Polk PSW 505 Setup

dirtymac

I hope someone can help with my setup. I just got a psw 505 and hooked it up. My A/V receiver is the sony strde975 (will upgrade eventually or get a power amp) My mains are rt1000i; center cs400i; surrounds are fx500i)
My receiver is now wired to the bass input with the binding posts and the center is bi-wired. The LFE port on the sub is plugged in to the sub out of my a/vr. The listening to music the bass sounds great from the rt1000i, but when I turn on the sub it is almost undetectabel unless turn full blast. Did I do something wrong? Where should I have the crossover set? Also what are the proper cutoff frequncies to set in the reveiver for the center and surrounds. If anyone can offer some advice I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
DirtyMac

Eric W

If you have the main speakers set to "large" in the receiver's configuration settings then it will divert most of the bass to the main speakers rather then the sub. Sometimes there is a "double bass" or "LFE + main" option you can use and that should increase the bass output of the sub. Usually I do not like running the double bass option because with the main speakers and the subs producing bass at the same time you may get a very uneven response throughout the room from cancellation and reinforcement.

Further, to test the sub on its own to make sure its working right, connect a CD player's audio line out's (red and white) directly to the red and white inputs of the sub. Play a CD with a good amount of bass and start off at the volume all the way down and bring it up slowly. By the 10 o'oclock position it should be thumping away. If so, the sub is working properly.

dirtymac

Thanks, I will try that.

drew spelts

i had the same problem with the sony 995 and it is the damn receivers fault. this is how the receiver works because I figured it out myself and thought, "Thats a really crappy way to do things." When you use the receiver withought a sub the receiver sends all the bass to the large fronts... ok that sounds good, but when you tell the receiver that a sub is hooked to it, it automatically cuts almost all low frequencies out of the front speakers to allow for the sub to handle, you can test this yourself withought even having a sub. Just go into the setup and turn the sub setting on and watch a little bit of a movie, It sucks. You can have awsome front speakers perfectly capable of handling tons of base and your receiver believes that once the sub setting is activated that it no longer needs to send those frequencies to the fronts. Pissed me off so damn much I bought a Harman Kardon AVR 635 for $650 through a friend that works at circuit city. I will not receive it for a couple weeks.

PolkThug

1. Set speakers to "small" on the AVR.
2. Set crossover to 80hz on the AVR.
3. The ONLY connection from the sub to the AVR should be the LFE RCA.
4. Calibrate your levels with a Radio Shack meter.