Do you need a sub, for SDA 1C's for 2 channel music??

Conradicles

This thread is about SDA-1C and a sub.

Moose68Bash

My experience with bass rendition from my 1Cs was that great improvement was achieved with significant increases in power from the amps. I started with the Perreaux PMF2350 @ 200 watts per channel into 8 ohms and moved up to a PMF3150 @ 300 watts per channel into 8 ohms.

I thought the bass from the 1Cs with the 200 watts per channel was great, until I heard the improved bass from the 300-watts-per-channel amp. This is not a very precise description of the differences I experienced, but I would sum it up by saying simply that the bass from identical pieces of music was more realistic, enveloping and moving -- physically as well as aurally -- at the same volume. In addition, the overall experience of bass lines was tighter and clearer -- that is, when a bass violin was playing on the G string, you could hear more clearly the distinctive timbre of the instrument and the transients were cleaner.

I experienced the same phenomenon with my SDA SRSs when I moved from the PMF3150 to Prisma 750s (750 watts per channel into 8 ohms).

One of the reasons that I am so devoted to SDAs is that the bass is very satisfying to my ear without requiring a separate sub, because the peculiarities of my room preclude the reasonable use of a sub.

nspindel

One other thing to mention is that bass response of the SDA line is greatly improved by upgrading the 16mH inductors. When I modded my 1C's I used Erse Super Q's and in my 4.1TL's I am using Solen air cores. The Erse gave me a nice improvement over the stock inductor, and the Solen was a major step up from the Erse.

heiney9

It's not about pure watts (unless you need them to reach a desired spl) it's about quality watts. I have 30 wpc and it's more than enough for my room size and occasional 95+ db listening habits.

H9

schwarcw

Schurkey wrote: »

Room treatment/equipment positioning is CRUCIAL, and virtually no-one pays any attention to it. Even I am guilty of this to some extent.

Adding a sub can assist in getting the null out of the seating position, while leaving the listener/main speaker position in a suitable arrangement to provide good mid-bass, midrange, and treble.

Until I can find a suitable sub at a price I can tolerate...I use the Buttkicker at low volume.

nspindel wrote: »

+1 for room treatments. I have GIK tri-traps in the four corners and six GIK 242's in quite a small room. I had thought that a bass "trap" would mean I would get less bass. It doesn't mean that at all. What I got was tighter bass. Less grunge and more punch. When my speakers want to go deep it feels effortless and natural.

Some good info here. Your perceived lack of bass could be a matter of taste or actual "null" points in the room itself. Anyone who takes this hobby seriously should run some room sweeps with test tones and an SPL meter. There is also some nice software that you can load onto your laptop and use with a good mic.

Most people get surprised at the results these tests yield. Most rooms have less than perfect acoustics. Some rooms have real problems. This is more of a problem with bass notes because the wavelength of the low bass tones is larger than your room (i.e 20 ft or more). This will create "dips" in the room response or "nulls". Room treatments can help, as do active sub-woofers. Integrating your sub can be difficult, but not impossible.

Have any of you done the room sweeps and care to share your room response? Don't be too quick to condemn the sub. Some music lovers have different tastes than others. If you like the thump of the mid bass and your speakers don't give you what you want, try a sub. Not my taste but YMMV.

Do your self a favor and do some room sweeps. Acoustic treatments can make a big difference and don't need any expensive interconnects:cheesygrin:

motorstereo

heiney9 wrote: »

Again not one sub user has shown me any recorded music (for 2ch, not HT mutichannel) that plays lower than the SDA's can reproduce. There simply aren't that many recordings out there that have output below about 25Hz.............so whatever you are hearing out of your subs is NOT some magical low hitting bass because the source you are feeding it doesn't contain it.

Motostereo your Mac deserves a much better pre than a Yamaha. That's part of your bottle neck right there.

H9

Pretty much everything I listen to benefits from the addition of the sub. If you really need an example Celion Dion's Heart will go on has some bass that I've never felt before the addition of this sub. You non believers are all more than welcome to come press the button on the yammy anytime. Joe Bonnamassa's entire cd Live at Royal Albert Hall is another one that quickly comes to mind.
As far as the yammy pre goes I'm guessing you've never heard an avionic c4 before. It had decent specs before his mods but afterwards it became the best sounding pre I've ever heard. It sent my tubed audible illusions and mac tubed pre's to other homes. Dead quiet, great soundstage, and that uncolored yammy gets out of the way and lets me hear things the way they're recorded. I liked my first one enough that I hunted down a 2nd and that one has also has had his magic touch perfomed on it. The only "bottleneck" that I can think of is someone thinking that a great sub cannot help a great pair of speakers.

I know I'm not alone in my sub thinking. The very first 1.2tls I heard integrated with a quality sub was at Lazarus's a little over a year ago. That set up also was nothing short of astounding on every single piece of music that was played on it.

westmassguy

nspindel wrote: »

One other thing to mention is that bass response of the SDA line is greatly improved by upgrading the 16mH inductors. When I modded my 1C's I used Erse Super Q's and in my 4.1TL's I am using Solen air cores. The Erse gave me a nice improvement over the stock inductor, and the Solen was a major step up from the Erse.

^^^^^^^^^^^
This

naturallight

Well guys, interesting info from both sides. I think in the end, we should just agree to disagree.

The old school SDA, 2 channel guys will say "we don't need no stinking sub" LOL Which i am one of them. Don't think there is much anybody could say, that would make us change our minds on that.



Plus the fact to find a really good, musical sub that would even come close to matching what the SDA's can do, would cost 2 to 3 times the price of the SDA's. So in MY useless opinion, that amount of money would be better spent on upgrades. I run right now, the bear min of a system. Amp, pre and a tube cd player...thats it. I need to spend whatever money i have to upgrade the SDA's, and i would like a better pre, tubes would be nice, but we will see....LOL

falconcry72

naturallight wrote: »

...The old school SDA, 2 channel guys will say "we don't need no stinking sub" LOL Which i am one of them. Don't think there is much anybody could say, that would make us change our minds on that...

So what was the point of you starting this thread? I'm not trying to bust your balls here (well maybe a little :twisted:), but it seems like you had your mind made up before you started the thread.

This issue is no different than any other issue of debating the inherent "quality" or "value" or "improvement" of any other piece of gear. If you take this hobby seriously, you spend the time and energy to try stuff out in your own system, with your own ears, to develop your own opinions... and in the end they are just that: opinions.

Some people enjoy a sub, some people don't. This is not a complicated subject.

naturallight

The only reason i posted it was because Pearsall thought i was missing alot with out the sub, or subs.

Which i don't agree with, but i figured i'd post it to see what other people thought about it.



Yes, it may come down to a personal preference...but what? your not up for a spirited debate? LOL

falconcry72

naturallight wrote: »

...but what? your not up for a spirited debate? LOL

lol, always!

...but a debate of chocolate vs. vanilla will only get so far...

Moose68Bash

heiney9 wrote: »

It's not about pure watts (unless you need them to reach a desired spl) it's about quality watts. I have 30 wpc and it's more than enough for my room size and occasional 95+ db listening habits.

H9

Agreed, with the following caveat: It's not about "pure watts" (quantity) or "quality watts;" its about quantity AND quality watts. Playing music with a wide dynamic range and fast transients requires speed and plenty of "headroom" in the amp, and the "watts" have to be "quality" watts IMHO.

naturallight

LOL well i'm not so sure it comes down to chocolate and vanilla, it just is not that simple.



SDA's are not easy to place, plus the size(or model) of SDA's..what you can get out of them is VERY room dependent and equipment dependent. That i can tell you as fact as i have tried to run these in smaller enclosed type 12x14 rooms. My 1 C's don't like that space. NOT they they sound bad..just not up to what they can do.



I now have them pretty much direct coupled to a concrete floor in a 17X30 basement room.

I also agree with H9 that 99% on cd's..the music, just dose not go below what the 1C's can give you as far as bass. They will pretty much beat you to a pulp if you turn them up. A 1K Polk sub is not going to do much of anything for these speakers unless you crank the volume up on them...which means you just want bass over kill. How "accurate" the bass may be, could be do to how you have "modded" the 1C's..that could be an issue. But other wise...I don't see that a good set of SDA's NEED a sub for 2 channel music. But again it's not that cut and dry-ed and of course comes down to personal preference and the listeners ears....which is all that matters in the long run...LOL

TennMan

This topic about subs is getting quite complicated.

I need to get up to speed on how many different kinds of watts there are. So far I see there are "pure" watts and "quality" watts for sure. It seems there must be some kind of watts called "headroom" watts too. I know there are "light bulb" watts because I've seen that wrote on light bulbs. None of those watts are listed on the spec. sheet for my amplifier. It just says "Watts" so I have no idea what kind of watts I have.

When I search the Internet for watts I keep running across this Lawman named Ohm who has formulas for making watts. There is just no telling what kind of watts that guy is making. What we need to do is come up with some kind of standard rating system for watts so when we look at the label on our amplifiers we will know what kind of watts we are buying. I live on Watts Bar lake. If I could find that Bar I'll bet the bartender or some of the regular patrons there could tell me all about watts. I doubt they will know much about subs. I'll let you know what I can find out but I don't think subs are allowed on Watts Bar lake. It's not deep enough for a sub.

falconcry72

naturallight wrote: »

... it's not that cut and dry-ed and of course comes down to personal preference and the listeners ears....which is all that matters in the long run...LOL

...right. chocolate and vanilla...

madmax

naturallight wrote: »

The only reason i posted it was because Pearsall thought i was missing alot with out the sub, or subs.

Sounds like a good reason to borrow one and give it a try! On some music I found it satisfying (set at minimalistic levels) but also found myself not paying attention to some of the finer detail from the SDAs when it was on, probably just me. He is right though that it can enhance the higher octaves. A decent sub also allows a certain amount of control for those recordings which are extremely lean in the bass.

naturallight

See..maybe this is the problem. SDA's are not "normal" speakers in any sense of the word. Period.

They don't have powered woofers. There designed so that the mid drivers..with the cabinet design...push the PR to give you bass.



So the "normal theory" about taking away something the bass speaker (power wise) would have to produce..and cut down the use of the power amp....pretty much holds no water as far as i can see for SDA speakers. It's not a tower speaker with real power hungry woofers in it. So what could you gain from this??

falconcry72

naturallight wrote: »

See..maybe this is the problem. SDA's are not "normal" speakers in any sense of the word. Period.

They don't have powered woofers. There designed so that the mid drivers..with the cabinet design...push the PR to give you bass.



So the "normal theory" about taking away something the bass speaker (power wise) would have to produce..and cut down the use of the power amp....pretty much holds no water as far as i can see for SDA speakers. It's not a tower speaker with real power hungry woofers in it. So what could you gain from this??

I get your theory, but it's not entirely true. Play a 20hz tone through your SDA's and go feel the MW's... they're movin' an awful lot!

Plus, most SDA's have a pretty big bass hump in the 40-60hz range. If you wanted the bass in the 20-40hz range to match the bass above 40hz, you'd have to add a sub or an EQ. Also keep in mind that when they say 20hz +-3db, that doesn't mean FLAT to 20hz, that really means that they're down 6db at 20hz. If you want FLAT response to 20hz, you need a sub or an EQ.

One last thing to keep in mind is that I DO NOT use a sub with my SDA's for 2-channel listening. I do not even use a sub with my Maggies for 2-channel listening!

You are looking for the "correct" answer to a question for which no "correct" answer exists. There's is no right or wrong here... only different flavors.

...vanilla and chocolate...

Mr. Bubbles

I see his theory too but I would go on out and say it is entirely incorrect. A passive does not play any frequencies or signal which is not already present, it passively assists (or augments) the back-wave of the active drivers. this means that if the active drivers are not producing a signal of any particular range, the passive will not augment it. If it does, it is not reproducing the original signal but adding something to the sound that is not there to begin with (distortion). It also means that if the passive is augmenting a certain frequency (or range), that range is being played actively by the drivers. The active drivers are very much playing the extremely low frequencies as long as the source material contains it as H9 has indicated. For this reason the low frequencies are very much a load on the amplifier.

I still prefer no sub on my 2ch rig. but don't knock anyone who does. Neapolitan isn't bad either.:cheesygrin:

thsmith

Friends dont let friends add subs to their SDAs.

Seriously, I know when I am not getting enough bass. I have never felt that way with my 1Cs even with them 12 inchs from the back wall. Now, my RT55s need a sub, my RTi8s (when I still had them) need a sub. My 1Cs and LS90s, they dont.

PolkieMan

For music I don't even use Tone Controls, I use the Pure audio button, the subs are for movies, just for fun.

Toolfan66 wrote: »

I will pass.. Not only am I 99.9% sure I don't need a sub with my 1.2 tl's but the thought of daisy chaining them into the mix is a deal breaker in it's self..

I can think of other areas I would spend the coin on..

pearsall001

Let's see now...if you wanted a warmer, sweeter, cleaner, clearer mid-range along with a much improved mid-bass, and you wanted to tame those nasty room nodes along with having your amp perform like it never has before...ding...ding...ding you add a sub or even better yet dual subs. If you want the status quo sound from your speakers you don't add a sub, play with your cables instead. It's not easy to do it right but once you get it the end results are amazing. Oh & this goes for any pair of speakers. It is soooooooooo much more than just adding bass. It'll literally transform your listening experience, almost like you turbo charged your speakers. It's a rather complicated topic but if you never experiment you'll never know.

motorstereo

If you do want to try a sub with your polks make sure it's a damn good one. You're not going to get any improvement from even an above average ht sub or multiple average subs. But once you integrate one properly that specs out better than the sda's on the bottom end you'll be wondering why you waited so long. There is room for improvement on the bottom just like there is in every other area on our beloved polks that we constantly fuss over. I mean really look at the mods we do to them, upgrade the tweeters, crossovers, brace the cabs, spike em, binding posts, blackhole, gaskets, dynamat, rings my God the list of mods we can do looking to take our polks to the next level. But for some reason the addition of a fine quality sub that's on par with the rest of the set up gets overlooked and frowned upon in some cases. One evening's listen to a properly set up pair of 1.2tl's complete with a fine quality sub is all it took for me to want to take mine to the next level.

Drenis

If you need a sub with your SDA's, you're doing it wrong! :razz:

FTR, my 3.1TL's make stuff on the coffee table move. Nuff said...

naturallight

Well really this all comes down to personal preference..I'm not sure much more.



I just went down an played a bunch of CD 's again..also the Bonamassa live..which was not recorded as massive live bass stuff...I played this on my 1C's..and for yucks since i have a pre which i have control of bass and treble..what the hell i turned it up some. Now granted..NOT what you should do...but. what the hell...."supposedly" your missing something (on this cd) if you don't have a sub.



If your missing something..I don't get it. I played this at 11 o'clock on the pre ..this is loud and i mean really loud. If your missing bass some how..I don't get it..at all. There is nothing in the recording that the 1C's can not do in spades...LOL since i put up the bass for yucks...it's pretty much kicking your **** all over the place. Plus it's massively stupid loud .at the 11 o'clock setting.



Now weather some people agree..thats, another point..do other people care..again...maybe a useless point.

So i guess i'ts pretty much the point of you like it or you don't...as far as a sub is concerned, it is what it is, not much more, and nobody is going to change anybodies mind on it.

pearsall001

naturallight wrote: »

Well really this all comes down to personal preference..I'm not sure much more.



I just went down an played a bunch of CD 's again..also the Bonamassa live..which was not recorded as massive live bass stuff...I played this on my 1C's..and for yucks since i have a pre which i have control of bass and treble..what the hell i turned it up some. Now granted..NOT what you should do...but. what the hell...."supposedly" your missing something (on this cd) if you don't have a sub.



If your missing something..I don't get it. I played this at 11 o'clock on the pre ..this is loud and i mean really loud. If your missing bass some how..I don't get it..at all. There is nothing in the recording that the 1C's can not do in spades...LOL since i put up the bass for yucks...it's pretty much kicking your **** all over the place. Plus it's massively stupid loud .at the 11 o'clock setting.



Now weather some people agree..thats, another point..do other people care..again...maybe a useless point.

So i guess i'ts pretty much the point of you like it or you don't...as far as a sub is concerned, it is what it is, not much more, and nobody is going to change anybodies mind on it.

The hardest part to come to grips with is that adding a sub/subs is NOT...I repeat is NOT all about simply adding more bass. Re-read my post #83 which explains just a few of the benefits on the whole picture. For some reason the minute you mention a sub you get the same old same old ...I don't need more stinking bass, my speakers can rattle the walls already. Well that's great but has nothing to do with adding a sub. Funny how guys will talk about the musical revelation they experienced when they swapped out some cables yet can't get their heads around the notion that a sub is a huge plus for any speaker.

motorstereo

Cranking the volume knob and jacking up the bass control isn't what it's about. If you're happy without a sub then good for you. But if you had a sub that could switch in and out you'd see and hear exactly what some of us are talking about.
I also run 4 other modest set ups and I don't run a sub with any of them or feel the need to. But my polks to me are top dog and I consider the sub one of the very essential mods of the many that I've done on them. No loudness and no tone controls just pure sda enjoyment with a little help on the bottom end.
I'm not here to change anyone's mind I'm just relating the path I've chosen with my rig.

Toolfan66

Tone controls suck!!





Someone had to say it..:razz:

Toolfan66

Listen the cost of daisy chaining a sub into the mix is the deal breaker for me in even if I wanted to try it.. I don't see where the cost of said $1000+ subs, then add the cost of some good cables, and what other goodies one might need to make it happen..

And I have yet to come across a two channel pre with sub outs..

Again the daisy chaining kills it for me..

halo71

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that NattyLight is listening to a sub with his SDA's right now? lol The old "fat girl/moped" saying is coming to mind right about now! :eek: