Is Anti-mode worth it?

kidloco said:
Let me know how you get on. I've had my monolith a few months now and it's fantastic. Do keep thinking how much better it 'could' sound with an antimode as well.

I will get one. Just the joys of owning my first house does like to through up jobs that cost £££
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I know the feeling, endless bills but I can spare a little this month so I thought why not ! I've not bought any toys for 6 months ! :p

It is one of those things I think (and hope) that you don't think you need it until you tried it. Since the sub works without one so it is hard to imagine what it would sound with one. Will find out this week !

Hopefully it should be easy to tell since I've been using my XLS400 in the same space, same position for the best part of 15 months now so I hope subconsciously know how the bass sound from it and any improvement I would be able to tell easily.
 
was it easy to use/setup?

Did you need to change anything?

Would you considering "renting" it out to a fellow XLS400 user to check his setup??:D
 
Boo, it's as simple as simple gets. Just sits in line with your AVR to sub. Plug in the enclosed mic, take it to your listening position and hit go. After finihing add an extra meter to your subs distance setting and then recalibrate to set the gain (generally the sub needs turning up a touch). That's it. Takes 5 mins at the most. :)
 
Very simple.

Plug in RCA cable (goes between amp and sub). Plug in power.

Plug in mic to the anti-mode, place mic on the other end to where you sit, I had it on a tripod.

Press 2 buttons to start calibrate and I left the room with all the doors shut and let it do its thing. Went to make a sandwich and a milkshake in the kitchen and when I was done so was the calibration.

The calibration at times sounded like a washing machine on a drying cycle mind. They say you should turn the gain in the sub down low. First time I did it i did it too low and I couldn't even hear the bass when calibrating so I turned it up 1 notch and did it again.

When its done it remembers it, so unplug the mic and leave everything in place. There is a bypass button you can press like it isn't there if you want to do a before and after comparison.

You can also move the mic to another position in the room and do a second calibration and the software take an average between the 2. This does 3 sweeps (main one is like 10 sweeps) of the bass notes and this is optional and it works without doing this second calibration.

And sorry no, I like it :p

Oh, they also say you need to do your amp's own surround sound calibration again too, I did it just in case. Didn't do any direct before and after in between the sub and the amp calibration but I do notice the following:

1 - My room feels more like a cinema now.

2 - The silences in the movie and more quiet.

3 - the bass are more "to the point", less boomy?

4 - When it is low it is lowwwwwwwwwwwwww

5 - the surround sound effects are also better? May be I didn't calibrate the amp right last time, it just feel more accurate this time.
 
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Cheers for the feedback Raymond. Sounds like it is worth it. Got a holiday to get out of the way in July then ill pick one up I think.
 
Will be getting the S version when I move into my new place, finally, if anything just to reduce the number of cables I need to run under the carpet!
 
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Built quality is better than expected. Metal casing all round and they even send me another RCA lead. Was surprise with that as a review I read they didn't have one with theirs.
 
I have a anti mode cinema. With lexicon mc-8.
Once I replace my lexicon should I keep the anti mode, so use audyssy plus anti mode or remove anti mode using audyssy. Is audyssy sub eq good enough or running the two even better? I could reuse the anti mode in the hifi room.

One benefit of removing the antimode from the cinema system is I can then run XLR to XLR from the av pre amp to the sub, I have a new XLR cable ready. Antimode means rca-rca
 
Where was that question asked?? He's already got the antimode. Btw, only you can tell if its worth it. Keep it, run both together and then without, and tell us :) I've got Audyssey on a Marantz 7011 and dual subs, and have been tempted to try an antimode but not sure if its worth the money.
 
kidloco said:
Going to get the cinema model when i treat myself to a monolith in the new year :D
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I opted for a miniDSP to go with my Oak monolith DF... The difference is substantial, solved a particular room node and let me optimise nicely. RoomEQ Wizard along with a uMic1 helped with seeing what effect the small range of options on positioning speakers/sub gave me (and the one I thought was optimal was actually the worst, best option also luckly was the most visually pleasing)

I looked at both and chatted with quite a few users on avforums, diyaudio and pfm.. MiniDSP seemed the better option.
Amazing bit of kit.
 
1pudding1 said:
Where was that question asked?? He's already got the antimode. Btw, only you can tell if its worth it. Keep it, run both together and then without, and tell us :) I've got Audyssey on a Marantz 7011 and dual subs, and have been tempted to try an antimode but not sure if its worth the money.
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In the title.

Is it worth it?

I personally can't see how a £250 equaliser for a £450 sub is worth it. Unless I had a much more expensive system. There are far better places to put that £250 IMO. Like a better sub.
 
Why does it cost so much its so small. Must be an expensive chip inside. I just use Audyssey which was on my last couple of amps and it setups the room great.
 
varkanoid said:
Why does it cost so much its so small. Must be an expensive chip inside. I just use Audyssey which was on my last couple of amps and it setups the room great.
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AFAIK it has more filters than audyssy sub peq has.

Also having audyssy means a new pre amp, those are about £2000. So anti mode is cheaper plus some purists dislike room eq on the 7.0 speakers some people say it makes it sound worse, flat and lifeless.

At least with sub channel that is probably the most important channel to perform peq on
 
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