Best Sub Setup? Solo vs. Floor-standing

[geoff2664]

Question for the experts regarding best speaker setup. I’ll set the stage first by saying that I’m a novice who knows only enough to be dangerous. I’m in the process of building a theater room in my basement for the sole purpose of watching movies. I’m putting conduit in place for in-wall speaker wiring but am unsure on what the best bass setup will be. I plan on either going high-end Pioneer or Denon on the receiver and have decided on the DefTech Mythos STS Super Tower floor-standing loudspeakers based on a connection I have to get them at a reduced price. So here are my questions: Since the speakers each have their own powered subs, should I set them up in 7.2 without a separate, larger sub? Or would it be best to only run speaker wire to the floor stands and still utilize a separate sub? Not surprisingly, every big box I go to gives me a different answer. Just need to know which wires to pull through my conduit so that I’m setup for the best sound experience for movie watching.

 

[GranteedEV]

A great separate sub is always better because of placement, extension, and output potential, but I don't see the harm in running an extra to the the powered section of the def techs...

I recommend trying the def techs first, getting an SPL meter and finding out what your in-room extension and output end up as. If it's not low and loud enough, or if you have extreme nulls in the response, get a pair of subs (maybe two rythmik 12 inch servos?) and put them on the other end of the room in 7.4

 

[GlocksRock]

I would run the towers as full range set to large, or set to small and crossed over at 40 hz. and go with a separate stand alone sub.

 

[InTheIndustry]

Question for the experts regarding best speaker setup. I’ll set the stage first by saying that I’m a novice who knows only enough to be dangerous. I’m in the process of building a theater room in my basement for the sole purpose of watching movies. I’m putting conduit in place for in-wall speaker wiring but am unsure on what the best bass setup will be. I plan on either going high-end Pioneer or Denon on the receiver and have decided on the DefTech Mythos STS Super Tower floor-standing loudspeakers based on a connection I have to get them at a reduced price. So here are my questions: Since the speakers each have their own powered subs, should I set them up in 7.2 without a separate, larger sub? Or would it be best to only run speaker wire to the floor stands and still utilize a separate sub? Not surprisingly, every big box I go to gives me a different answer. Just need to know which wires to pull through my conduit so that I’m setup for the best sound experience for movie watching.

Why not do both?

Use the 2 subs in the towers up fronts AND two subwoofers in the rear of the room? These can all be daisy chained together.

 

[geoff2664]

I would run the towers as full range set to large, or set to small and crossed over at 40 hz. and go with a separate stand alone sub.

So which option would you choose? I'm still early enough in the project where I can go either way. If it's the latter though, combining the tower subs and a stand alone, what's the best way to run all of these together given only 2 outputs on the receiver? Y splitters?

 

[GlocksRock]

So which option would you choose? I'm still early enough in the project where I can go either way. If it's the latter though, combining the tower subs and a stand alone, what's the best way to run all of these together given only 2 outputs on the receiver? Y splitters?

What I do with my receiver is set the LFE to both, meaning sub plus front L&R, so both the sub and the front speakers are fed the lfe, and I have my fronts set to large. Matthew B. on here will advise you to set the fronts to small and crossover at 40 hz. so it's less bloated and muddy sounding, it really just depends on what you prefer. If you go with a good stand alone sub, you won't need the built in subs for any LFE at all, just use them to play your fronts as full range speakers. If you want actual LFE sent to your mains, and you only have one sub out on your receiver, connect the sub out on your receiver to your stand alone sub, then on the sub out on the sub amp, connect a Y-splitter and connect to each of the LFE inputs on your fronts. If you have 2 sub outs on your receiver, connect one cable to your sub, and connect the y splitter to the other sub out for your fronts. You just have to play with it and see what sounds best to you. I've found that even when I set my fronts to play the LFE, I don't get the actual test tone from the receiver for the lfe channel playing through the built in subs unless the LFE input on the towers are being used.

 

[InTheIndustry]

So which option would you choose? I'm still early enough in the project where I can go either way. If it's the latter though, combining the tower subs and a stand alone, what's the best way to run all of these together given only 2 outputs on the receiver? Y splitters?

Yes, for the front 2 use a "Y-splitter" out of one of the subwoofer preouts on the receiver. Use a 2nd "Y-splitter" in the other subwoofer preout to go to the rear subs. I would absolutely without question add 2 subs for the back. This will give an even & smooth bass response throughout your room where using three is much much trickier and doesn't make much sense unless your room has physical problems that just one extra sub would solve (like an odd node created by a short boundry or something).

Then again, if your room is on the smaller side, the two in the towers might prove to be fine. it never hurts to over wire and try different things. Wire's cheap.

 

[geoff2664]

Yes, for the front 2 use a "Y-splitter" out of one of the subwoofer preouts on the receiver. Use a 2nd "Y-splitter" in the other subwoofer preout to go to the rear subs. I would absolutely without question add 2 subs for the back. This will give an even & smooth bass response throughout your room where using three is much much trickier and doesn't make much sense unless your room has physical problems that just one extra sub would solve (like an odd node created by a short boundry or something).

Then again, if your room is on the smaller side, the two in the towers might prove to be fine. it never hurts to over wire and try different things. Wire's cheap.

So at the risk of showing the level of my knowledge I'll go ahead and ask what is probably an elementary question... With 2 LFE outs on a receiver, are they setup as front and back vs. right and left? For instance, only 1 of those outputs would be used for the mains and the 2nd would be used for a stand alone sub (or 2) in the back? Sounds like it would not make sense to place the stand alone sub(s) in the front of the room if using the powered subs in the mains as well, correct?

 

[GlocksRock]

There is no front, back, left or right when it comes to subwoofer outputs.