Subwoofer on the Center Channel

Early B.

I realize we have discussed this before...
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27680&highlight=subwoofer+center+channel

...but I'd like to know if anyone else has tried hooking up a subwoofer to their center channel.

I tried it a few minutes ago using my Onix UFW-10 subwoofer and didn't notice much difference. I hooked it up to the center channel pre-out on my receiver with the center channel setting to "LARGE." The Onix sub doesn't have speaker binding posts, so I don't know if it would matter if my center channel speaker was routed directly to the sub because the receiver was sending the signal to both the center channel speaker and the subwoofer.

Any thoughts?

Skynut

Mine came with a sub.

Larry Chanin

Early B. wrote:

I realize we have discussed this before...
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27680&highlight=subwoofer+center+channel

...but I'd like to know if anyone else has tried hooking up a subwoofer to their center channel.

I tried it a few minutes ago using my Onix UFW-10 subwoofer and didn't notice much difference. I hooked it up to the center channel pre-out on my receiver with the center channel setting to "LARGE." The Onix sub doesn't have speaker binding posts, so I don't know if it would matter if my center channel speaker was routed directly to the sub because the receiver was sending the signal to both the center channel speaker and the subwoofer.

Any thoughts?

Hi,

Are you sending the full range signal to your Soliloquy C3? Do plan to use this arrangement for mostly music or movies or both? How loud do you usually listen, reference levels, -10 dB below reference, etc?

The reason I ask is that your Soliloquy C3 can go fairly low at 45 Hz, so if you listen mainly to music that wasn't bass challenging I doubt you would be endangering your speaker.

On the other hand if you listen to movies, especially action movies at moderate listening levels, I would think that you would be endangering your center channel if you're not filtering out the low bass to the subwoofer with an external crossover.

This all may be academic if you can't hear a difference between this arrangement and a conventional arrangement with the center set to small. Apparently your bass management system is already doing a good job of routing the low bass to the subwoofer.

Larry

Early B.

Larry Chanin wrote:

Are you sending the full range signal to your Soliloquy C3? Do plan to use this arrangement for mostly music or movies or both? How loud do you usually listen, reference levels, -10 dB below reference, etc?

The reason I ask is that your Soliloquy C3 can go fairly low at 45 Hz, so if you listen mainly to music that wasn't bass challenging I doubt you would be endangering your speaker.

Yes, I am sending the full range signal to my C3 and is used for HT only. I listen a few dB's below reference level.

BTW, I'm not totally convinced that my center channel actually goes down to 45 Hz.

Larry Chanin

Early B. wrote:

Yes, I am sending the full range signal to my C3 and is used for HT only. I listen a few dB's below reference level.

BTW, I'm not totally convinced that my center channel actually goes down to 45 Hz.

Hi Early,

Wow, not many systems have the quality to be played that loud without sounding harsh! I take it you've just started experimenting. Aren't you concerned about damaging your Soliloquy playing at those levels without filtering the bass?

Larry

Early B.

Larry Chanin wrote:

Aren't you concerned about damaging your Soliloquy playing at those levels without filtering the bass?

Not at all. I don't adhere to the conventional approach of limiting the capability of my speakers. The Soliloquy is capable of handling much more power than I'm giving them. It can handle 220 watts but I feed it less than half of that.

Larry Chanin

Early B. wrote:

Not at all. I don't adhere to the conventional approach of limiting the capability of my speakers. The Soliloquy is capable of handling much more power than I'm giving them. It can handle 220 watts but I feed it less than half of that.

Hi Early,

I guess with the new breed of action movies, i.e., Sky Captain, Batman Begins, War of the Worlds, etc., I've started to get a little gun shy, perhaps explosion shy would be a better term.

I know you've participated in this thread, War of the World's Blew my LSiC, and you started an other thread on the subject of this movie. Therefore, I know you have a good appreciation of the amount deep bass power that is being delivered in these types of movies.

However, let me pose a question. Even if your speaker can handle the power and avoids being damaged, what is the point of knowingly driving your center channel bass driver beyond it's design specifications and into increased distortion when you have subwoofers that are designed to handle this deep bass with greater sound pressure and less distortion?

At the risk of stating the obvious, rather than driving a full range signal through your center channel which is not a true full range speaker, you can both lower the amount of total bass distortion produced AND increase the SPL delivered at these deep bass frequencies by either using your Pioneer receiver's bass management system to filter out bass below 45 Hz to your system subwoofer (the DIY sub?), or by using an inexpensive external crossover to filter the low bass out of your center channel speaker to a dedicated center channel subwoofer, or a combination of both approaches.

I have implemented a similar approach to that described above with regard to using dedicated side surround channel subwoofers in conjunction with limited range surround speakers to create full range side surrounds that can go below 20 Hz. However, no doubt my objectives for doing so are entirely different from yours.

Is there a particular objective that you are shooting for in implementing a dedicated center channel subwoofer, that couldn't be achieved by redirecting bass to an equally capable conventional system-wide subwoofer?

Larry

Early B.

Larry -- running my center channel on LARGE is simply a personal preference. Don't worry - I ain't gonna blow my speakers. My rationale for doing so is no different than yours for using dedicated side surround subwoofers. An ideal setup for me would be a subwoofer for each speaker.

Larry Chanin

Early B. wrote:

My rationale for doing so is no different than yours for using dedicated side surround subwoofers.

Hi Early,

Not to rerail your thread, my objective is really not just to have full range surrounds, it's actually been done to use the Bass Enhance feature of my Lexicon processor which requires deep, decorrelated, stereo bass to be delivered to both sides of the audience.

Larry

VR3

I believe in full range speakers all around. Anywhere and everywhere. Solid response to atleast 40-30hz is a must to me...

With that said, Im not a big fan of powered subs in the loudspeakers or in the mix of the loudspeakers. I dont even really like passive subs in the loudspeakers. I like good midbasses playing solid bass and clear mids...

With that said, I have yet to come across a speaker I have owned that has distorted when playing music or a movie while on large at high volumes. If your speakers are doing this, something probally isnt right...

There isnt any real reason why your speakers should distort when set on large...

However if you dont have the ampage behind them, it might be a bad thing... so dont forget that, bass requires power...

Larry Chanin

Vr3MxStyler2k3 wrote:

There isnt any real reason why your speakers should distort when set on large...

Hi Sid,

At the risk of stating the obvious, if you don't send signals to a driver that exceeds it's design specifications, then you won't get distortion. If you do send a signal to a driver that at a frequency lower than it is designed to handle, increased harmonic distortion is the result, even if the driver is not damaged. The human ear is less sensitive to harmonic distortion at low frequencies so this may not be obvious to you.

High quality subwoofers have the ability to produce deep bass with less harmonic distortion than less capable subwoofers. Can both subwoofers play at the same level? In most case yes, but the less capable subwoofer is now producing lots of extra harmonics. What this does it it makes it now possible to localize the subwoofer. Whereas a good subwoofer handles the low bass without drawing attention to itself.

When you set a limited range speaker to Large what you are doing in essence is asking it to serve as a low quality subwoofer.

Larry

VR3

Most speakers will produce the signal it cant reproduce at very low levels from the -3db point...

Hence why I said there isnt any reason why it should be damaged from playing that signal...

Usually after that -3db point... the roll off is very large... so where you might be playing its "range" at 110db, you could be playing out of its range at only 100, which any speaker can handle most of the time (exceptions, of course)

Larry Chanin

Vr3MxStyler2k3 wrote:

Most speakers will produce the signal it cant reproduce at very low levels from the -3db point...

Hence why I said there isnt any reason why it should be damaged from playing that signal...

Usually after that -3db point... the roll off is very large... so where you might be playing its "range" at 110db, you could be playing out of its range at only 100, which any speaker can handle most of the time (exceptions, of course)

Hi Sid,

I'll conceed that when drivers are playing out of their design range that, while they are producing a lot of harmonic distortion, they aren't playing it at the sound pressure levels of a driver designed to operate in that range.

So that begs the question, if a capable subwoofer is available in your system that CAN play those bass notes a lot louder and cleaner, why wouldn't you use bass management and let the subwoofer do it's job rather than asking a speaker to do a job it's not designed for?

Larry

thehaens@cox.net

Larry

Good point, as in my set up, I set the L/R to large and the center and surrounds small. Being that the 1.2's dig pretty deep on their own. I can't see a reason to send all the LF to the subs.

After playing around and setting all my speakers to large, I noticed that the emphasis on LF was attenuated greatly. And I also noticed after looping a scene on a movie with all set to large my amp that I have on my L/R speakers wasn't pushing anywhere near the wattage to the speakers.

Ex. during a scene in I Robot where Will Smith is having his first dream sequence under water and the robot smashes the window to pull him out. When all channels are set to large my amp only registered about 45 watts on the meter. But when I went back to setting the center and surrounds to small. That same scene registered around 750 watts on the meter. Which really made the scene come to life....

Scott

Early B.

This is another case of theory vs. application. Whether or not the center channel drivers are producing a lot of harmonic distortion is of no consequence if one feels that, after experimenting with various LARGE and SMALL options, that the LARGE setting sounds better.

Now, back to the original question. I simply wanted to know if anyone else has tried hooking up a sub to their center channel. Some of the Def Tech center channels have powered subs and are highly regarded. Just wondering if this concept can be replicated with a small powered sub on the center channel.

thehaens@cox.net

I guess I was off your topic as well, nope haven't tried it. But I can't see a reason why you couldn't hook up a sub that has speaker outputs, and running the outputs to the center.

Keep a look out on woot.com, I purchased a sub from them a month ago for 104.00 shipped...

Scott

VR3

Probally not EB..

You're looking at the whole shared location thing - on the DTs they are inches from the sub while seperately they'd be feet from it - depends on if you believe that subs really are somewhat directional.

Lsi9

I have the RM3000s with the passive sub as a cc and set to large
overall it is more pleasing than a "standard" CC...whether bass is audible is hard to say, while low frequency is omnidirectional maybe having the sub behind the tv makes it hard to notice the full range