The Velodyne Digital Drive Outlaw’s Guide to the SMS-1 Subwoofer Management System
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 Please Read First Warning: Important Safeguards Read instructions: All safety and operating instructions should be read before the unit is operated. Retain instructions: The safety and operating instructions should be retained for future reference. Heed warnings: All warnings on the unit and in the operating instructions should be adhered to. Follow instructions: All operating and use instructions should be followed.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 Please Read First 2 Warning: important safeguards 2 introduction 3 sms-1 features 4 what’s in the box 5 introducing the sms-1 5 Front panel 5 Rear panel 6 remote 7 front panel display 8 quick setup guide 9 Intermission 10 connecting the sms-1 11 input 11 output 12 Control and power 13 introductory osd screen 14 setup: auto eq 14 setup: Manual 16 System response menu 16 system settings menu 17 system response menu (again) 21 room equalization example
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 our online forum, and as a tool to aid our customers we have crafted this convenient guide. It is composed of a series of entries from various contributors, each trying to most effectively address one aspect of the SMS-1. If you purchased your SMS-1 from Outlaw Audio and can’t find answers to your questions in our guide or the official manual, that’s OK– you can contact us at Outlaw Audio for help with your questions via e-mail at customerservice@outlawaudio.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 What’s in the Box “ Funny thing… We have no idea who wrote this entry. ” You’ll want to be sure that your SMS-1 arrived at your doorstep with all of its included odds and ends to keep it company. The list below will tell you everything that should be in there. Several of the parts are tucked into the sides of the large foam end caps, so make sure you grab them too.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 rear panel RP1 XLR LFE Output Does your subwoofer offer an XLR-style balanced connection? If so, this is where you will connect the SMS-1 to the subwoofer. RP2 XLR LFE Input Does your receiver or processor offer an XLR-style balanced output for the LFE channel? If so, this is where you will connect the receiver’s LFE output to the SMS-1. RP3 Rear Microphone Input The microphone can be connected to this rear input or to the front microphone input (FP4).
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 RP10 Thru Audio Output This output provides an unaltered copy of the input received by the SMS-1. If you have several SMS-1 units in your equipment rack, you can daisy-chain them together by connecting the Thru output of the first unit to the LFE input of the second unit. RP11 Audio Output This stereo analog audio output includes an 80Hz high-pass cross-over.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 Night Toggle the night mode on and off. Volume (+/-) Adjust the unit volume. Test Toggle between the System Response and System Settings screens when in the setup menu. Exit Exit the setup menu. The SMS-1 will ask you to save or discard your changes. Navigation Pad (up/down/left/right) Steer the cursor through the menus. Select Select a setting in the menus that you want to change or an option that you want to accept with this button.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 Quick Setup Guide “ We have one contributor who isn’t known for his exceptionally robust attention span. He loves the extended edition versions of the Lord of the Rings movies, but thinks there are actually six movies because he can only watch one disc at a time – we’re not sure he could survive sitting through a four-hour movie. Needless to say, it was shocking to find that he could assemble a complete contribution. Lo and behold, he came up with this very fitting entry.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 10 13. Turn the SMS-1’s volume up or down until the left side of the curve matches up more or less with the right side (putting both at around 80dB). Don’t mind all the peaks and valleys for now. If you have trouble with this, you may want to check on the volume setting on the subwoofer’s amp and the subwoofer channel level at the receiver. If you’re not sure where to set them, try around half-way on the sub’s amp and 0dB (no trim up or down) in the receiver.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 Connecting the SMS-1 “ One of our field researchers has a knack for untying knots. Whether this is a fortunate gift or not remains to be determined, but what we know for certain is that this knack means we tend to let him figure out how to untangle the mess of interconnects that can crop up when you find yourself face to face with the rear panel of a new component. When it was time to look at how to connect an SMS-1, there was no questioning who to give the job to.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 12 What if you have a receiver that lacks a subwoofer output and you don’t have an outboard amp, mains-in jumpers, an external processor loop, or even pre-amp outputs? Well, the SMS-1 does have left/right speaker level inputs. To use these, connect an extra pair of speaker cables to the left and right channel binding posts. Connect the other end of these cables to the SMS-1’s speaker level inputs.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 13 you happen to be operating multiple SMS-1’s in your system, you can connect the subwoofer output of your receiver or processor to the “Input” of the first SMS-1 and then connect the “Thru” output of that first unit to the “Input” of the second SMS-1. Control and Power In addition to inputs and outputs, the SMS-1 offers several connections for control, such as RS-232 serial connections, IR input, 12V trigger, and of course the microphone connections.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 On-Screen Display “ One of the Outlaw bosses has this cat, and one day the boss told us his cat had figured out how to type. We didn’t think much of this announcement, until the cat e-mailed us this guide entry a few weeks later. Now we’re not sure whether to be impressed or just scared… 14 Introductory Screen The first thing you will see on your TV any time you switch your receiver to the SMS-1’s input is the introductory screen.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 15 you can look at page 17 for details about the options available on that screen. Oh, and if you’ve already made some changes to the equalizer settings, you should know that running Auto-EQ will erase all of them. In addition to visiting the System Settings screen, you need to take a moment to get the receiver volume and SMS-1 volume levels adjusted properly. To do this, turn the volume down on your receiver and select the input that the SMS-1 is connected to.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 16 If you are happy with Auto-EQ, you can stop here. If a screen full of adjustable settings and a real-time frequency response sweep have you itching to play around some more, leave the microphone out and keep reading. Setup: Manual “ Several Outlaws were discussing who should tackle this entry. We debated it for some time, with at least one person voting for the boss’s cat (after all, the Auto EQ entry really was quite good).
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 17 Once you’ve checked out the subwoofer trim at the amp and receiver (or not), let’s take a minute to set the volume for the receiver and the SMS-1. This won’t take much. Earlier, you turned the receiver’s volume down and muted the SMS-1. The SMS-1 has been playing its test tone ever since you entered the System Response screen, but it’s been at low volume. Go ahead and start turning up the volume on the receiver.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 18 This screen may look like a crazy mass of information, but there’s actually a very straightforward structure to it. Aside from a few individual settings at the bottom, most of the screen consists of a table of settings. Let’s look at the table first. There are seven columns of identical settings in the table: Setup and Presets 1 through 6. The six presets obviously relate to the six preset buttons on the remote. The Setup column acts as a “master” preset.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 19 anywhere between 15Hz and 199Hz, but the recommended maximum setting in the user’s manual is 35Hz. The slope of the subsonic filter can be set to 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, or 48 dB/octave, just like the low pass crossover’s slope. As with the low pass crossover, a higher slope will cause a more rapid drop-off at the crossover frequency.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 20 change the SMS-1’s main volume setting. At the same time, it will change the other preset volume settings, but they will not all mimic it exactly. Instead, each preset can be adjusted relative to the Setup volume. Let’s say that the Setup volume is at 15. Now move the cursor over to Preset 1’s volume and use the Set +/- buttons on the remote to change Preset 1’s volume to 18.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 21 System Response Menu (Again) Yes, we’ve been here before, but we’re back again – and we mean business this time. We’ve passed through this screen without ever really digging into exactly what capabilities exist here. The “Next” command at the top right (which takes you to the System Settings screen) is about as far as we’ve gotten. Now we are going to go a bit further.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 22 but can be adjusted in 1Hz increments from 15Hz to 120Hz to move any channel closer to a dip or peak that needs help. Lastly, there is the Q setting. The default setting for Q is 4.3, but it can be adjusted in 0.1 increments from 0.3 to 20.0. Q defines how wide a section of the curve is affected by the equalizer channel. The default of 4.3 represents approximately 1/3 of an octave, while the minimum of 0.3 represents about 3.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 23 We will start with the peak at around 32Hz. Peaks can be very problematic acoustically. They can not only sound “boomy,” but they can also effectively mask sounds at nearby frequencies – literally overpowering those adjacent octave bands. Fortunately, pulling down those peaks with the SMS-1 is a pretty straightforward task.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 24 As is often the case, the first attempt isn’t an ideal solution to the system response problem. We still have a dip. A second pass at fixing it should start to involve multiple EQ channels. In this case, we will use three channels, the fourth (40Hz), fifth (50Hz), and sixth (63Hz). The fourth EQ will move from 40Hz to 45Hz, the level will be set to -2.0dB, and the Q will be raised to 5.8.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 25 For anyone who is interested, here are the settings that we used to generate the final curve: EQ L (dB) F (Hz) Q 1 -4.5 31 5.6 2 -0.5 38 5.6 3 -3.0 45 6.5 4 6.0 52 3.2 5 2.0 57 4.5 6 -11.0 64 6.6 7 -1.0 74 10.2 8 6.0 78 5.0 Our example system is now adjusted and ready to use. We are ready to pack up our microphone, set aside our SMS-1’s remote, and toss in some favorite discs.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 26 Table: RS-232 commands Function Command Format Acceptable ‘n’ Input Values Examples Remarks Volume Control #VOnn$, #VO+$, 00-99 #VO-$, #VO?$ #VO09$ #VO57$ #VO+$ #VO-$ #VO?$ Use ‘nn’ values to set a specific volume, raise or lower the volume one increment, or request the current volume level. Preset Control #PSn$, #PS?$ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 #PS5$ #PS?$ Select a preset or request the current active preset.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 27 Software Updates Remember how we said that one of the reasons for the RS-232 input was software updates? No? Haven’t you read every page of this document before you and taken careful notes along the way? We’ll take it from your chuckle just now that you haven’t, but even Outlaws can be forgiving so we will let you off this time.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 28 valley at a certain frequency for special cases. What happens if that’s not enough? What if you want to have a much different curve for certain types of movies, or if you want to use a completely different subwoofer for music? That’s when we suggest making use of the “Preset:” option on the System Response screen. By changing the preset being adjusted from “setup” to a specific preset, you can apply completely different equalization settings to each preset independently.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 29 each had its phase adjusted as optimally as possible. On the other hand, the overall system response is the underlying goal, and a single SMS-1 can achieve that with multiple subs sharing a common signal. Some systems are set up with stereo subwoofers, meaning that each subwoofer gets a separate signal (typically one paired to the left channel and one paired to the right channel).
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 30 only speaker that the SMS-1 gives you control over. If you want to move back to large mains later, you can do so, but you may find that a properly equalized subwoofer and a good crossover point works as well as or better than large mains. Care of your SMS-1 Something else There’s always something else, isn’t there? The experts at Velodyne prepared a list of recommendations for the proper care and feeding of your SMS-1.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 31 TABLE: TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE Symptom Possible Cause Solution Options Unit does not turn on when No AC power front panel power button is pressed. Make certain AC power cord is plugged into a live outlet and into AC adapter. Make certain AC adapter is plugged into unit. Unit does not turn on when Front power button remote power button is pressed. not pressed Make certain front power button has been pressed in.
THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1 32 NOTES WRITE ‘EM IF YOU’VE GOT ‘EM
NOW YOU CAN PANIC
