rt2000i sub seems to overpower

jdeal

I recieved my rt2000I speakers last night. I hooked them up, just using a standart speaker wire. They don't sound as good as I had hoped, but from what i have seen so far on this board, there is a lot more to getting these type of speakers hokked up and sounding good than I thought. The high and mid sounds great, but the powered sub seems to be too strong. It may be that I am just not use to it. I am in way over my head at this point, having come from a 1980's Quadraflex reciever and a pair of polk bookshelf speakers. I have turned the sub volume down to compensate, but think it is way too low. Where do most typically set this? I also have recently learned, via this site, that there is a break in period. Could this contribute to my breif(2 Hrs) of time with these speakers? I was also thinking of trying another posts advise to take off the jumpers and send the unpowered sub signal to the built in subs and setting the signal for the upper posts to small speaker. I have a lot to learn, but I plan to enjoy the ride. Thanks in advance for any suggestions on how to get my head out of the sand so I can hear what these speakers can really do;)

rwrvpem

Get the AVIA Home Theater setup DVD and a decibel meter from Radioshack. The DVD is about $50 and the meter is around $35. I was skeptical at first but gave it a try. The volume knob on my RT 2000i's are set to approximately 10 o'clock. I thought this was low, but they sound great. Alot of people set the sub volume too high and end up with overpowering, muddy bass. Give this a try or if you have a Dolby Digital receiver, use the test tones to get the subs set to the same level.

Once you get the speakers set up properly, you'll love them.

Good Luck

Rick

wangotango68

when the rt2000i came out i said the same thing the bass was way overpowering almost boomy sp your not just the only one.


scott:cool:

RuSsMaN

Don't sweat it, if you like how it sounds, you have it set correctly. Setup discs can be cool, and helpful, but trust your ears, and set it how you like it. Discs do little to compensate for your placement, and room size/acoustics....

Cheers,
Russ

(ps, to help with the boominess, stay out of the corners, and play with the distance from the rear wall)

jdeal

Thanks for the info. I just bought the AVIA calibration dvd from the polk web site. It came to about $37. This is the cheapest I have seen it. From what I hear, it is mostly test patterns for video. I'm trying to figure out where to put the front speakers. My room is 14' wide and 18' long. I havea media niche in the middle of one end of the room that the T.V. sits in and the spakers are just outside of the niche beside the part of the T.V. that sticks out. I hope this works, since my only other option is all the way in the corners. On another note, I am only getting a small amount of noise out of the rear f/x500's. i think this goes back to the reciever problem that I listed previously.

wangotango68

**** then why is it that most everybody that has these speakers complain about the boomy bass? and fyi my speakers were set up just like all my other ones were streight forward no toe in.


scott:cool:

sgtgto

Hi:

I have RT2000s, RT800s for L and R with CS400 center and the bass is not boomy at all. I have mine toed in and they sound great.


Gary

RuSsMaN

...maybe there is a correlation between some RT2000 owners, and a lack of a proper demo before their purchase...

Not picking a fight, but did they not sound boomy in a demo?

Cheers,
Russ

jdeal

Sounds like this site is a little more hostile than I thought. Yes I listened to a lot of speakers before I bought them. If I relied only on what I heard at the store, I could have bought the best speaker system in the world, the bose acoustimass 15 and life would have been easy. According to the Bose rep, they jump out of the box and blow any speaker away. No, I didn't believe him. I liked the sound of the polk system and have had polk products that I liked before, so that is what I bought. The store has their rooms set up to make it sound good. All I have done so far is open an expensive box and hook them up. Now I am trying to set these up so they sound good. I do not have any background experience with setting up a complete system, but by the time I get this thing right, it will sound good. I have already learned a lot from the postings on this site and im sure there are some of you that are willing to give real advice/opinions. Anyway, I will get off my soap box now. Thanks to all that have resopnded with honest advice.

vtec11

jdeal,

how far are the speakers away from the back wall (behind the speaker). if they are too close to the wall there will be a lot of boom.

My RT's are about 33" from the front of the speaker to the back wall and still they kinda boom.

jdeal

I have them about 4-6 inches from the wall.

pdebaum

Just like you, I found the RT2000i integrated sub overpowering at what I deemed reasonable volume levels. Boom and mud, to be precise But don't worry, this sub has the potential to sing; it just takes a little more work then expected.

For me, the biggest epiphany was doing a sub calibration with the Avia DVD. I found out that the 12 o'clock default position for the sub volume dial is way too high. Bass tone tests showed in my case about 12dB too high at 76dB reference. To get even reading in bass sweeping tests, I had to set the dial to about 9 1/2 o'clock. Most people will find the bass lacking at this level, but that's in my opinion due to too much listening at high bass volumes. Human ears have the fallacy to perceive lower "volume" for equal pressure at lower frequencies. What I know for sure now is that my bass never sounded so good. No more pounding and muddiness, just fast tight bass as it should be, especially for stereo music listening.

Second epiphany was bass management, especially in light of HT performance. You have 2 powered subs in your setup and if you don't have another standalone sub in your system, you want those subs to be used fully with multi-channel sources, such as DD 5.1. That means you shouldn't let only the Front left and Front right channels carry the bass. You want the bass from other channels to go to the subs as well (except if a particular channel go to a full-range speaker with integrated sub, which is unlikely in a typical HT setup; most of the time only your fronts are full-range towers). So you will have to think carefully about the bass management in your particular receiver. That means choosing the bass carrier (sub-out or main-outs; the latter can be either speaker-level or line-level main pre-outs), which is typically set with a SUBWOOFER = ON or OFF switch, and configuring your speakers to SMALL or LARGE. SMALL means you want the bass extracted from the channel and added to the carrier. LARGE means the channel keeps its original full-range signal. For full information on bass management essentials, I suggest you read Polk's excellent article at http://www.polkaudio.com/home/faqad/advice.php?article=bassmanage.

Third epiphany was the connection mode. The speaker level connection for the woofer (bottom binding posts) is the one most pleasing to my ears, as compared to the line-level. Moreover, it's Polk's recommend way to hook the sub. In this mode, you have the choice of a single wire from receiver to one of the pair of binding posts on the speaker, provided you keep the metal shorting straps between the top and bottom binding posts, or you can become adventurous and do a sort of bi-wiring by removing the straps and connecting 1 wire to each pair of binding posts, while using the same "out" jacks on the receiver. I said a sort of bi-wiring because true bi-wiring is actually separating tweeter and midrange, not tweeter+midrange and woofer as you can only do the with the RT2000i. Regardless, to my ears, it works and I noticed an improvement.
Line-level connection is also the same kind of bi-wiring, at least in the idea to separate bass carrier from higher frequencies carrier. This is also a good way to connect your subs. Several people on this board actually prefer it. It sure has the potential for more tweaking provided your receiver has extended bass management stuff such as crossover settings. Anyway, try it out too, after remembering to remove the shorting straps so the speaker-level input cannot short out the line-level input.

That's about all I can think right now. Trust your ears and don't be afraid to experiment. The RT2000i is an excellent speaker and can really sing properly configured.

jdeal

Thanks for the reply. I have the sub position set at 12 o'clock. I will turn it down when I get home and give it a try. I did not know there were 4 posts on the back of my speakers until I opened the box, so this is all new to me. I have the Avia dvd on the way and will get a meter. Really appreciate the advice.
Jason:D

wpaules

I have mine dialed in about 10-11 o'clock and have the speakers about 10" from the rear wall and about 20 or so inches from the sides. I have them biwired and do not have "boomy bass".