How to tell if subwoofer is working...noobness

[liftngwaght]

So I bought a T250 subwoofer from The Speaker Company, along with a whole slew of other speakers. Everything seems to work perfect except for the sub. Im using a Onkyo SR606 receiver with a Monoprice subwoofer cable hooked from the LFE port on the receiver to the LFE port on the sub. The sub is turned on and the LPF is set to around 80, on the sub itself. Through the Onkyo I have told the receiver there is a sub and set the LPF to 80. When I do the test sounds for all the speakers I get this very very weak rumble from the sub. Kinda like a small fart ribbling on a sofa.

Anyways, I figured I would pop in a movie to see if the sub would work. Im using the PS3 as my DVD/Bluray player with audio going out as bitstream. Tried Gladiator and 300. Seems the sub only starts rocking the place if I have the volume up all the way on the sub and the volume on the receiver up pretty loud. If I turn the sub down to 1/2 volume I dont get anything.

Am I looking for to much out of a sub? Ive never had a sub before but I thought I could at least get things to shack. It's like the sub is only doing 1/4 or 1/2 it's job. Any suggestions? Did I hook something up wrong or do a wrong setting? Is this just how subs are? Im going to contact The Speaker Company but email is slow.

 

[TLS Guy]

So I bought a T250 subwoofer from The Speaker Company, along with a whole slew of other speakers. Everything seems to work perfect except for the sub. Im using a Onkyo SR606 receiver with a Monoprice subwoofer cable hooked from the LFE port on the receiver to the LFE port on the sub. The sub is turned on and the LPF is set to around 80, on the sub itself. Through the Onkyo I have told the receiver there is a sub and set the LPF to 80. When I do the test sounds for all the speakers I get this very very weak rumble from the sub. Kinda like a small fart ribbling on a sofa.

Anyways, I figured I would pop in a movie to see if the sub would work. Im using the PS3 as my DVD/Bluray player with audio going out as bitstream. Tried Gladiator and 300. Seems the sub only starts rocking the place if I have the volume up all the way on the sub and the volume on the receiver up pretty loud. If I turn the sub down to 1/2 volume I dont get anything.

Am I looking for to much out of a sub? Ive never had a sub before but I thought I could at least get things to shack. It's like the sub is only doing 1/4 or 1/2 it's job. Any suggestions? Did I hook something up wrong or do a wrong setting? Is this just how subs are? Im going to contact The Speaker Company but email is slow.

You have cascaded filters, so your sub crossover is fourth order. This is OK, but there is very little material below 80 Hz, so what you hear is correct. Normally however filters are not cascaded like you have it now. Set the crossover on the sub to the highest setting, so you just use the second order low pass filter in your receiver.

Please try that and post back.

 

[Adam]

Because you are using the LFE input on the sub, the sub may or may not be using the LPF controlled by the knob on the back. Just to be safe, I agree with Mark - set the LPF on the sub to the highest number (150, I think).

The fact that it sounds very weak when doing the speaker tests caught my attention. Have you level matched the sub with the rest of the speakers? Also, do you have all of your speakers set up to crossover at 80Hz?

As another place for info, Audioholics has some good articles on subwoofer set-up in their Tips & Tricks section on Get Good Bass.

 

[fredk]

Thats a 10" sub. How big is your room?

I also agree with Adam, if you havn't run Audysey to level match your system, do that.

 

[liftngwaght]

Ran Audyssey and it made a BIG difference. I had actually forgotten about doing this although I had meant to. It placed the left/right front speakers at full and the surrounds/center at 80hz cutoff. Put the crossover on the sub at 120hz.

Under level calibration it changed settings to the following:
Left 4db, center -7db, right -4db, sur left -5, sur right 4, sub 0.

I then got smart and figured hey i'll go onto youtube through the PS3 and checkout sub tones. Played several test tones between 20-80hz and the sub is definitly working. With much more power then it had before.

A couple of questions....why does the sub sound so good now? If I switch the front left/right speakers cutoff at 80hz from full it doesn't seem to change anything....im not sure what full means.

 

[Adam]

Excellent! Glad that it was just the set-up and not something wrong with the sub.

...why does the sub sound so good now?

Odds are that the volume was set too low and/or the speakers were set to "Full."

If I switch the front left/right speakers cutoff at 80hz from full it doesn't seem to change anything....im not sure what full means.

A setting of "Full" on any speaker means that none of the bass from that speaker will be redirected from that speaker to the subwoofer. Not hearing a difference could be a result of your front speakers being comparable to the sub in regards to bass reproduction and/or the material that you used to listen for a difference wasn't sufficient to illustrate one (meaning that it didn't contain much if any bass below 80Hz).

 

[MatthewB.]

Placement is key, you could be sitting in a null void. Try moving the sub around to see if you get better bass response.

 

[liftngwaght]

Once I ran the Audessey I then placed the sub in my seating location. Walked around the room then to find the best spot for the sub. Ended up being either side of the tv so worked out well. Been watching all sorts of movies this weekend. Probably the best so far was "Kung Fu Panda". Had to actually turn the sub down though. After thinking the thing wasn't even working on Friday I had to turn it down today! Was great to really feel the sub. My wife was stunned that the sub would do that.

 

[agarwalro]

...I then placed the sub in my seating location. Walked around the room then to find the best spot for the sub.

Well, the sub is not at your ear height when standing, it is on the floor. So you need to do this by crawling around the room with the sub in the seating location... might lead to considerably different/ better location for the sub.

 

[liftngwaght]

Sorry should have been specific. I actually watched the "subwoofer crawl" video on Axiom Audios site. So yes I was at sub level when I went around my room.

~Thomas

 

[lsiberian]

I actually watched the "subwoofer crawl" video on Axiom Audios site. So yes I was at sub level when I went around my room.

~Thomas

Well done!