Can you help me diagnose a problem with my subwoofer?

[mike88931]

LONG DETAILED EXPLANATION: Since I am posting in the audiophyte section you can probably guess that I am new to this kind of thing. I recently built a very nice computer and decided to get what was supposed to be a very good stereo speaker/sound card combination (for the price) to accompany it. I have the Corsair SP2500 speakers and a Xonar Essence STX sound card. I was loving them soooo much until I began to play some verry bass heavy songs in an attempt to really test out the sub. These speakers are supposed to be able to get loud enough to shake my room and maintain zero distortion so I was pretty pumped. However, to my dismay, when I did play some bass heavy songs with the subwoofer volume all the way up, and the main volume at only one third of the way up (which was loud enough to hurt my ears) I heard, and always do hear, a really annoying gurgling sound that almost resembles a very low pitched fart. It annoys the hell out of me and I do not know what it is. I know it is not blown, because I can get back the clean, pristine, and non distorted bass immediately by turning it down to the same level every time. It does not need to be turned down progressively more to get the sound to go away the longer I play it at a loud volume. I dont think it is part of the song and is supposed to sound that way either, because it just sounds bad and it goes away if i turn down the volume. I do not want to see if it gets worse the more I turn up thje bass because I live in a condo and really play it too loud as it is (when I am testing my bass). Besides, I dont want to blow out my ears XD. I am willing to do this if it is absolutely necessary though. I have some video evidence that may help that I will post later on in this thread but it sounds alot different considering it was recorded with an iPhone, the best I have lol (only got an iphone instead of an open source android because it was free with aa 2 year contract, but that is a different story). Considering these are not supposed to have distortion should I get a replacement while I can or would it just be as bad as these? Anyone with experience with my setup would be greatly appreciated.

SHORT BROAD EXPLANATION: My subwoofer makes an ugly noise in bass intensive songs when I turn it up. Make it go away (please).

Videos that may help:
Bass distortion diagnosis video 1 - YouTube
Bass distortion diagnosis video 2 - YouTube

 

[Grador]

Most likely, that is the sound of the driver bottoming out. The cone can only move so far, and you're putting enough power in to make it hit the end of the road. If you value the life of that subwoofer turn it down a little bit.

 

[mike88931]

Wow, that is severely disappointing. When researching these thoroughly prior to my purchase I read quotes from several reputable sources claiming almost no distortion at max volume whatsoever. To add on to the buyers remorse, I only need play them at a quarter of their maximum volume (maybe even less, the volume meter is set up in a way where the higher you go the larger the difference in volume becomes each notch so it is not immediately obvious) to get that ugly sound to start showing its ugly head. This is the third pair I have owned, thinking that with all the rave reviews I must just be VERY unlucky and happen to have gotten TWO bad speakers and that maybe there was a bad batch I got stuck in the process of purchasing by sheer chance. For lack of a better suited word, what absolute bullshit. My sound card did cost as much as the speakers and of course will deliver significantly more power to them, but honestly, although I feel most of the power is probably going to increasing sound quality not volume (that is a COMPLETE guess I have NO IDEA how it woks) the onboard audio was not too much quieter than the sound card is. What do you think? I am going to try and find a person with the same setup as me before acting, but does it sound too BAD to be true, and maybe I really did just get a THIRD bad set, or is it just that all those reviews were misleading? If so, and even if not so, what kind of moolah would I have to dish out just to get a sub that can take the full power of my sound card (which I did not even think was too powerful considering people spend thousands on external DACs that are supposed to be immensely more strong) without distorting at all, volume all the way up on the sub and main volume?

EDIT: And how long do you think it will be before these bust if I, say, played them at the same volume as in those video clips for two hours every day?

 

[Grador]

Going to address your points out of order to go from most basic and build:

You have powered speakers, the sound card doesn't "power" them. A sound card can put out a stronger (higher voltage) signal, but all that means is that with the speakers on the same volume setting they will be louder. This DOES NOT mean that your speakers will be able to go louder. An amplifier (like the ones in your speakers) simply...amplifies... signals it receives, and it only has so much power at it's disposal. If you feed it a signal that is very strong you can get to a point where the amplifier puts out as much power as it can before you reach the maximum volume setting. Conversely if you feed it a week signal (you can try this by turning the volume on your PC down) you can set the amp to max volume before asking for all of it's power. TL/DR: It doesn't make sense to expect the max volume setting to be "maximum volume"

When you turn the volume on the subwoofer up all the way you are giving it a stronger signal than it expects, and causing it to run out of power before the speakers. Additionally you're really expecting too much from a small subwoofer. Sound is comprised of pressure waves traveling through the air. Speakers make these pressure waves by moving cones to move air, bass takes a lot of air movement.

Finally, it's impossible to say how long it would last for many reasons. I don't know how sturdy the subwoofer is. It's impossible to get any feel for how loud you are playing by watching a video. You're camera's microphone was distorting badly, those videos are pretty useless.

 

[mike88931]

I am not linking you myself because my vpn is causing that specific page not to load for some reason and I need it on right now. But if you go to the corsair website and go to audio -> then the sp2500 speakers then it should have specs you can use to help possibly. All I know is that they are 235 watts FTC method and are supposed to be able to play loud for a long time.

With your comment about the sub volume all the way up causing it to get more power than it expects etc., it only makes this noise when the main volume is turned up to a certain point while the sub volume is also all the way p. When on a lower volume form what I can tell the sub volume will get louder as the "main volume" dial goes up too. So if the sub volume being at max with the main being so low is what is causing the noise it would not make sense that the noise is not made with sub dial all the way up while the main dial is lower than it is when it makes the noise. Or Am I misinterpreting your point (probable)?

p.s. The sub is not small by my standards. It is more than a foot long for pete's sake. Lol. Then again I do not really have much experience with speakers of other sizes so how would I know? All the reviews did mention the sub was exceptionally large compared to the competition though making me question how it could be considered "small." I dont believe I need a three by three foot sub to give me the bass I want do I?

EDIT: Again, how much money do you think I would need to spend to get a sub capable of what I am asking? If you can tell without being here next to me in person...

ps what does TL/DR mean?

 

[Grador]

I'm going to make up numbers, they have no real meaning but just aid in my point. Lets say you can set the volume from 0 to 10. When you hit 10 you're putting out as much power as you can, and things will be distorted. With the subwoofer set at 50%, when you set the main volume to 5 the speakers and subwoofer play at 5. When you start to turn the sub up, you're putting a higher value on the sub. At 100% lets say the sub is +4. That is to say if you put the volume at 5 the speakers will be playing 5, but the subwoofer is now playing 9. Keep turning it up, lets say to 8, and now your speakers are playing 8 and the subwoofer is trying to play 12, 2 past what it can.

The "standard" size for a home theater subwoofer is a 12" diameter cone, many people don't think that's large enough.

I have no clue what your aim is, so I can't really comment on what you should look for.

 

[mike88931]

But why would the case be that instead of, say, until both the sub and the main dial are all the way up the sub is not at 100 percent volume? They were advertised as being able to play as high as the dial goes without distortion.

And my aim, realistically, was the level of sound quality these provide now but without distortion at max settings, which is what I expected. Since it is impossible to depict this without you hearing a pair the best I can describe my goal as is great bass with no distortion at a volume that will be as loud as it can be without hurting my ears.

And I do not need these to fill up a room with said quality of sound, just the area in front of my pc. But at the level of volume I often play my music it will inevitably fill up a living room with sound (albeit not anywhere as good sounding as in front of the speakers) anyway.

 

[Grador]

The subwoofer at 50% is likely considered even with the speakers. They are giving you the option to have more bass than even, but you're not going to be able to get the speakers up to max when the sub is working harder than they are.

I've already explained why 100% volume is an irrelevant number.

 

[Steve81]

But why would the case be that instead of, say, until both the sub and the main dial are all the way up the sub is not at 100 percent volume? They were advertised as being able to play as high as the dial goes without distortion.

Just to clarify/reiterate, the volume dial on the subwoofer is only one half of the equation as to how loud it is expected to play. Corsair isn't able to guarantee that your computer can't feed your system a signal that will tell the sub to play louder or deeper than it is able to.

 

[TLS Guy]

LONG DETAILED EXPLANATION: Since I am posting in the audiophyte section you can probably guess that I am new to this kind of thing. I recently built a very nice computer and decided to get what was supposed to be a very good stereo speaker/sound card combination (for the price) to accompany it. I have the Corsair SP2500 speakers and a Xonar Essence STX sound card. I was loving them soooo much until I began to play some verry bass heavy songs in an attempt to really test out the sub. These speakers are supposed to be able to get loud enough to shake my room and maintain zero distortion so I was pretty pumped. However, to my dismay, when I did play some bass heavy songs with the subwoofer volume all the way up, and the main volume at only one third of the way up (which was loud enough to hurt my ears) I heard, and always do hear, a really annoying gurgling sound that almost resembles a very low pitched fart. It annoys the hell out of me and I do not know what it is. I know it is not blown, because I can get back the clean, pristine, and non distorted bass immediately by turning it down to the same level every time. It does not need to be turned down progressively more to get the sound to go away the longer I play it at a loud volume. I dont think it is part of the song and is supposed to sound that way either, because it just sounds bad and it goes away if i turn down the volume. I do not want to see if it gets worse the more I turn up thje bass because I live in a condo and really play it too loud as it is (when I am testing my bass). Besides, I dont want to blow out my ears XD. I am willing to do this if it is absolutely necessary though. I have some video evidence that may help that I will post later on in this thread but it sounds alot different considering it was recorded with an iPhone, the best I have lol (only got an iphone instead of an open source android because it was free with aa 2 year contract, but that is a different story). Considering these are not supposed to have distortion should I get a replacement while I can or would it just be as bad as these? Anyone with experience with my setup would be greatly appreciated.

SHORT BROAD EXPLANATION: My subwoofer makes an ugly noise in bass intensive songs when I turn it up. Make it go away (please).

Videos that may help:
Bass distortion diagnosis video 1 - YouTube
Bass distortion diagnosis video 2 - YouTube

You might as well have it up straight. That is a small miserable puny device that is not even a sub. It only goes down to 35 Hz, which is not even sub range.

You are over driving it pure and simple. A high output sub is expensive.

To see what is required to do what you want look at the sub build threads on these forums.

You are not going to get high spl clean bass from a unit like that, far from it.

 

[mike88931]

After taking a look at your system, TLS Guy, I believe at this point in your life you and I are in vastly differentiating price ranges. However, I may be interested in a setup similar to yours in the not too far away future. How much was it? Just as a reference? Everything that has to do with the audio in your system (meaning exclude the cabinets).

Also, with a setup like that, is it possible to take advantage of digital flac tracks, or is all your music listened to off of CD's or something like a disk?

Finally, for a subwoofer to accompany my 2 stereo speakers, and play at the highest volume my soundcard can drive, what do you think would be a good sub for under $500 dollars (if you have experience with anything that cheap)?

PSS: Does a sound system like yours (which most likely cost many thousands of dollars) sound as good as a pair of SennHeiser hd 800 headphones? I am a complete noob as you can tell....

 

[Grador]

It would be somewhat difficult to get a home theater subwoofer working with those computer speakers.

You would need a subwoofer that would do the crossover for the speakers for you. This means you'd go from the soundcard into the subwoofer, the subwoofer would then take the low frequencies, reproduce them, and send the signal for everything it wasn't reproducing off to the speakers. This isn't a very common feature.

Edit: Before jumping to measures of spending more money, why not try playing things back with the bass turned down a little bit and see how you like it. Keep in mind that when you turn the sub level down you'll be able to produce just as much bass as you could with it up, only with the rest of the speakers playing louder.

 

[mike88931]

I am a bass-o--holic. I would not be interested in increasing the speaker volume unless the sub:speaker ratio was where it was right now. The warm punchy goodness fills my ears with ecstasy every single time. The louder it is, the better (to a reasonable level of course). Unfortunately at this point in time the level of bass cannot stay at as high of a quality as it is at lower volumes and still play as loud as I want it to. If I turned up the speakers without proportionally increasing the bass then the speakers drown out the bass too much for me. That is why I cannot raise the speakers and leave the bass where it sounds good.

It seems at my limited budget I am limited in options, but for future reference, can you in fact play digital music through a home theatre speaker system? And random question, in terms of headphones vs speakers, very high end speakers produce better sound than comparably ranked headphones right?

 

[TLS Guy]

I am a bass-o--holic. I would not be interested in increasing the speaker volume unless the sub:speaker ratio was where it was right now. The warm punchy goodness fills my ears with ecstasy every single time. The louder it is, the better (to a reasonable level of course). Unfortunately at this point in time the level of bass cannot stay at as high of a quality as it is at lower volumes and still play as loud as I want it to. If I turned up the speakers without proportionally increasing the bass then the speakers drown out the bass too much for me. That is why I cannot raise the speakers and leave the bass where it sounds good.

It seems at my limited budget I am limited in options, but for future reference, can you in fact play digital music through a home theatre speaker system? And random question, in terms of headphones vs speakers, very high end speakers produce better sound than comparably ranked headphones right?

If under $500 this, or this are probably your best bet.

As far as my system, is is an AV system.

I have no idea what it cost, as I have been acquiring gear over fifty years now.

A lot of the pieces, especially the vintage turntables are very valuable now.

The system plays just about anything. 78 rpm, LPs, just about all 1/4 reel to reel tapes and their code/encode systems (Dolby A,B and C, and dbx 1 & 2), compact cassette, FM radio, VHS, digital PCF-1 DAT, CD, SACD, DVD, DVD-A, BD and has a Direct TV DVR.

There are two computers, one is the audio workstation it can edit and master CDs to Red Book, download and play pretty much any audio codec including FLAC, and also convert them. It also streams and downloads from the NET. This will need a redesign and upgrade soon. Currently it is loaded with Wave Lab 6 and the sound card/DAC is external. It is the RME Fireface 800. I need to update the mother board and upgrade to WaveLab 8 and migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7. WaveLab 8 will be available sometime next month.

The HTPC will download and stream pretty much any stream out there. It will play and burn CD,DVD and BD.

The pre/pro as all the AV codecs required. So yes, this system is very universal and will grab and play pretty much any AV or audio stream or Download on the NET.

So this system handles a huge range of legacy and current hard media, and is fully up to date in the digital world, and certainly handles all I want.

I have all my studio microphones and this rig is capable of making a high grade studio recording, although I have not done that lately.

It is a 7.1 system and has a total of 14 power amplifier channels providing 3 KW audio watts to the system.

So the answer to "can you play digital music though an HT system?" is an emphatic yes.

I think good speakers best headphones. But headphone listening is something some enjoy, while others like myself don't particularly.

 

[mike88931]

I would like to thank you all for your replies, my questions have been answered sufficiently and I will now retire back to my humble abode (well, technically I AM in m humble abode), listen to high Sub:Speaker ratio music at a low enough volume it does not distort, and wait for the day to get a serious speaker system, which at the rate technology is evolving, will hopefully not be too long =)

 

[Swerd]

I would like to thank you all for your replies, my questions have been answered sufficiently and I will now retire back to my humble abode (well, technically I AM in m humble abode), listen to high Sub:Speaker ratio music at a low enough volume it does not distort, and wait for the day to get a serious speaker system, which at the rate technology is evolving, will hopefully not be too long =)

It seems that you are interested in computer speakers and subwoofer, with better sound quality. Your first try at that didn't work as well as you hoped, but keep in mind it didn't really cost you that much. It may have been high priced by computer speaker standards, but not by 2-channel audio or multi-channel A/V standards.

The home audio industry is slowly evolving from the old type of speakers that required a separate power source (an amp or receiver), to self-powered speakers typical of computer speakers that you know. So keep an eye out for new self-powered speakers from companies that have made products that appealed to audio or A/V users in the past.

These are an example of what I mean
PC Hifi System | Complete 2.1 Desktop Speaker System | SuperPower System TWO | High End Desktop Speaker System

I haven't heard these speakers, but in the past NHT has made several very good quality speakers and subwoofers.

Does that look like something that might interest you?

 

[markw]

You received some excellent advice here but keep this in mind: You're new to this hobby and, even when moving upscale, your expectatios may be higher than your wallet can deliver.

Ther are subwoofers available from anywhere under $100 up to many thousands of dollars. What they can deliver is, to a great extent, dependent on their cost. Granted, there are some great values out there but, on the whole, if you want the best, you're gonna pay for it.

You might want to keep your expectatios in check and realize that there's alot of hyperbole involved, particularly with the lower end products.

 

[mike88931]

Swerd, that does seem like something that might interest me later on. And I will keep my expectations in check. But to be honest, the next time I buy new speakers, I am going all out. I mean maybe 20 thousand dollars if necessary. The 400 dollar setup I have now brings me so much joy when I listen to it (at volumes low enough the sub doesn't fart on me) that I am absolutely convinced I want to get the best of the best of home theatre systems next time. I will most likely have the money to as well. If not I can settle for a lesser setup to hold me off but we shall see. Of course I will make sure to do elaborate research beforehand and hopefully be able to test out all the parts in person beforehand so I can assure the reviews are not elaborated and really, I will be getting what my expectations are hoping for. Or at least as close to them as worldly possible.

Again, thanks for all your help.

 

[TLS Guy]

Swerd, that does seem like something that might interest me later on. And I will keep my expectations in check. But to be honest, the next time I buy new speakers, I am going all out. I mean maybe 20 thousand dollars if necessary. The 400 dollar setup I have now brings me so much joy when I listen to it (at volumes low enough the sub doesn't fart on me) that I am absolutely convinced I want to get the best of the best of home theatre systems next time. I will most likely have the money to as well. If not I can settle for a lesser setup to hold me off but we shall see. Of course I will make sure to do elaborate research beforehand and hopefully be able to test out all the parts in person beforehand so I can assure the reviews are not elaborated and really, I will be getting what my expectations are hoping for. Or at least as close to them as worldly possible.

Again, thanks for all your help.

markw has given you excellent advice.

Now you claim to be a Bassaholic. I have to tell you that the sine qua non of any good system is balance, with no part of the audible spectrum being dominant over another.

Bass heavy systems get very old, just like top heavy ones.

There is no point whatever in spending a lot of money on an unbalanced system.

My final advice is to gain experience before spending megabucks on your system. You first need to become and experienced listener, which at this time I doubt you are.

 

[Trikyneubs]

Yeah, I know this is an old thread. I keep my mediocre quality laptop MAIN volume at 46%. The software (media player) volume can be anything, although I try to keep it near 100% to keep all the details from being lost. Sending this quiet signal strength forces me to turn my AVR volume knob up more than is normal for my other sources. I am careful to turn down AVR volume knob when switching to another source (dvd, br player etc). The reason why volume knobs turn beyond "full volume" is in case you want to crank up quiet source material. Experimenting with the lowest eq band and bass related options in sound card driver options has also helped me match the laptop's signal to the ability of my sub. Calibrating my sound card with REW also taught me how to tame the signal coming out of my laptop -big time bro. Experimenting is key. Keep a detailed journal of what works and doesn't, and make changes one at a time!