Greetings,
I'm a bit new here, love great sound but only mildly interested in the all the technical stuff necessary to get there, so -
I have the following in my system : Denon AVR-4306 feeding a Bryston ST-somethingorother which power a pair of Snell EIIIs, (3) Marantz MA500U amps powering 2 bi-directional Snell side speakers and one Snell center speaker, and one Snell PS-10 that is/was self-powered. While I do watch movies and tv in general, I'm really into music and would focus on that when needing to compromise between watching or listening. I'm guessing that the crossover is handled by the Denon, as there's only one wire going to the sub and nothing coming out.
The sub began humming a couple of years ago and the hum has only gotten worse with time, until I couldn't stand it any more. So I took the thing apart, and while nothing appeared to be amiss I decided to replace the capacitors in the hopes that I could get the hum to stop. No luck - still there, as loud as ever, even louder when I change the polarity switch. I've ruled out ground loops, feedback from some other piece of equipment, fluorescent lighting, etc. I have the sub in my woodshop temporarily, used in tandem with a pair of Snell K's and it all sounds awesome. In that setup I'm relying on the built-in crossover of the sub, as the speaker-out goes to the sub then there are terminals for the other speaker inputs. The hum is still there but since I'm not sitting near the speaker and there is other ambient noise, it isn't as bothersome. But I'd like to get a subwoofer back into my theater system. I think the hum is from the big-honking transformer and I understand that they were custom-made for Snell and no longer available. So, do I fix or replace the sub? If I fix do I buy a new plate amp? Since I have a "SUBWOOFER OUT" connecting the sub to the Denon 4306 do I still need a crossover on the sub, or is the Denon already doing that for me? Do I Use a totally separate amp (like the MA500U), and if so do I need a crossover for this kind of setup???? I'm trying to stay on the inexpensive side, if possible but I don't want to degrade what I thought was a pretty decent setup. I also kind of remember that the Denon has amplifiers built in that I don't use - maybe go that route and send an amplified signal directly to the sub? I don't even know if that's possible, I don't even know how the signal at the sub gets filtered for the correct range (does the AVR-4206 do this, does the plate amp on the back of the sub do this, etc.) Thoughts?
Thanks for suggestions
Philip
