very little bass with PSW125

eheinz

I have a new Polk Audio PSW125 connected to a new Denon 3808CI through LFE and I only get a small amount of bass. I have tried numerous things with settings on the receiver, changing out cables, testing with music, blue ray dvds and games.

I even hooked up the subwoofer to another receiver that I'm more familiar with and still got the same results. Any ideas?

ben62670

Have you tried different room placement? How large is your listening area?

TNRabbit

Is this a new sub or used?

eheinz

I first thought it might be the cable because a majority of the cable is in wall and runs around 30 ft. So I moved the sub to be within the receiver and directly connected it with a monster sub cable. I also tried with another receiver (same cable, different room setup) and got the same result.

The sub is brand new from Crutchfield and the receiver is also brand new.

eheinz

If I don't turn it up to maximum, I don't hear it at all. The only way I get some bass is by turning it up to maximum and even that bass is barely noticeable.

Since I'm new to this receiver, I'm not quite sure if it is a receiver setting or just a faulty sub or even a cable.

eheinz

I double/triple checked the connections just to make sure it was connected to the appropriate jack. I also verified that the sub option on the receiver was set to Yes (which it is by default). Only other thing I might try is changing the size of the front speakers. Currently it is set to large.

TNRabbit

If you are coming out of the "SW" RCA jack under "pre out", that is the correct one. Do you have ANY speakers set to small? If not, I'd say that's your problem.

How about a pic of the back of your sub?

eheinz

I tried setting all speakers to small and nothing changed. I will change the cable once I find one (just moved and still unpacking) and post the results back on this forum. The Receiver's sub out setting is set to LFE and I have the cable plugged into the "SW" pre out jack on the back of the sub.

TNRabbit

What other sub settings are there on the receiver?

eheinz

I tried 2 other RCA cables and no luck. Another weird thing is that it doesn't make any sound if I watch TV or play music. Watching HD TV is playing in Dolby PLII and playing music is in Stereo.

I have only been able to get some bass when playing a Blue Ray movie using 5.1ch Surround Sound and then it was barely noticeable. I don't see how it could be this complicated to get a sub working in this setup.

I have it connected to the LFE In jack on the back of the sub. Only other thing I haven't mentioned is that I currently only have the front 2 speakers and the center speaker connected to the receiver, because I'm still unpacking after a move. Do you think that has any bearing on the issue?

eheinz

Ok, mystery solved and it seems to be working now. This receiver has a separate speaker size options for 2ch sound (stereo). The defaults were set to Large and once I changed these to small the sub started thumping.

I guess when watching TV it didn't produce enough LFE signal to wake up from standby.

All cables work and location didn't matter. It all came down to the receiver settings.

Thanks for helping!!

cnh

I'm not following this thread entirely.

Denons have a DIRECT and a STEREO setting (and PURE). The SUB will run in either setting. The only thing the stereo setting does is allow you to adjust the tone controls. There is also a PURE mode that turns off the display and all other non-audio circuitry.

What I haven't heard you talk about is the receiver volume adjustments for the Sub on the Denon. On mine you have to have the Denon set to at least +3 (+12 is the maximum setting) before you can hear the bass from the sub--I have my fronts set to large and it doesn't have any real effect, positive or negative on the sub's output on two channel either in DIRECT or STEREO modes?

So I don't quite understand what you were doing initially, or how you solved it.

Are your stereo settings boosting BASS because that will also affect the sub in two channel sound?

In any case I'm happy you've solved the problem. You can adjust your bass from your remote control--raising or lowering the signals power.

cnh

TNRabbit

Glad you got it working!

mjpinla

Running into the same issue with a PSW125 and a Marantz SR4023. Problem is the Marantz doesn't have any specific subwoofer output settings. Just the RCA sub out. I'm using a 12' Monster cable into the sub (I've moved the sub next to the amp and tried other, shorter cables).

I'm wondering if trying the speaker level inputs might help. I haven't tried yet since I don't have any cheapo speaker cable around, so I'll have to buy good cable to do the test, and if it doesn't make any difference there's that dough down the drain.

I assume if I do try the speaker level inputs and I'm still not getting anything, then the woofer is likely bad. I dread having to ship that thing, so I want to exhaust every other option first.