Defective MicroPro 2000?

audiobeginner

I purchased a refurbished MicroPro 2000 from Polk's store on Ebay recently. I am an audio beginner and this is my first sub.

I realize that this is an 8" sub so will not have a ton of power, but despite that I'm pretty underwhelmed so far and wonder if I've received a defective unit. Perhaps I have a setting wrong or there's a setup issue.

Note, I have the volume turned all the way up to 40 and have tried volumes between 30 and 40 without any significant improvement. I am connecting my sub to the receiver with a single RCA cable between the receiver's "Subwoofer PREOUT" and the sub's "LFE IN". I tried a 2nd RCA cable to see if that was the issue, but there was no difference. LFE attenuate on the receiver is set to 0dB. My fronts are set to Small with crossover currently set to 80 MHz.

Here are the issues:
- For both music and HT, sound coming from the sub is quite weak (about 1/3-1/2 of what I'd expect); sounds like I've wrapped blankets around it. Very low frequencies are getting through, but still lack power. Frequencies at the higher end of the sub's range seem to be non-existent.
- When I raise the cutoff frequency on the Pioneer, the overall system's performance sounds worse. The Monitor 40's don't play the lower frequencies, but it doesn't seem like the sub is filling in the void. I have tried different setting's on the sub's low pass dial (40 Mhz to 120 MHz) and don't hear much difference between any setting.
- I have left the sub's Power switch to ON because when I put it on "audio sense" the power light glows yellow (not detecting any audio) until I raise the volume to about -35 to -30dB (then it turns green).
- When I ran the Pioneer's MACC calibration it correctly judged the distance of my front speakers at about 10 ft away and my center at about 9 ft away, but it says my sub is 32 ft away (though it is really <10 ft away - located between my TV and front right speaker).
- Another issue is that the power button on the sub's remote seems to be defective. I've only got it to work once out of about 60 attempts, while the other buttons seem to work fine.

Thanks for any help in advance. I love my Monitor 40's and can't wait to bring out the Monitor 70's and 30's that I've also purchased once I move out of my small apartment into a house.

mdaudioguy

Have you run the autoPRO setup on the sub? I would also say you probably shouldn't have to have the volume on the sub up so high. Email customer service. I did just that recently for another problem and received a reply within 24 hours. Send it now and I'll bet you'll hear from them tomorrow. Better yet, call them tomorrow. Good luck!

audiobeginner

Thanks, mdaudioguy. I ran the autoPro program on the sub right before I ran the MACC calibration from Pioneer. I think I'm going to call Polk tomorrow morning and get their thoughts. Will post back their feedback in case others are interested.

zeppage2

I use a y-splitter and use the line in jacks. This is a more musical sub...

audiobeginner

I think I solved my problem for anyone that's curious. I had run Pioneer's MACC calibration with the sub's volume at 35-40 (out of 40) the other day. I backed this down to 20 then reran the cal and things have improved quite a bit.

The sub's power is now much closer to what I was expecting and the sub's "audio sense" power triggers at regular listening levels. I also set the Monitor 40's to Large and the Micropro to PLUS (not sure if this is advisable, but it sounds decent to me).

mdaudioguy

Excellent news! It's really quite a capable sub, considering its size. Mine really belts out some smooth, and surprisingly powerful lows. Enjoy!