Use a sub with your hi-fi system?

I love the warmth and three-dimensionality that my powered sub imparts to my modest sound system (Polk Audio towers and sub; Denon AVR-1508 receiver). Turn it off and the sound goes stone-cold. In discussions with audio enthusiasts about eventual upgrades, the conventional wisdom seems to be that I should work toward a system that doesn't need a powered sub to provide low frequency responses. And looking around at higher end integrated amps, I see that most of them don't even provide a separate sub out.

How many of you use a sub with your system, or wish you had the option of adding an amp? Are there tricks around not having a dedicated sub out? Can I get the same warmth out of a stereo setup without breaking the bank?

Thanks

 

There is a lot of tricks to getting a sub set up correctly, it is definately not a plug in and go job! There is phase considerations for one..do you know the freq. response of your room? Where do you have nulls in the low end? Which in turn determines where you are going to place the sub. Then, will you need or want to use two subs? What crossover frequency are you going to use? Will your chosen frequency be correct, as in will you here the direction of the sub, too high of a crossover frequency in that case. But, lowering that will mess with something else etc etc. It is a job that should be done with the proper room measuring equipment and software. Its so easy to bugger up its ridiculous.

If you feel you are missing some low end, you should test your room first. If you havent done that, I will 99% gaurentee that you can find a portion of that missing low end just from speaker/listening position arrangement.

Personally, I hate subs. A pain in the **** to set up correctly. I have a dialed in room, so Im not missing much, a 4 db drop below 80hz tailing off, not a big deal. I dont listen to rap or dance, I find all the bass I need is already present in the recording Im listening to.

 

Sounds incredibly complicated and difficult to achieve optimal sound quality if the room dimensions aren't ideal. My "listening room" is probably as non-ideal as you could get (high ceilings, adjoins our dining room, staircase on one wall, but I'm still very happy with the sound quality. Do you think it would be more difficult to get good sound quality out of two speakers given those challenges? Is the sub just overcoming these?

 

There are many subs that allow you to hook them up to the speaker outputs of you amp. The proponents of this method claim that the sub picks up the "flavor" of the amp, so that it blends in better with the main speakers. I've heard subs from REL & Audio Physics hooked up this way, and they did sound nice.

I've been using subs for quite awhile. There a pain in the **** to get right, but worth the effort. In a perfect world, full range speakers would be better.......

 

I like subs for sandwiches, but not for music. Just my opinion, of course.

 

Yes. The trick is to make the effect of the sub subtle and avoid the temptation to make it sound like a sledgehammer.
(Maggie 3.5s w/ REL Stadium II)

 

Opinions welcome!

 

It is quite complicated, if you want to do it properly. Im sure many just plug em in , and adjust the volume, and they are happy and thats great! But its not the proper way to do it. I would do all you can with positioning etc with two speakers first. Then think sub if you have to . But also be aware of what nulls are and how placement can indeed improve or slaughter your sound. Best to test, and its not expensive, but its really imperative.

 

that's how I would characterize my sub: subtle. Just rounds things out some. doesn't thump at all.

 

A naive question: how do you "test your room" for sound?

 

Can you hear your sub Jerod, as in the direction the sub frequencies are coming from? If your setting things up by ear, this one vital component you want to avoid, you should never hear wherer your subs sound is coming from..

 

No, it's just "present."

 

You need software called REW its for PC only, but its FREE. There are other options if your on a MAC. You need a a mic. A Behringer ECM8000 will do, they are like 50$, then thats it. You need to understand what REW is telling you, but thats just time. A ECM8000 microphone is useless over about 5Khz unless you get a calibrated one, but its fine for low end stuff where most of the issues are anyway. In a pinch you could even get away with using a cheap radioshack SPL meter. Its not a expensive exercise with a boatload of fancy gear. It WILL require you learn a few things about acoustical measurements and what they are telling you, but hey...thats half the fun right??

 

Good, your on the right track then my friend. What about your crossover frequency, where have you got that dialed in?

 

I have no idea to be honest. I haven't seen much of a difference by changing the low pass setting. I'm perfectly happy with my 3-speaker system now, just wondering what to expect if I upgrade to a stereo amp without a sub-out. FWIW, whis is my current sub.

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-mI2ebJ7SmNZ/p_107PSW110B/Polk-Audio-PSW110-Black.html

 

Well if it dosent have a sub out, I think you are going to lose the ability to set your crossover frequency. You will have to piggy back your sub off the main speaker outs.So that may well change your sound with your sub in the loop. Try before buy maybe? Anyway, Im sure others here will have better/further advice on that front.

 

I use a subwoofer when playing music and find it a very satisfying experience. While a pair of speakers, say models that can reach to @40Hz (for rock & pop fans), have the potential to produce some very good bass, to do so requires very careful placement.....and in my experience that placement almost never coincides with optimal imaging.

I truly believe many audiophiles have never had good luck with subs because they use subs with 2-channel gear that doesn't include proper bass management i.e. a system that includes a full crossover system i.e. low AND high pass crossovers with proper cut-off slopes, and distance compensation.* Not taking care of these important aspects can result in "sloppy", boomy, weak or overbearing bass or a combination of all these. Such systems are part of every A/V receiver I know of for the past decade but except for a (very) tiny handful of 2-channel gear, AFAIK the A/V receivers all use digital technology........and such technology is a no-no for many audiophiles.

Using a sub (12" in my case) has consistently resulted in solid/deep/clean bass and while I still like the "purity" aspect of a straight 2.0 channel system, for my best playback system I will always try to use a sub+bass management system.

FYI: just because an integrated amp, preamp, etc includes a subwoofer output jack does NOT mean there is a proper bass management system present. Many times that jack simply offers a summed mono signal sourced from the L & R channels - that's it.



* newer systems also include automatic phase correction systems, including my $230 Pioneer VSX-521. Once I allowed its microphone+auto calibration software to "listen" to my small room, in straight two channel mode my pair of Bostons went from anemic to what a pair of large bookshelves with 8" woofers should sound like.

 

Very helpful reply. Thank you. What amp do you use to drive your sub with?

 

Good advice Taurus

In my 2 channel system, my speakers (Quested H108's..8 inch woofers two way) start rolling off at 65hz! lol. Meh...Im missing a little on the low end, but for me its fine. I also need them to translate to other systems as they are used in a recording studio set up and this works well so I leave it well alone. Thats after 100's of tests and many months building and dialing in the room however.

 

No.

 

1 - Yes, use a pair of SUBs with onboard cross-overs, and hook your speakers directly to the subs. This could get expensive for good results, though. Quality of cross-overs becomes critical, and subs with good pre-amp cross-overs can be really expensive.

2 - I've found that speakers with bigger main woofers tend to create more "presence" at lower volumes, and, because they typically have a broader spectrum response, they tend be create a fuller sound when they are driven by an amp with enough power to handle them.

Just my humble two cents...

 

I'm using a Revel B15 sub with parametric EQ and can confirm what you heard from others. I'm not using it for adding bass, but for eliminating peaks caused by room resonances below 40 cycles. I can only tell you this works perfectly with such a sub and can lead from frustration to heaven for many listeners with "normal" room problems.

 

Yes, also have one for my laptop speakers.

 

When I was using B&W 805S speakers I added a sub. The problem was getting it set right so all music sounded good.
With small scale acoustic music it sounded great, but with the same settings, Rock was way too much bass
If the Rock was set right the other music was not right.
So when i sold the speakers, the sub went too.
I would not buy another sub.