Need advice on speaker configuration.

Hello.

When I recent;y upgraded my sub, I placed my previous PSB Subsonic Sub
in-line with my rear PSB Alphas. Because I have a seperate pre/pro, I
am using line level to and from the SUB and using its crossover to
remove the LF from my Alphas.

...anyway my point is...you would be suprised/amazed with how much
Bass info is being sent to the rear channels. Adding the additional
Ssub to the rear made a huge improvement in my system.

Cheers.

On 16 May 2002 07:58:32 -0700, (Aldo Pignotti)
wrote:

Kevin,
I've never heard of using the rears as source for the sub, but why
not the front center channel? I use two 12" JBL subs in my system, one
runs off the standard LFE out, the second is wired to speaker level
connections and uses the front center as its bass source. Even though my
center is quite capable in itself (a Boston VR-12,) the addition of the
sub really works well.
All the best, Mike

--
Michael S. Davis Creative Media-Works
Computer/Audio/Video Convergence
"from Creative minds spring Creative solutions."
#
webmas@creativemedia-works.com
Member, International Webmasters Association #

You have a pretty fine system, particularly that RX-V1, which indeed
has clean-sounding amplification.

Actually, unless you have a huge room the Servo 15 should be able to
handle all the low bass by itself, and do a superior job of it. I
reviewed that sub in issue 71 (Sept/Oct, 1998) of The Sensible Sound,
and it was a subjective match for the Velodyne F1800RII and Hsu
TN1220HO, and would be a subjective match for a pair of Triad Silver
subs that I have recently been working with. It could easily deal with
a room of up to 4,000 cubic feet. You might consider unloading the
other subs, or using them in another system, in another part of your
house.

This is because it is certain that the two smaller subs do not respond
as strongly and uniformly down low (and as clean, either, at least at
high levels), as the Servo 15. So, you might actually be getting
slightly inferior performance by using all three at the same time.
Indeed, you did not mention what kind of hookup you were using from
the RX-V1, but I believe that it has an output impedance with the LFE
hookup of 1200 ohms. That might be rather high to drive three
subwoofer amps wired in parallel.

If you want to stick with all three, anyway, you might consider
keeping the Servo 15 on duty as the main-channel and LFE sub, and then
using one of the smaller subs with the center channel (your RX-V1 has
sub-out/pre-in jacks that would allow for this kind of hookup) and
then using the second small sub with the rear-surround channels, via a
speaker-level hookup. (Speaker-level hookups have only an
inconsequential amount of distortion compared to line-level hookups,
and that would not matter on the surround channels.) Place the units
accordingly, although it would be best to have the rear sub in the
rear, and the center sub up front, along with the Servo 15. You could
put the Servo 15 in one front corner, the center sub in the other
front corner, and the rear sub somewhere near the center rear.

This still probably will not sound much better (or probably any
better) than using a single Servo 15, but it would at least allow you
to use all three subs creatively.

If you want to use the hookup you described, I see no reason why the
speaker-level hookup will be a problem in terms of distortion, but you
still would not gain an advantage over just using the Servo 15 all by
itself.

Howard Ferstler
Author of The Home Theater Companion
(Schirmer Books, 1997)

I've been thinking about doing the same thing with my system but leaving
the sub in the rear. I haven't done it yet mainly because I'm guessing
that there isn't a lot of bass material going to the rear channels.
If I were you, before I fooled around with the rear channels, I would
check out what your woofer sounded like hooked up to the front L&R channels
instead of the LFE channel. It made a big difference on my old reciever
(an NAD716AV). My sub sounded a lot better running off the L&R channels
than the LFE channel. Hooked up to the LFE output, I basically got a
monotone signal. Hooked up to the L&R (front) channels, the sub
produced a sound with much greater bandwidth. I guess the reciever
was doing too much filtering.