kman: 80db on the receiver. all the way up on the sub.

toad: you can put it virtually anywhere in a 15 x 15 room. depending on how high the ceilings are etc. i might even plug the port in a room that size.

Plug the port?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chess
[B]kman: 80db on the receiver. all the way up on the sub.
80 db on the spl do you mean? What about the different frequency levels on the receiver for hih, mid, bass, for each set of fronts, rear, and center, now do I turn the sub volume up full blast and the crossover up full blast, or do this from the receiver. Sorry i just dont know a damn thing.

plug the port: just stick a small towel or a sock, or whatever in the rear port. might sound "tighter", might not. regardless, you won't hurt anything.

80db: via the receiver. should be some sort of crossover (or x-over) setting. i would stick with the default volume levels on the receiver and adjust the "level" on the sub to match. do you have a disk of test tones to go with your SPL meter? if not, avia is pretty good, or you can just download some short .wav tones and burn them to a disk.

Toad,

Plugging the port(acoustic suspension) will tighten the bass and keep it from being too boomy sounding. Which in a room as small as yours could be a factor. I prefer acoustic suspension subs to bass reflex/ported.

Plugging it will also lower the output so you may need to raise the output level on the sub. It will also draw more power from the amp so if it begins to distort unplug the port because the amp is most likely clipping.

I posted this in another string, and found the answer. So I thought it should belong in this section.

The Kenwood htb-503 does not have an obvious way to set the crossover exactly on the receiver. I was having tons of trouble gettting the sub to kick in loudly. The reason is that in the setup, there is a section where you choose the size of the front speakers. If you choose LARGE, this effectively sends almost all low freq info to the fronts instead of the powered sub. Not the right way to go. Be sure to choose nrml size for the fronts and center to get the boom you are looking for from your sub.

Toad, of course everyone has their own approach, but here's my recommendations:

Placement
You can place the sub for aesthetics or sound (rarely will you get both). For sound, the easiest approach is to:

1. temporally locate the sub at your normal listening position.
2. walk around the room and locate the position with the best, tightest (not necessarily the loudest bass).
3. place the sub at the position identified in step 2.

You will still need to calibrate the sub--as mentioned above.

Crossover
If your sub has a "direct" input that bypasses the sub's internal crossover this is the best choice as you will not double up crossovers which can create some odd phase problems.

If your sub does not have a direct input, then set the sub-crossover to it's highest setting as mentioned above.

Volume
I prefer to use the receiver to adjust the sub’s volume because I can use my receiver’s remote to make fine adjustments from my listening position w/o having to get up (lazy). But using the sub's volume control also works.

you know, i've heard that "put the sub in the listening position and walk around" business alot on these forums, and though it may work for some, i don't think it's the best advice. it simply doesn't take into account the acoustic properties of the room. in a completely open space, that method would work like a charm (point A to point B), but in a real room, the proximity of walls and the way sound reflects around the room will play a huge role in the sound of a subwoofer.

i think trial and error might be a better way to go, but as always, that's just my opinion.

again folks, i don't think you ever REALLY finish placing/tuning your sub.

Why is it so difficult to set up a sub? Don't you just plug in a cable out from the receiver into the sub? And then adjust the crossover on the sub?

Audrey -- thanks for all of your help, but do you mean I should place the sub where I normally would put it, and then walk around and listen?

This all seems so confusing to me -- but maybe I'll be much less confused once I actually get my system...in T-minus 15 days...

no, toad, i think she meant to place the sub where you would normally sit and walk around the room until you find the spot where it sounds best. i was never very fond of this method for the reasons outlined above.

the reason setting up a sub is so tricky is because the long sound waves from a sub are VERY sensitive to placement. if they bounce around too much or not enough, it can seriously impact the quality of the sound you hear.

i'm fairly confident that if you heed the advice in this thread, you'll do fine...

chess, just a quick question. it sounds like from your comment that you haven't tried the locate the sub at your listening position approach. if you haven't tried it, you should; it works much better than you might think. it's not a perfect solution, but it gives most people a much better starting point than just trying different locations. there's also software you can use to calculate the "best" location for your speakers (though i'm not sure if any of the available packages also cover sub's).

CHESS wrote:

1. Given the choice, the subwoofer pre-out is the best connection between your receiver and sub. Just my opinion having tried both ways. It seems “cleaner” and easier to tune.
************************************************************
SORRY for the FNG sub question, but here goes.

Just got the SONY STR-V444ES yesterday & the thing is like an airplane dashboard! In attempting to hook everything up , I noticed they showed RCA plugging the sub into the PRE OUT part of the receiver. My satelites wire to the sub & then the sub wires to the speakers ports, I don't have a seperate way to ply my sub into the PRE OUT?

Is there a way to do this with my set up? Is my sub missing an RCA port?

The sub still works, but I'm concerned about how it will work with the other speakers....

thanks

audrey: i have indeed tried that method, and not surprisingly, the "best" location was always in the corner. why? because when you put a sub in the middle of a large room, it's always gonna sound best in a location where the waves "meet". so, in a sense, the method works. it's just not very scientific.

J.F.: sounds suspiciously like a bose setup. if so, the crossover for those satellites is actually in the "sub" and you should hook them up as recommended by the manufacturer.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chess


J.F.: sounds suspiciously like a bose setup. if so, the crossover for those satellites is actually in the "sub" and you should hook them up as recommended by the manufacturer.


Chess~ no the sub & two main speakers are BOSTON ACCOUSTICS

My main question is will the sub perform along with the other 4 speakers even though it's not hooked up to the PRE OUT like they show. (BTW~ this is my first HT receiver so I'm a bit confused about all the speaker set ups involved...)

thanks in advance

it will work fine hooked up as describe (without the preout), and you really don't have much of a choice anyway.

in general, though, i'm not very fond of setups in which you wire your mains through your sub.

if your mains are actually full range speakers, hook them up to the binding posts on the receiver and set the crossover (on the receiver) pretty high until you're sure the speakers can handle the load. then hook the sub up to the "subwoofer out" post.

the reason i like this setup better is simply because i think your receiver is much better suited for signal distribution than your sub.

but i am also completely unfamiliar with your equipment, so....grain of salt...low volume...

Not trying to give you the third degree here chess, just a couple of things I'm curious about:
Why are you not fond of running mains through a sub? What experiences have you had to make you feel this way? What's wrong running with wiring a sub inline with your mains, and running them full-range through your controller, utilizing the sub's internal crossover? I have used this set-up before, with a powered sub for each main channel and a sub (or two) for the LFE channel, and found the sound to be 100% better then any bass management technique. Using a powered sub in conjunction with your mains frees up your amp's power to push the mids and highs easier. This set-up isn't exactly what was mentioned in the above post, but is still the same concept: utilizing a powered sub inline with your mains to act as full-range speakers.
I could see no sonic benefit from utilizing your controller's crossover exclusively, unless you are talking about a set-up with only one sub (which I am well aware is the most common set-up).
As always...YMMV.

i only have 2 points of reference for my bias o-rama. first, i tried my prior setup with the mains wired through the sub and would swear that i (1) lost several dbs/octave [purely subjective given the fact that i didn't own a meter then] and (2) lost a good deal of my ability to tune my system. second, i have a friend who has a terrific denon receiver, a solid 12" mission sub, and pretty nice mains [forgot the make]. he had the mains wired through the sub and his system sounded several orders of magnitude less capable than it should have given his components. i just know that i could've rewired that system, but he'd never let me...

this should be argument enough against it: bose does it that way.

dual subs: i just cringe at the merest passing thought of trying to tune a pair of subs. brings back memories of a VW beetle i had in high school with dual carbs....but that's another story.

oh, and thanks for not giving me the third degree.

I could see where it be kind of pointless to wire in this configuration if you only use one sub, and wire your mains through it, then redirect your LFE to the mains (now with sub). This is essentialy the same thing as running a sub through the sub out on your controller and directing bass to it through bass management. My point was the set-up I described uses 5 powered subs...still allowing every channel (except center) to be run as full-range and bypassing any sort of electronic crossover in the receiver. As I said, YMMV.
The reason I use dual subs for LFE is the simple fact that I listen at reference levels, and to get those bass levels in the size room I have with one sub would be neigh impossible (except for maybe the new SS series from SVS...sounds like one of those might do it. As soon as they become available I will be one of the first in line for one. Or perhaps the SVS SS 'reference package', which sounds simply incredible).
Reference level bass from a capable set-up is a fascinating ride, and once I heard it, there was no going back for me.

That VW beetle on the other hand..yep, another story altogether.

Hi Chess,

I don't really have anything to add here, but as a total HT novice who really appreciates what I hear (and not what is producing the sound or how it's set up), thanks very very much for your tips. I'd never had a sub before and hadn't the foggiest idea how to set it up. Even if your tips don't help me get better sound than what I've got now (will try them out this weekend), I now understand a LOT more than I did about all this before I read your thread...

Cheers,
Andy

thanks andy. hope it helps.

Hey stingo

Did you get your 30B? How is it? Where did you order from? Did you find a "deal"? Work well w/your KEF mains and CC?

Just starting my search for a sub. Was looking at both the 20B and 30B. Not many places on the net carry KEF. The place I got my CC from (One Call) is out of stock on all the KEF subs. Found one place http://www.tatumelectronics.com/
seems to have them. Their price seem fair. After shipping ect, they are about $25.00 higher then what I paid for my CC. They also show sub models 25B and 35B that do not show up at the KEF site. Older models perhaps?

Still messing with my systems. Think I'm going to fill my stands with sand/shot. When we moved I emptied them, and have never refilled them. Not getting the solid bass out of my mains I'm use to. Of course that may be he Sony receiver. Still liking my CC. But after listening to some other systems, a SUB would be REAL nice

I ordered the 35B from cyberteria.com (same place I ordered the 95.2 from) - came out to about $510 after 2nd day air. Should be arriving this week.

I've got a Denon 2801 and Mission 70as sub. Now you think I should turn the crossover on the sub all the way up? I'll have to try that.

It really depends on the frequency response of your mains in relation to your crossover point, as speakers with capabilities of playing lower frequencies are going to overlap you sub in the mid-bass area, and might cause some phase cancellation. I would reccomend finding out the actual frequency response of your mains using an SPL meter and an RTA rather then going by tech specs, which are usually off the mark, and adjusting your sub's crossover to have the slightest overlap possible.
YMMV.

don't denon receivers automatically cross over at 80hz with the sub set to "on"?

if so, and if you're using the "sub out", anywhere over 80hz should be fine. but yes, i'd turn it all the way up to be sure...

like orama likes to say, YMMV