Do receivers output bass freq only on subwoofer out?

[mklein]

I ran 2ch speaker wire to remote room and was testing my receiver which is located 30-50' or so away in wiring closet.

A friend noticed lack of bass frequencies and said it <may> be due to longer speaker wire run...but it was most likely due to not having subwoofer hooked up...and that his receiver ONLY put out bass/low freqs on subwoofer line and not through main fronts on speakers A or B.

Is this true? I looked in my manual and saw nothing regarding this 'switching'.

 

[mike c]

maybe your receiver settings have set the speakers to "small"
that in effect would prevent the frequencies below the crossover point from being sent to your speakers.

 

[MDS]

30 - 50' speaker wire runs would only be a problem if you use very thin wire, like say 24 gauge, but it would not result in an overtly noticeable loss of bass.

Your friend is only partially correct. A surround receiver will only send LFE (the .1 channel of DD or DTS) to the subwoofer, althoug some receivers offer a feature whereby the LFE is sent to the subwoofer AND the front speakers if they are set to Large (called LFE+MAIN, Both, or Double Bass by different manufacturers). If you do not have a subwoofer (or you lie and tell the receiver you don't), the LFE will always go to the Large front speakers.

'Regular Bass'; ie any low frequency part of the signal that is not specifically part of the .1 channel, will be routed according to your bass management settings:

- If you only have two speakers hooked up to a surround receiver, the receiver will not let you set them to Small so the entire full range signal will be sent to the speakers (they will automatically be set to Large).

- If you happened to tell the receiver that subwoofer=yes (even though one does not exist) and set a xover frequency, then the 2 speakers could be set to Small and the bass below the xover would be redirected to the non-existent subwoofer. That could account for a lack of bass.

There is always the possibility too that you are simply playing something that does not contain an appreciable amount of low frequencies OR it does contain bass that is much lower than the low frequency extension of your speakers and the speakers simply cannot reproduce it accurately.

 

[Nestor]

It's probably self-evident, but make sure your speaker wiring is correct. Phase cancellation may be occurring due to out of phase speakers. It'll be particularily noticeable in the bass frequencies.

 

[manofsteel2397]

some receivers dont put out the bass as good as others i had an old pioneer pro logic receiver with two 12" tower speakers and kicked out the bass but when i bought my new receiver and hooked up the same speakers the bass was just not there then i upgraded all my speakers and got a subwoofer bass is back but not from the receiver.....

 

[jcPanny]

Receiver modes

My Yamaha receiver has a "Pure Direct" mode where it sends the analog or digital input signal to the amp without crossovers or other digital processing. Try this type of mode (or set the mains to large) when testing the speakers in the other room.

Also, the frequency response of the speakers is directly related to their ability to reproduce the bass. If the speakers roll off at 70-80 Hz then they wont produce much bass regardless of their location.

14 AWG or maybe 16 AWG speaker wire should be adequate for that distance.

 

[tytlyf]

it can send it through surround speakers if need be.