Base performace

[Gregrfair]

First of all thank you for this site, it has taught me a lot and helped straighten out my modest system. My question which I hope isn’t a stupid on is this, why does the base sound really great on some movies and others it lacks punch?, is it me or do you just have to go in and adjust things based on what you hear.. any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[j_garcia]

What sort of setup are we talking about? Bass reproduction depends greatly on what speakers you are using, how they are setup and your room will have an influence on it.

 

[Gregrfair]

Running the following: 5.1 with a Yamaha RX-V385, the mains are Polk T-50’s, center channel is a Klipsch R-52C, sub is a Klipsch R-100SW. This all set up in the living room, 4K TV over fireplace, mains one either side, a perfect triangle with about 12’ from LCR. As I stated it’s pretty modest and I don’t expect it to shake the room, but some movies sound really great, bass and all, other movies the bass kinda lacks. I have read tons of very helpful articles here which helped me improve performance tremendously and overall am happy. Is it how the movie was made, if one movie sounds great and another lacks and no settings have changed it seams logical to me. Do I just need to tweak the bass settings depending on performance?.

 

[j_garcia]

Well, that can be just the movie itself, not your setup. There's no telling really. If you look at this thread:

Subwoofer Candy

Every once in awhile I find a kick-ass tune that lets my subs rip, and I will share some of them here as I find them. I just found one that had a gob of bass and a nice bass line, it is a rework of the Halloween movie theme, which serves as a nice antidote to all the g*&@#&^ Christmas music at...

forums.audioholics.com

You will find plenty of content that has good bass to try out.

 

[rsharp]

The first thing I would check is if you have the sub at the proper overall level. That can be a nice quick check. i.e. do the test tones (pink noise) in your receiver's setup to see if all your speaker levels are the same from your listening position.

If that's already good, completely agree that it could be content. Some are just going to be way more bass-heavy that others. "Solar Sailor" comes to mind from the "Tron Legacy" soundtrack by Daft Punk. That's fun to play back for some nice bass.

 

[Gregrfair]

Thanks for the advice, have done the pink noise, along with checking a host of other items and all check out, I believe that my first hunch was the correct one. Have done some experimenting with the movie that didn’t sound so good about an hour ago and doing a few tweaks sure did help, not perfect but lots better.. this is a learning game, and there’s tons to learn. It fun though!!

 

[lovinthehd]

Mostly in the movie mix IMO, if not simply your expectations/tastes. Adjusting per movie is possible I suppose, not something I have found necessary to do....but I'd make those adjustments in the avr rather than on the sub so you can revert to a calibrated/known level. Got some specific movie examples of the lack of bass?