would the DSW Pro 600 be a good match with RTi12 ?

naturallight

I've been working on my house for months now. I finally have a door on my music room. But that now seems to have changed the whole dynamics of the room. The room is 30X17 there is a dropped ceiling about 7 1/2 feet high and there is carpet on the floor, but it's not plush stuff...more like indoor/outdoor stuff.

Now it could be me, or i don't have the speakers back in the total right places, but it seems the room is now kind of sucking up bass. I normally sit way back in the room, at least 15 feet...the speakers are fireing strait ahead.
Again, I have not even been able to listen to these for 2 months...but it seems i'm missing bass i once had. at least in that seating position. Like the room is just sucking it up somehow. The farther back you go..the less bass you have.

Maybe a sub would help with this. Maybe some type of EQ setup, to deal with the room?
Any idea's on this..

naturallight

Let me explain a little more. This room was always "dead' But before there was just an opening at the end of the room where the speakers sit. It just opened to a stair well with hard wood floors. In fact the stair well acted almost like a bass boost..you walk up the stairs while music is playing..wow.. you can feel the bass...and well into the upstairs area's.

Now with the room sealed, with the door in place, not only do i seem to have to push the 12's harder to get the bass
but to the point of it's too loud to be pleasent. But the open ..sound stage seems to be lacking too.
It pretty much seems closeing in the room, sucked the life out of the speakers.

Drenis

How are your speakers positioned? Can you post a picture of your room/layout?

cnh

Would a sub help? Yes! However, you may still have "null" spaces that suck out the bass in a room that size you need to experiment with placement. Two subs might even be necessary in a 30 x 17 space.

Why are you sitting so far away from the main speakers? Could you move "closer"??

POWER! What are you using to power the Rtis. As your space volume increases you WILL realize the shortcomings of your amplification more quickly. You may need a LOT more power. RTI-12s LIKE lots of power. I'd say a minimum of 200 watts x 2, and they can handle even more than that. If you start to power them with a real amp they'll probably return some of that bass you're currently missing!

Again, playing with placement of the Rti-12s would also be something I would do!

Consider the recommendations above. And tell us what your using for power, etc.

cnh

naturallight

No, power is not a problem. I have an Onkyo M-504 power amp. It worked fine before i closed in the room. Even then the room seemed to suck up bass...but not to the point it dose now. Plus the openness seems to have been effected also. I like to sit that far back, because it had a spaceal feel to it..now not so much.

If you walk toward the speakers to change a CD or something...man you get pounded by bass....but the father back in the room you get....it just seems the room is sucking it up.

naturallight

The speakers are also sitting well over 10 feet apart, and fireing strait ahead...as i'm trying to fill the room with sound. I have a bar at the back of the room...so if i'm sitting there..would be nice to get the whole sound from the speakers.
Before this worked ..ok...now not so much.

cnh

Seems to me you have your answer. Move back to the closer position and stop trying to "fill" up the entire room. Also, although the Onkyo is a fairly powerful amp (165W x 2). Those 12s can handle more than twice that power. Something to think about in a room that size! I've seen people use 300 and 400 watts a side on those and say, yes that's the ticket!

Polk rates those from 50-500 watts a speaker! It takes a LOT more power to produce sound below 50 hz than above it, a lot. Look at a sub. The range is usually 20 or 30-100+hz and it has anywhere from 300 to 1000 watts (with peak levels of 600 to 2000 watts) powering a 12" or larger driver. That should be some indication of the POWER needed to produce big bad low bass!

cnh

naturallight

Well yes...I can move my seating up to like 10 feet, angle the 12's to that seating position. But if there is other people in the room....you just cut down the listening position..to just that one area.
My thinking is get a DSW 600..put in an a place in the room it works well. Then still keep the 12's fireing strait ahead.
The 12's well get stupid loud..to the point it's painfull..but the room seems to suck the bottom end. So just put the DSW, in a place....that the bass will get back that far....then everybody is happy..has a great sound in almost anyplace in the room.

naturallight

To be honest..now it becomes an ego thing also. With the 12's firering strait ahead..in that size room...15 feet back is a good place since there over 10feet apart.
Now that the room is sealup sort of speak..the bass seems to be getting sucked up....so to get were i was before..i have to crank the 12's...which..in a lot of cases..the volume tends to be abusive.

Now 15 feet is a good position with them fireing strait ahead...plus you can have two other guys sitting there, going..gee these are are great speakers..didn't know Polk made such great stuff...LOL

So i want to just get the bass back...in that 15 foot listening area. So i figure a well placed DSW600...may do the job.

Erik Tracy

naturallight wrote: »

To be honest..now it becomes an ego thing also. With the 12's firering strait ahead..in that size room...15 feet back is a good place since there over 10feet apart.
Now that the room is sealup sort of speak..the bass seems to be getting sucked up....so to get were i was before..i have to crank the 12's...which..in a lot of cases..the volume tends to be abusive.

Now 15 feet is a good position with them fireing strait ahead...plus you can have two other guys sitting there, going..gee these are are great speakers..didn't know Polk made such great stuff...LOL

So i want to just get the bass back...in that 15 foot listening area. So i figure a well placed DSW600...may do the job.

Multiple subs...biggins....:cheesygrin:....seriously though....

Drenis

...are your speakers on the long wall or shorter wall? You mention their 10' apart but what about distance from the back or side walls?

Placement is a key factor and it sounds like you may have some placement issues or are wanting to fill a large room with hot bass.

Geoff4rfc

I agree with cnh concerning power, your onk has respectful power but.....I noticed a difference when I went from 200 to 300watts of power to mine (A9). And, it was then I really begin to notice the bass with the added power.

Also, as Drenis pointed out, placement is very important. When I pulled mine out from the wall, I really noticed a difference, like going from a 2D to a 3D sound if you will, from flat to full.

My area is 15.5 X 26 X 7.5, I've got them toed in for H.T. and straight like yours when I've guests over for music. The A9's do quite well on their own for bass, but when guests want "more", I give them the Epik Empire, it NEVER disappoints.

If you've got a room that sucks up bass, I'd recommend going bigger than the DSW, try looking at SVS, or HSU, or even Epik. I have a second one on the way to even out the bass response in my room, one has the power to shake the bar, everything on it and all four sets of wooden shutters in the room, and I only have the gain at 35%.

naturallight

The speakers sit on the 17 foot wall, fireing into the 30 foot room. They sit about 1 foot off the back wall, on one side the speaker is about 1 1/2 feet off the sidewall, the other side has to deal with the door, so thats about 3 feet from the side wall. It worked pretty well like that before the door was installed. May try and mess around with that now. The 15' seating position is good, with the 12's fireing strait ahead into the room. You can at that area have a couple of guys sitting there and the soundstage is pretty open. So everybody can sit down drink in hand and do some serious listening.

Now to be honest, nobody else would know, that the bass is not quite what it used to be....and it's really not that far off..just something i have in my head. I don't want to kill people with over done bass..just bring the bass out to where it used to be in the room, before it got sealed up, and is even deader now,then it used to be.
So i'm not looking to spend 1K on a sub, that will knock glasses off the bar...just add the little extra that seems to be missing now.

Drenis

Not an ideal setup at all. The reflections for that length is why the sound stage seems so open.

naturallight

Yeah, the room is an acustical nitemare. The dropped ceiling is heavy sound abosorbant old panels that are 3/4" thick...Put there to kill the sound from upstairs i would guess..and they do that for sure. It's a below ground basement. The walls are not as reflective as you would think. Just by looking at them, you would think it's just sheetrock. But really, the walls were covered in heavy wallpaper that i could not get off. So i had to use heavy oil based primer...then use a primer based paint on top of that to cover it up..so it looks like anormal wall. It's relly not very reflective at all.
The whole room is pretty much like a dead zone. Great for killing sound..not so good for stereo speakers.

naturallight

To be honest, the 12's do one hell of a job filling that room with music. I'm not sure another speaker in that price range could even come close in that room. It's not the 12's problem..it's the room. If it was any way a normal room...even at the 15 foot seating..you'd probably have bass beating you to death...LOL

This is just a music only 2 channel system. My feeling with the DSWpro600.....was, not to over kill the bass, just to add back what the room has taken away..nothing more. The problem with the 12's in the room, the back fireing port..just goes right into the oil soaked wallpaper, the bounced up to the killer ceiling. So no matter what you do..as you walk deeper into the room..your just looseing bass.

I don't know anything about subs...never used one. But my feeling was just to use it fireing strait ahead into the room...control the volume of it....so it's just adding the bass which the room is killing.

Geoff4rfc

You can spend less and get this
http://www.epiksubwoofers.com/legend.html

naturallight

It looks nice. But I can get the DSW Pro660..on the ebay site for $380.
The problem is i know nothing about subs...for some reason, most people on here seem to go with NON Polk subs..

Is there a problem with them? Are they NOT as good as whats out there? The reviews seem to state there rock solid and perform great. I'm not sure what the issue is here???

cnh

There is nothing wrong with Polk subs. It's just that in the case of the direct sub people...you can get more sub per dollar!

Compare the Legend to the Polk 600. The Legend hits lower, has two 12" woofers, 300 watt RMS, hits to 20hz and weighs in at 80 pounds, shipped. MSRP $500

Let's look at the 600, 51 pound shipped, one 12" woofer, 250 watts RMS hits to 25hz MSRP $680

There's your difference. Polk has to spend more money in many other areas whereas EPIK and others are just online companies that ONLY make one thing: SUBS!

Having said that, 380 is a GREAT price for a DSW 600!

cnh

naturallight

OK..the DSW Pro 660 wi i'm talking about..for the $380 price. Yes it has 1 12" speaker..but they say has 500 watts..not the 250. Now the wi i could care less about..it's going to hooked up with RCA cables
Which i "assume"..since i've never had a sub before....I just connect the RCA's out of the pre....plug them into the input of the sub...then plug RCA's from the out put of the sub....to the main power amp, which runs the 12's.

Now once i set the volume and freq.....the sub will adjust up and don with the volume control of the preamp....IF NOT...then something i don't want to deal with.

cnh

The sub is SELF-powered and has NOTHING to do with your amplification.

All you need to do is run ONE cable from the SUB-OUT on the AVR to the LFE in on the sub and set the AVR to an 80hz LFE cut-off for the sub then set the sub's volume knob at about 12 o-clock, run your auto-set-up (Audyssey) and increase or decrease the subs volume as you see fit. There is also a PHASE switch on the back of the sub 0-180. What you do here is, once the sub is dialed in, you get someone to flip that switch back and forth and listen for what position the bass sounds deepest but 'cleanest'. You have to ear-ball that!

IT's really very simple! Be better if you used a slightly heavier, more robust Sub cable than a simple RCA, though.

I know the 660 is rated higher but I'm not sure if that's real wattage RMS or Peak wattage. Because the 600 is rated 500 watts for dynamic peaks (which simply means that it will hit twice its RMS ratings for short bursts when needed--most good subs can do that!)

cnh

naturallight

No,No NO..this is an old 2 channel system...NOT HT....and old Adcom pre. The out put of which just goes to the power amp..2 RCA plugs..thats it.
So I have to put the sub in the middle of that...as far as i get this.

cnh

Sorry there. There is another thread about the same RTis, thought that was you as well! My bad.

So there is probably "no" sub-out on the Adcom pre? And you need to plug the pre DIRECTLY into the power amp.

I'm assuming that the DSW Pro must have HIGH LEVEL Inputs and OUTPUTs on its back side--for SPEAKER WIRES? If so, you could wire the Onkyo to the Hiigh level ins, then wire the High Level outs on the sub to the speakers. And set the volume of the sub with the subs volume, and set the cut-off on the sub with its internal cross over knob--also identified on the back of the sub at around 80hz.

Perhaps someone else has another way of doing this without a sub-out on a pre-amp? But short of using (leaving) a Tape-loop always ON and running L/R RCAs to the sub from there, I don't see another way, myself.

You made no mention of a two channel pre-amp till now so that's an important limitation here!

Guys? Any other options besides High Level wiring or Monitoring Tape Outs?

From the pics it looks like your 660 may have LINE INS and LINE OUTS (RCA). I would imagine that you might be able to run the L/R outs from the Adcom to the sub's INS and the sub's OUTS to the Onkyo.

Try that first. Sorry for the complexity above. There are many ways to set up a sub depending on what ins and outs it has on its backside and not all subs are consistent there!

cnh

cnh

PAGE 8 of your SUB MANUAL basically describes Option 2 (Line level wiring-I mention above) and Option 3 (Line IN R/L, Line OUT L/R) as I've described it above. There's nothing like reading your "manual, is there?

TAKE A LOOK!

http://www.polkaudio.com/downloads/manuals/home/DSW440wi_550wi_660wi_MN_2011.pdf

Your good either way. But OPTION 3 is the easiest and most straight forward! You only need two RCA cords, one from the Adcom to the sub, another from the sub to the Onkyo!

Have fun! You're done!

cnh

naturallight

Thanks. Sounds like that should work. I don't have a lot of choices for placement. Pretty much on one side of the equipment rack or the other. The HZ setting on the back..is there any recomemded starting position for this with the 12's or is this try it see how you like it thing. Then it's just adjust the sub volume to match the 12's. At that point you just leave it alone, as the sub should follow the volume control from the pre along with the 12's?

cnh

You should experiment with the volume control at 12 o'clock, not the Hz setting knob, and back that volume off or advance it until it matches the volume of your L/R speakers--a SPL meter would be useful here. Then use the LFE (Hz) cut-off control on the sub..set it to 80hz. Adjust the phase switch to what sounds best (as described above).

Yes, once you do all of the above your volume will be controlled by the pre-amp. As you raise it the sub will get louder along with the speakers and you have nothing else to do there.

Enjoy the new system. Those are killer speakers!

cnh

naturallight

Wow..ok...man i really know nothing about subs...I'm from the stone age on this...LOL
Didn't know there was a phase switch..but there seems to more then 2 settings..so i guess, put it to what you like best.
It seems most of this is controlled from a remote..there is no old school knob for volume. I guess the best thing for me to do is just select a source CD that i pretty much know what the bottom end should be. Set the 12's to play at a moddest volume..say 10:30 oclock..then just try and match the volume to the 12's

seems like it should be simple enough....LOL

cnh

Yeah, I forgot some of these new Polk subs have that little credit card like remote that sets volume, phase, etc. If I remember correctly, the remote has a quarter sweep from 0-90-180-270 or something like that. Yeah, just cycle through and see what sounds "best". I reviewed a MicroPro sub that had one of these remotes a while back and, in my room 0 degrees was best. Then there are those blinking blue lights for the volume (not my favorite option--I believe I ran mine "hot" at 28 out 40 clicks!)

In any case. You're pretty much there!

And that should make a difference in your bass!

cnh

naturallight

Thanks for the info, you have been a great help.