Active Subwoofer active speaker setup

[BuckyOH]

Hello,

I produce music as a hobby and have a home studio with studio monitors and also have an onkyo receiver with magnat speakers set up.
I now want some compact portable hifi speaker to take with me with my laptop. For coming a little closer to mixing, I have my audio interface and german maestro headphones, which are really good. Doing final mixing and mastering is impossible though, due to lacking spatiallity on the headphones. The speaker set I want to bring with is not for mixing or mastering either. Small speakers won't give me that option anyway, so I want the best sounding most portable setup. With emphasis on portability, high quality sound and having a subwoofer with in case I really need a good bass with me as well.

So far, with lot's of reading reviews on the net, I came down to this set:

Audioengine a2

taken from Audioengine 2 powered loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

combined with this subwoofer:

(can't find charts on these) Specifications
Type: Basreflex type kabinet
Speaker: 1 bas Driver
Inputs: L/R RCA stereo, h
Outputs: PRE-OUT, lav niveau udgang
Strm: 220-240V, 50/60Hz
Amplifier type: Analogue Hi-Fi Amplifier
Woofer: 6 1/2 Long stroke Woofer Speaker
Phase regulation: yes 0-180 degrees
Volume regulations: yes
Auto stand-by: yes after 10 min.
Frequency Response: (-3db): 50Hz-200Hz
Cross over Frequency: 40-150Hz adjustable
Output Power: 1x65W (RMS)
Weight: 6,5 kg

These fit the budget and size I'm looking for an as far as I have deducted, they're the best for the prize I'm looking at.

Now, my question is, do the subwoofer and speakers work together?
Can I hook my laptop through my audio interface to the subwoofer RCA connectors and the hook the RCA connectors of the subwoofer to the Audioengine a2?

Then , can you explain to me how I'd go about to find the right crossover and phase setting on the subwoofer?

Thx in advance

 

[hydrovac]

Hello,

I produce music as a hobby and have a home studio with studio monitors and also have an onkyo receiver with magnat speakers set up.
I now want some compact portable hifi speaker to take with me with my laptop. For coming a little closer to mixing, I have my audio interface and german maestro headphones, which are really good. Doing final mixing and mastering is impossible though, due to lacking spatiallity on the headphones. The speaker set I want to bring with is not for mixing or mastering either. Small speakers won't give me that option anyway, so I want the best sounding most portable setup. With emphasis on portability, high quality sound and having a subwoofer with in case I really need a good bass with me as well.

So far, with lot's of reading reviews on the net, I came down to this set:

Audioengine a2

taken from Audioengine 2 powered loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

combined with this subwoofer:

(can't find charts on these) Specifications
Type: Basreflex type kabinet
Speaker: 1 bas Driver
Inputs: L/R RCA stereo, h
Outputs: PRE-OUT, lav niveau udgang
Strm: 220-240V, 50/60Hz
Amplifier type: Analogue Hi-Fi Amplifier
Woofer: 6 1/2 Long stroke Woofer Speaker
Phase regulation: yes 0-180 degrees
Volume regulations: yes
Auto stand-by: yes after 10 min.
Frequency Response: (-3db): 50Hz-200Hz
Cross over Frequency: 40-150Hz adjustable
Output Power: 1x65W (RMS)
Weight: 6,5 kg

These fit the budget and size I'm looking for an as far as I have deducted, they're the best for the prize I'm looking at.

Now, my question is, do the subwoofer and speakers work together?
Can I hook my laptop through my audio interface to the subwoofer RCA connectors and the hook the RCA connectors of the subwoofer to the Audioengine a2?

Then , can you explain to me how I'd go about to find the right crossover and phase setting on the subwoofer?

Thx in advance

Hi BuckyOH,

Welcome to the forum. The subwoofer and speakers can work together. It is a straight forward and simple hook up. Do you have the manuals. Else you can check here.

http://www.argonaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SUB640-DK-17-08-2011A5format.pdf

http://www.argonaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SUB850_MANUAL_Eng.pdf

Regards
Krishna

 

[BuckyOH]

I understand how to hook them up. Don't understand how to find the right fase and crossover frequencies.

Also, the english manual of the 640 is actually the 840. The Danish one is about the 640.

Out of the Danish manual, I was only able to find this :

Setting volume, frequency and phase
The volume, crossover and phase (controls 1, 2 and
3 on
page 4-5 ) can be adjusted on the rear panel, and w
e
recommend that you adjust the setting of these cont
rols to
your liking try with different music and films. I
f you want
more detailed information on these control function
s, we
invite you to visit our homepage Argon Audio | ArgonAudio.com
.

And on their website there's nothing about fase or cross over frequencie.

Does anyone have a handy link to give information on how to best find these? I tried googling but got a lot of sites giving difficult equations about how to calculate it and whatnot.

 

[hydrovac]

Assume the way your setup is:

It needs to take signal from your computer to the sub - then pre out to A2.
So then you have the audioengines playing the whole spectrum including the bass, and then the subwoofer is just playing the low frequencies only - Have the sub's low frequency cut-off at about 68hz or so... since the A2's play down to 65hz.

If anything, having the A2's go as low as it possibly can means you are maximizing the usage of these fine speakers. A little bit of "blending" - meaning the A2's and the sub playing the same frequencies: about 5-8hz of overlap is OK...

Say for example you buy a sub and the phase of the speaker in the box is 40 degrees. when you adjust the variable phase knob.. at zero, the results are 40 degrees. And then you start adjusting the phase towards 180, but you have to constantly add the original 40 degrees.

variable phase knobs are used in situations described above.
you are supposed to adjust the knob until you get the most details out of the subwoofer at the listening position.

 

[BuckyOH]

Thx man, will experiment when I get the set.