bass knobs and epicenters

[RaTtLz 3]

Hi guys, had this question in my head for a few days now so I thought I would just ask. I was wondering what the difference is(if any) between a standard bass knob or a bass processor such as an epicenter from Audio control. More specifically, a potentiometer vs. a parametric eq. How do they work? Do they increase voltage? What exactly is going on when you crank on that knob? Thanks

[GlassWolf 5]

Hi guys, had this question in my head for a few days now so I thought I would just ask. I was wondering what the difference is(if any) between a standard bass knob or a bass processor such as an epicenter from Audio control. More specifically, a potentiometer vs. a parametric eq. How do they work? Do they increase voltage? What exactly is going on when you crank on that knob? Thanks

a bass knob works in one of two ways.

1. a remote gain adjustment that laters the impedance of the input stage of the amplifier

2. (most common) a remote amplitude cut/boost (voltage) adjustment to a fixed (or variable) frequency point with a fixed Q (slope.) It's like a remote EQ slider.

The Epicenter is a digital bass restoration device.

You send the Epicenter a full range, uncrossed over signal. The epicenter looks at this signal and computes, based on higher octaves, what it believes should be present in low frequencies. If bass frequencies are already present in the source material, the Epicenter won't add anything. . It uses some subharmonic algorithms to figure out what it thinks should be present in the low frequencies based on what it sees in the higher frequencies.

You choose on the Epicenter what range of frequencies you want to adjust, both the center point and how wide of a range to adjust. That is done on the unit itself with 2 knobs labelled 'wide' and 'sweep'.

Directly from Audiocontrol - "The Sweep knob allows the user to pick the center frequency of the bass restoration. With the Sweep knob turned all the way to the left, The Epicenter® is centering restoration on 27Hz. With the Sweep knob turned all the way to the right, The Epicenter® is centering on 63Hz. The middle position represents approximately 45Hz. The Sweep knob can be set to center The Epicenter®'s restoration anywhere between 27Hz and 63Hz.

The Wide knob allows the user to control the width of the restoration. With the Wide knob turned all the way to the left, bass response is tighter and harder hitting. With the Wide knob turned all the way to the right, the bass response becomes more booming and open."

Once you've tuned the unit to 'boost' (create) bass in the right frequency range, you then adjust how much restoration you want by turning the knob that is mounted in the front of your vehicle.

Because the epicenter takes an uncrossed over signal to work correctly, you must cross over your signal AFTER the epicenter, which means if you are using crossovers on your head unit, you'll need a full-range output for the Epicenter, or you'll need to switch to an external crossover.

Along with this digital bass restoration, the epicenter functions as a line driver, yielding up to a 10 volt output.

It supports both balanced and unbalanced inputs.

You can make ANY music absolutely thunderous with the epicenter. You can also drive your amplifier into HARD clipping EXTREMELY easily if you do not know what you are doing.

The Epicenter is a bass-head's toy, not much more. Using it on some music results in muddy worthlessness. Using it on other music results in sickeningly deep, punchy and consuming bass. It's hit or miss, and you only get to tune the frequencies in which to recreate bass on the unit itself, so you can't tweak it for each song. You've just got the ability to turn it 'off' or adjust how much it recreates by turning it up. It's a glorified parametric EQ merged with a harmonic bass restoration device.

Read the manual for some pretty pictures showing what i described

Epicenter manual

A parametric EQ allows you the following adjustments over the number of bands specified on the unit:

Cut/Boost - (as described, raises or lowers the amplitude of the signal)

Frequency center - (picks the exact frequency to adjust. not fixed points like an in-dash slider EQ)

Q/slope - how quickly (sttep or shallow) the signal rises or drops back to the unaltered amplitude in either direction beyond the frequency center point being adjusted.

these 3 settings are available for each of the bands on a parametric EQ.

(example: Alpine 3401 and 3402 7-band EQs, retired models)

An alternative to a parametric for system tuning is a 1/3 octave EQ, which offers 31 bands from 20-20,000Hz, with a fixed Q, and variable cut/boost at each frequency.

(example: AudioControl EQT)

Edited May 29, 2010 by GlassWolf

[cheese20323 13]

People use the epicenter to increase bass on spanish music or any music that needs bass.......

[RaTtLz 3]

what a great write up! Thanks for that. I know a lot of people on the ssa forums dislike bass knobs and such, but as I have a factory head unit with no sub control, I think they might be a good alternative. More specifically the Soundstream bx-20z. It's a little cheaper than the epicenter and it will look sick with my tarantula amp. As it has a remote knob I can easily adjust from my dash.

[sefugi 166]

Excellent post GlassWolf I have also been researching a bass processor and this one caught my eye XBP-10 Processor This one looked interesting because it has a choice for spl versus sq and when running more than 1 sub amp it has a delay if subs are mounted staggered front to rear, it also has a 50 hertz test tone. I like the looks of it, any comments to this one. Maybe it would be an option.

[RaTtLz 3]

People use the epicenter to increase bass on spanish music or any music that needs bass.......

That's pretty ironic. After you posted that, I went on youtube and searched for epicenter. Low and behold 90% of the videos were spanish/corridos

[cheese20323 13]

haha. My bro has the Soundstream BX-10 and is very happy with it.

[GlassWolf 5]

I'd like to get my paws on a DaVinci one day. I just like the look of that old amp.

Anyway if you want remote bass control without the worry of clipping your amplifier signal, the way to do that is with an attenuator that allows you to remotely reduce the bass instead of boosting the voltage of the input signal. Ideally, that would be a better solution for a remote bass adjustment with a factory head unit.