PSW350 Adjustments

Originally posted by crewchief68
people here seem to think Onkyo and Harmon Karden are hand made, and not assembled in Asia in a huge factory like everything else. There is a certain snobbishness pervasive in these rooms.

I think you may be misinterpereting what some people may be saying. I'm sure most all people here know Onkyo are mass produced just like Sonys. I difference is in the parts that go in to those recievers. Sony uses shared circuitry between the channels, resulting in lower quality sound. They also rate their power at lower impedance levels and with higher distortion. Companies like Onkyo, Denon, and Marantz have discrete circuitry for each channel. They rate power conservitivley, resulting in an reciever that gives clean, powerful sound to each channel with little distortion. Sony does make an ES series, that is aimed towards high-end audio rather than consumer electronics, just as Pioneer makes an elite. If you're not concerned with having a higher quality of parts or a 'high-end' reciever, than that's ok! I'm glad the Sony is working out for you.

Regarding the 350, I would vouch that it has the power to make you 'feel' the bass. Although it's not the best sub in the world, or even in it's class, it is a damn good one. If you want a sub with the ability to reproduce frequencies of 10-15Hz, well, you may want to consiter shelling out a couple thousand dollars for one. Because almost any sub you buy below the $1000 mark won't do that for you. If you do know of one that is in the 350s price range that can do that, let me know. I need a sub right now and would love a recommendation from anyone! Were I to purchase a sub like that though, I would probably want to have a proportionate reciever to run it, and would probably want to upgrade from my Onkyo.

If you call knowledgable people who wish to share their information in a forum of which the theme is to help eductate 'snobbish', then I greatly appologize for sharing what I know with you.

john

One good way to check for correct phase is with pink noise. If you don't have a noise generator, there are test CDs out there with it. Stereophile has a couple different test CDs, and they each have phase tests on them, along with pink noise.

If your speakers are out of phase, some of the bass frequencies will cancel-out, so it should be fairly obvious.

It would seem to me that a steady test-tone or pink noise would be better for checking for this than music. Just a thought.

i have the PSW350 too. and I have to say.. that with my small room and RT800i's set to LARGE..(all other speakers set to SMALL) they combined with the 350 sub provide plenty of good bass.
sure it's not the same as a $1500 Velodyne or some other over priced sub.. but if you set up all your speakers with a SPL you'll notice a good amount of bass with the 350.
I guess the big debate here is how much bass from your sub do you really need? I tend to think if in every scene in a movie if all you hear is thundering bass... then that is to much. Frankly, to much bass does fatigue my ears after about an hour or so. I'm very happy with the bass the RT800i's deliver too. I'm amazed just how much sound comes out of such a small package.
P.S. if you can afford a Velodyne, more power to you.. i'm not knocking them or any other sub... just they seem to be overpriced for just providing bass. What about HSU subs??? I hear they are even better then the Velodynes. Discuss.