Sub getting swallowed up
hendon1971
Posts: 11
Hello, I recently purchased the polk A9's , A3's and the CSI A6 center. Pushed by an NAD 275BEE and NAD T278. The problem lies with the sub, a MartinLogan Dynamo 700W cant seem to keep up. I like my sub on all the time, 2ch etc. The A9's dont really have the lows I was fully expecting and at lower volumes the sub is ok I guess but at higher volumes it gets totally swallowed up. The bass response, for lack of a better term, is sloppy and unorganized and easily noticeable thats its trying to fit in with the cool kids but cant quite pull it off. Is there an alternative that can stay in the race with the other speakers? I changed placement, made adjustments all over the place and the results the same. The room is about 15x20. Any ideas or thoughts? Thanks in advance.
Comments
How large is your listening room?
Have you considered using more than one sub?
You should definitely consider using multiple subs in a room that size.
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ALL rooms have standing waves which result from the very long wavelengths of low bass frequencies (*measured in feet*) interacting with the three physical dimensions of the room. In some places they can augment the bass at certain frequencies. In some they can reduce it and it others they can completely destroy it. Every room is different.
All you would need is a Y adapter if you only have one sub out.
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Again it's them dang standing waves in your room!!!
I've read of some small subs packing a wallop, but they're usually of very high power and single main driver and one or two passive bass radiator designs. Mostly though, like the other guys have said, SVS, HSU, etc. I use one large HSU VTF-15 for a large-ish room, and it does well, though even with that, I can see where adding another sub would be beneficial. However, placement, space, and cost are factors, so we make concessions where necessary.
To be sure, we could use a little more info on the system settings
My guess is that the sub is too small for the room and A9's, and is being pushed too hard, especially if you're crossing at 80Hz.
When I was first shopping systems a few years ago, I heard both the 10" and 12" ML Dynamo models at a local Best Buy. It was my first experience with subs, and I thought the 10 sounded great in the demo room. Until they switched to the 12. Even just 10 to 12 was night and day - the 12 had obviously greater output, impact, went deeper, offered sustain where called for, and sounded more relaxed. As HSU says, you can never have too much sub. As the other guys have offered, go bigger here.
http://hsuresearch.com/subwoofers.html
http://www.svsound.com/pages/subwoofers
For now though, you should still be able to find a reasonably comfortable setup with what you have. It's easy to lose yourself in troubleshooting so maybe take a step back, come back in after a break, and zero everything.
Yeah, so take a run through the stuff above if you feel inclined, and play with it without the system calibration and see if you can get it decent with some basic and minimal configuration as detailed above and see what you think.
A larger sub or two will definitely make a difference, but for the best results you're probably going to have to dig in and learn how to set up your system, in general. Or you can just wing it and hope for the best.
Its hard to diagnose a room online, without hearing it.
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You just made my point for me
Large subs have great output and all,but have much lower WAF (*Wife Acceptance Factor*) and can be harder to place properly. I have absolutely nothing against large subs (if ONLY I could get my greasy grabbers on a JL Audio!) but they don't always work in everyone's rooms/living situations.
No one said anything about using two "lesser" subs.
Just two smaller ones.
There are MANY smaller subs out there on the market capable of amazing output. Thank Bob Carver for this..........
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