No bass management with subwoofer solution?

[Weston Awtry]

Hey guys,

I've got a Yamaha R-S300 receiver, a pair of NHT Superzeroes, and a HSU STF-1 subwoofer. The receiver has a sub-out, but no bass management. Am I missing something? Because a sub out seems pointless if there's no way to set the crossover frequency on the receiver. The NHTs are only rated down to 85Hz so I don't want to damage them by blasting a full range of frequencies through them, especially since I listen to bass heavy music a lot. Does this mean I am limited to the outputs on the subwoofer (it has a crossover frequency controller)? Or can I use some sort of high-pass filter and wire the NHT's directly to the receiver and use the sub out for the subwoofer? I appreciate any help yall can give me!

Thanks.

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum, Weston! I skimmed the Yamaha manual, and I don't think that you're missing anything. It's oddly typical of stereo receivers with sub outputs to not have any bass management.

Others should chime in if they disagree, but I don't think that you'll hurt the NHTs by sending them a full range signal - you just won't be able to hear low frequencies because they won't play them. I have NHT 1.5s that are bookshelf speakers, and I've played them full range without any problems at all.

The issue is getting the NHTs and the sub integrated together sonically. That's the great thing about bass management, as you know. If you use the line level input to the sub, you can adjust the crossover on the sub to try and get a fairly flat overlap between the low end of the NHTs and the high end of the sub. You can also, as you said, use the speaker-level inputs and outputs on the sub to get a nice, clean blending between the NHTs and the HSU.

I don't have experience adding a high-pass filter to speaker-level signals, so I'll leave that to others here that know more.

 

[Weston Awtry]

Thanks for the reply, Adam. If I use the speaker level inputs and outputs on the sub to get the clean crossover, I'm a little concerned about sending an analog signal through the subwoofer. Is that going to reprocess the signal in anyway?

 

[Adam]

The audio going to the speakers and sub will be analog regardless of the connections, so I wouldn't worry about that part of it. As for processing the audio inside of the sub before it gets to the speakers, I'd think that the sub amp would just use the high-pass filter according to how you set the crossover frequency and send the rest of the signal unchanged to the speakers. HSU is a good brand, and I'd expect their sub amps to not change the sound. Just my belief. The best way is to try it out and see what you think.

 

[Weston Awtry]

Oh don't worry, I will! I've got my receiver already but the speakers and sub aren't getting here till tomorrow, so I'm passing the time by analyzing every inch of the system! I appreciate the help