigured the setup in the main room again and ran signal, Dave setup both subwoofers in the hallway as a sort of gate. Meanwhile he also checked the wiring in the amp rack, which must have been satisfactory as he didn't report any problems to me. I have a great track I like to play called "Bass, I love you" that has extremely loud notes down to about 25Hz with appropriately quieter stuff happening at higher frequencies. It's a fun test track because you can crank it and the HF stuff is enough to give you something to listen to, and the LF stuff will cause diarrhea. Long story short, I put that track on and cranked the gain to the M421s out of the processor... no signal. So I walked towards the subs to try and diagnose the problem and was about to walk between them when Dave plugged the signal line back in. [ATTACH=CONFIG]149759.vB5-legacyid=1582[/ATTACH]I almost got knocked right on my ass. I've heard some loud shit, I've certainly had my bell rung by higher frequency stuff out of a monitor before. I have never in my life gotten my bell rung at 60Hz. By far the loudest thing I have ever heard, it was a full body experience as both subs unloaded right into me. I was stunned, and the only thing that got me out of the way was Dave running out from between the subwoofers with the biggest grin you can imagine. As Dave said in conversation later that night, they are "game changingly loud". We turned them down and spent some more time listening. While I was more satisfied with the M421s I still wasn't thrilled. These subs should blow me away! 20Hz at decibel levels in the 150s... I've never heard such a thing! As it was I wasn't experiencing anything I couldn't get elsewhere, albeit there was more of it but it was indistinct. I didn't want to go on because I hated to think how much the venue and lack of time spent verifying the whole system were clouding my perception. Frequent breaker resets were the name of the game, I don't know exactly how loud we were getting it but any extended periods of fun were sure to pop a breaker. We needed more power, and we needed to get these guys outdoors so that I didn't have to worry about how much of an influence on my opinion the room was having. As it was, while they could obviously get much louder than we were using them they couldn't get that loud and stay on. The amount of output they had on the available power was actually kind of disappointing, either the amps or the subs like to pull a lot of juice and wall outlets are just not an option. The M421s got put back away, to be a source of fun some other time. As it would turn out, it would be about a month before I got to use them again but this time in much better circumstances and with happier results. [/QUOTE]
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