Sub to the right, hiding underneath the table.  Crown XLS1500 sitting on top.

Now comes the moment of truth.  What does my technological terror sound like?  Well, listening was short lived.  The Crown XLS Xi1002 kicked the bucket some time during Tron.

I did manage to do some testing before the amp died.  The green curve represents the average of 6 measurements about the game room couch at ear level.  The dark blue curve is the close mic’ed response shifted to match the general characteristics of the average measurement.  The red is the difference of these two.

The obvious is the broad peak F1 centered at 40 Hz.  This is a very pronounced room resonance with a long decay corresponding to the room dimension of 14′.  Very unpleasant.  (The room also has a dimension of 17′ on the long size, but it opens to a stair well and a bathroom, so no mode observed at 33 Hz…)  There is a smaller resonance H2 at 80 Hz, and a possible dip H3 at 120 Hz.  The next trend – and this is a good thing – is the gain of +9 dB / octave below 50 Hz.  This partly counteracts the 12 dB/octave roll-off of the sub below 67 Hz.  Over-all this is a very extended in-room bass response.

I purchased a new amplifier – a Crown XLS1500 on sale at Guitar Center.   Ran the AutoEQ feature of my Onkyo receiver.  The AutoEQ algorithm plays a series of noise bursts, equalizing between bursts.  You could hear it extend the final half-octave as it iterated and optimized its filters.  I’ll have to take measurements later.

Next I played a couple of flicks – Tron, Operation Swordfish, House of Flying Daggers, and Pearl Harbor.  The scene in HoFD with the drums is just amazing.  Tight.  The aircraft roars in PH are clear, no excessive rumble.  Quite a bit of cone motion during the various explosions.  The gun fire is somewhat muted in the sound track, so doesn’t have quite the impact it could.