Help needed on my sub woofer performance

[arnprasad]

Hi,

I have been trying to build my HT piece by piece. My old set up is a HTIB Yamaha with sats.

Thx to my trips to US - I bought Polk center speaker CS10, RTI 4 front speakers and PSW10 sub woofer. The first three in first lot and the SW last week.

The front speakers are performing exceedingly well and center seems ok. But when I connected the SW10 the bass and thumps were very underwhelming.

Then I check the SW manual and changed the setting of my fronts and center to SMALL...guess this sends all the bass to the SW - definitely after this the performance improved.

I also tried the other option of selecting large for front and center and PLUS for SW. My Pioneer 1020K has this option - this ensures bass comes through all speakers and SW unlike the earlier option where entire bass gets sent to the SW. Although this option has increased the bass even more.....since I am getting bass from four sources..maybe it sounds a bit artificial.

Per the manual - the earlier option is the best option. Somehow I feel my earlier HTIB Yamaha SW has more oomph and bass and thump than this fancy standalone SW.

Am I doing anything wrong or is my ears and mind playing games with me?

I have turned the LOW PASS on my SW to FULL, set the PHASE to ZERO - everything as recommended.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. :clapping:

I am playing BLACK HAWK DOWN HD recorded on my Tata Sky DVR as its got lot of gun fighting and helicopters.

Also played Metallica to see if the SW is picking up the drums..but was not happy.

 

[dlkanth]

hi,
try keep the speaker front n centre to small, increase the crossover frequency.play with ch level of the sub from the avr. hope this will help u

 

[chanduwala]

Hi Friend,

If you set crossover of speakers to 80hz then set the sub woofer lowpass filter to 80hz. Then your receiver will sends the frequencies to sub woofer which are below 80hz. Your sub woofer will take the frequencies which are below 80HZ. And your speakers start giving frequencies which are above 80HZ. You won't be having any problem with this.

if you are not satisfied play with frequencies....But whatever you put for speakers in receiver, put the same for sub woofer crossover. So that sub woofer won't give the frequencies which speaker give and speakers won't give the frequencies which sub woofer give.

Good Luck...

 

[marsilians]

Few things to keep in mind:

Setting speakers to "small" does not mean anything relating to their size. I would sugges to set our front L/R to small.

Also set your cross over frequency if either your sub or AVR allows for it. start from 80Hz and them move down till you find the oomph.

Finally, a quality subwoofer should sustain low frequency responses for movies so you hear the vibrations. For music they should be very quick, precise and easy to drive.

Black Hawk down is a good test for subwoofers. Another movies to look for is pearl harbour.

Metallica (or any other rock albums) for the most part do not stress subwoofers. Its very rare for heavy metal songs to test low frequencies.

Hi,

I have been trying to build my HT piece by piece. My old set up is a HTIB Yamaha with sats.

Thx to my trips to US - I bought Polk center speaker CS10, RTI 4 front speakers and PSW10 sub woofer. The first three in first lot and the SW last week.

The front speakers are performing exceedingly well and center seems ok. But when I connected the SW10 the bass and thumps were very underwhelming.

Then I check the SW manual and changed the setting of my fronts and center to SMALL...guess this sends all the bass to the SW - definitely after this the performance improved.

I also tried the other option of selecting large for front and center and PLUS for SW. My Pioneer 1020K has this option - this ensures bass comes through all speakers and SW unlike the earlier option where entire bass gets sent to the SW. Although this option has increased the bass even more.....since I am getting bass from four sources..maybe it sounds a bit artificial.

Per the manual - the earlier option is the best option. Somehow I feel my earlier HTIB Yamaha SW has more oomph and bass and thump than this fancy standalone SW.

Am I doing anything wrong or is my ears and mind playing games with me?

I have turned the LOW PASS on my SW to FULL, set the PHASE to ZERO - everything as recommended.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. :clapping:

I am playing BLACK HAWK DOWN HD recorded on my Tata Sky DVR as its got lot of gun fighting and helicopters.

Also played Metallica to see if the SW is picking up the drums..but was not happy.