New home, new home theater speakers setup wanted.

[destrekor]

My room is about 14.5*25. Have the single sub in one corner with the tv and tv cabinet next to it along the longer wall. Ran the EQ program to initially set the speakers but have since bumped up the sub settings and while it at least is noticeable now, still lacking when watching movies in its response.

I wonder if something isn't set right somewhere. Is the sub's setting from the auto EQ measurement set too far into the negative dB? Crossover mismatch?

I am assuming you are feeding it a pre-amp signal as opposed to signal from standard speaker wire?

Either your expectations are far too lofty for what sub response should be, or something is wrong somewhere. Could even be a bad sub, but I think there are many variables to investigate before pointing the blame at the subwoofer.

Something doesn't seem right at all based on your description. That is not a large room by any means, that class of subwoofer should be absolutely perfect unless you are expecting glass-shattering theater-level obnoxiousness. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if you are looking for that, you certainly need much more, either in hardware or in fine-tuning.

Reflections, wall materials, and placement can play a big factor. If it's a cement floor (like in a basement), then you need a stronger subwoofer than you would need for a wood structure, like in a first floor above a basement.

I'd suggest creating a new thread about this, so as not to derail this thread. But I think your situation definitely deserves investigation, as a 125-150w RMS subwoofer should be plenty for all but the most die-hard theater-level addict. And it takes a lot of care to get theater-level, omg-I-feel-it-more-than-my-heartbeat level LFE than simply throwing a high-RMS subwoofer into the mix.

You have certainly piqued my curiosity.

 

[SithSolo1]

N/m

 

[lupi]

After doing some room reorganizing I hooked up the surround speakers again and rerun the setup eq this weekend.

One of the contributing issues looks to be that the room it's in has original wood panel walls (with no baseboards) so with the speaker at a corner it may be getting some additional wall movement related sound creation causing setting problems.

After running the setup, it had the gain of the sub at about 50 % with a -10db setting in the receiver.

I then loaded up the last transformer movie from amazon and started playing at the scene where they find and fight the hidden autobot near the beginning. First play through sounded rather pathetic. The helicopter that buzzes near the group as they walk through the boat sounded more like someone running a mixer with nothing in the bowl instead of the 'whomp-whomp' you normally get from those types of situations. The heavy weapon fire and mortar rounds landing also where like someone watching a college baseball game with balls going off the aluminum bats.

I changed the sub gain up to 100%, and changed the receiver to -4db.

Much much better results. All of the above sounds where more like what you'd expect watching in a theater including hearing the physical impact of the robot hopping around on one foot and then falling.


Only issue I had since, and this may be isolated to a certain channel, while watching the pregame on NFLN I was getting feedback through the sub with just a couple people on screen and talking. Reducing the AVR dB setting to -7.5 eliminated that.

At that point had to stop and get ready making the munchies for the night but i'll try a couple different channels later to see if they given the same feedback over the sub if I change the AVR setting back.

 

[destrekor]

After doing some room reorganizing I hooked up the surround speakers again and rerun the setup eq this weekend.

One of the contributing issues looks to be that the room it's in has original wood panel walls (with no baseboards) so with the speaker at a corner it may be getting some additional wall movement related sound creation causing setting problems.

After running the setup, it had the gain of the sub at about 50 % with a -10db setting in the receiver.

I then loaded up the last transformer movie from amazon and started playing at the scene where they find and fight the hidden autobot near the beginning. First play through sounded rather pathetic. The helicopter that buzzes near the group as they walk through the boat sounded more like someone running a mixer with nothing in the bowl instead of the 'whomp-whomp' you normally get from those types of situations. The heavy weapon fire and mortar rounds landing also where like someone watching a college baseball game with balls going off the aluminum bats.

I changed the sub gain up to 100%, and changed the receiver to -4db.

Much much better results. All of the above sounds where more like what you'd expect watching in a theater including hearing the physical impact of the robot hopping around on one foot and then falling.


Only issue I had since, and this may be isolated to a certain channel, while watching the pregame on NFLN I was getting feedback through the sub with just a couple people on screen and talking. Reducing the AVR dB setting to -7.5 eliminated that.

At that point had to stop and get ready making the munchies for the night but i'll try a couple different channels later to see if they given the same feedback over the sub if I change the AVR setting back.

Sub crossover set too high? Is there a physical crossover knob on the sub, and is there a crossover setting in the AVR?

You want to really use a sub to complement the speakers' mid- and low-bass, not overpower that end of the frequency range.

If your surrounds can reliably provide 80Hz, your subwoofer could probably be set at 80-90Hz. Many subs have a crossover range as high as 250Hz, and depending on the auto EQ, the AVR may be letting it rock out over 100Hz. Play around with that and see if, by setting it lower, you can remove some of those sounds you wouldn't expect to come from the sub.

 

[lupi]

Sub crossover maxes out at 80hz. Had set the non-subs to 80 but the eq dropped them to 40 (probably not an issue as they are all decent sized speakers).

 

[destrekor]

Maybe it was just the sound mix. Have you been able to reproduce that sound issue with any other sources?

But in either case, glad you found a configuration that lets you really enjoy the movies as they were designed! I figured that sub definitely had the capability... as to the overall quality? I haven't a clue, but based on strength alone it should be fine indeed.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Zeze, did you ever figure out what you are gonna do? Get any speakers?

This old post from 2008 has lots of good advice from Jello
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=155424

Anyhow, 3.1 is generally seen as better than 2.1 for movies.

I like Polk, they arent my all time favorite, they aren't crap. I am not an audiophile. I use mostly BIC speakers, though have some POLK ones in the living room.

 

[exar333]

Zeze, did you ever figure out what you are gonna do? Get any speakers?

This old post from 2008 has lots of good advice from Jello
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=155424

Anyhow, 3.1 is generally seen as better than 2.1 for movies.

I like Polk, they arent my all time favorite, they aren't crap. I am not an audiophile. I use mostly BIC speakers, though have some POLK ones in the living room.

Definitely agree. I have a hybrid 3.3/3.1 (2 of the subs are used for full-range, but whatever) + a dedicated sub and its great! 2.0 or 2.1 is fine for music, but a center really helps if you want to use it for movies and TV as well. I really like a nice, compact 3.1 setup for keeping wires and clutter to a minimum.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

given the size of your room, get some good towers and a CHEAP stereo receiver.

eventually upgrade receiver and then get two subs.