newbie needs more bass from system

[KY1]

Hi. newbie here. i have a pair of 10 year old infinity SM122 towers. they consist of 1-12" woofer, 1-5 1/4" mid and 1 one inch tweeter. my receiver is an older yamaha rxv-490. its a 5.1 dolby stereo receiver. front two channels are rated at 70w per channel. the speakers are rated at "10-200 watts". the highs and mids sound fine for me. i cant get enough bass from them that i would like. i listen to music on them only. i would add a powered sub but my receiver doesnt have an output for one. my question is, would more power provide more bass? as far as i know i cant add an amplifier to my system. i was looking at harmon 3480 2 channel receiver which delivers 120w per channel(if i remember right). or would i be better off buying a seperate amp and receiver? or am i on the wrong track in general? thanks!

[Edit: Merged duplicate threads. Please avoid doouble posting. Thanks! - Admin]

 

[jaxvon]

A good powered subwoofer might be just the ticket. Since you listen to music, I would highly recommend the Hsu STF-1. It doesn't have super duper depth capabilities, but it hits down to abour 28Hz in room, properly placed, and it is tight. Better yet, it has speaker level inputs that will allow you to use it with your current setup and speakers, with the only "extra" being another pair of speaker cables. I would also venture to say that a more powerful receiver or amplifier would be able to adqequately push that 12" woofer, but that might fall into a higher price catagory than you're willing to spend.

The Hsu is a little over $300 shipped directly from the manufacturer.

 

[j_garcia]

No, more power won't give you more bass than the speakers are capable of. You can still integrate a powered sub into a system that doesn't have a sub pre-out, you just need to get a sub that has high level (speaker) inputs which most do. H/K makes good stereo receivers. There's also the Onkyo TX-8511.

 

[mulester7]

Hi. newbie here. i have a pair of 10 year old infinity SM122 towers. they consist of 1-12" woofer, 1-5 1/4" mid and 1 one inch tweeter. my receiver is an older yamaha rxv-490. its a 5.1 dolby stereo receiver. front two channels are rated at 70w per channel. the speakers are rated at "10-200 watts". the highs and mids sound fine for me. i cant get enough bass from them that i would like. i listen to music on them only. i would add a powered sub but my receiver doesnt have an output for one. my question is, would more power provide more bass? as far as i know i cant add an amplifier to my system. i was looking at harmon 3480 2 channel receiver which delivers 120w per channel(if i remember right). or would i be better off buying a seperate amp and receiver? or am i on the wrong track in general? thanks!

.....question....does using headphones with your receiver kill the speakers when you insert the headphone plug?.....am working toward something here.....

 

[MacManNM]

Hi. newbie here. i have a pair of 10 year old infinity SM122 towers. they consist of 1-12" woofer, 1-5 1/4" mid and 1 one inch tweeter. my receiver is an older yamaha rxv-490. its a 5.1 dolby stereo receiver. front two channels are rated at 70w per channel. the speakers are rated at "10-200 watts". the highs and mids sound fine for me. i cant get enough bass from them that i would like. i listen to music on them only. i would add a powered sub but my receiver doesnt have an output for one. my question is, would more power provide more bass? as far as i know i cant add an amplifier to my system. i was looking at harmon 3480 2 channel receiver which delivers 120w per channel(if i remember right). or would i be better off buying a seperate amp and receiver? or am i on the wrong track in general? thanks!

Wow, I can't believe that you need more bass out of those things. I had a set of SM-120's and they had tons of bass. They have 12" drivers in them already. I used to drive mine with a 50W proton power amp and they put out tons of bass. how about an EQ?

 

[jaxvon]

KY1, you shouldn't start two threads for the same thing. It wastes server bandwidth and clutters up the forums. Not to be an a-hole or anything, but we'd all appreciate everyone abiding by this rule for posting.

 

[STRONGBADF1]

Before spending any money try playing with speaker placement and room treatments.http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/roomacoustics/index.php

I have an old HK6500 65wattx2 amp that broke so I went cheap and got a sony "100wattx7.1" receiver. I think the melloness of the HK makes the sony sound like it is bright and therefore the low to high balance is different.(sounds like less bass). So if you want to spend some money by the HK your looking at. It's alot of bang (no pun intended) for the buck for stereo and has a sub out if I remember correctly.

Anyway, I helped fix some of my bass problems by moving my speakers and furniture around. While it's not prefect it is much better!

Good luck and have fun with it!!!

 

[Tomorrow]

You can still add a powered sub to your setup. Just make sure that the sub accepts 'high pass' or speaker inputs (most do). Here is a link to a similar thread here on Audioholics ...

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14268&highlight=subwoofer+high+pass

Basically, you connect your sub from the receiver's speaker outputs, and then from the sub to the mains. Set the sub's built-in crossover will control the frequency sent to the mains.

Piece o' cake.

 

[j_garcia]

You can still add a powered sub to your setup. Just make sure that the sub accepts 'high pass' or speaker inputs (most do).

High level (speaker level), not high pass. On a sub, the high pass is going to be an output. High pass allows only the high frequencies to pass. A sub's internal x-over is a low pass.

 

[mulester7]

.....ok, somebody educate me here....when the left and right signals are brought to the sub, amplified through speaker wires, how is the sub element powered?....I doubt it, but does the sub amp section act as a "booster" and accept voltage in the form of watts?....or, if the amp section of the sub is used, is the amplified signal stepped back to millivolted pre to go into the amp section of the sub?.....

 

[KY1]

KY1, you shouldn't start two threads for the same thing. It wastes server bandwidth and clutters up the forums. Not to be an a-hole or anything, but we'd all appreciate everyone abiding by this rule for posting.

my bad. no problem. i just wanted as many opinions as i could get. i didnt know which category to put it in. thanks for you reply about that sub. i didnt know they existed.

 

[Tomorrow]

High level (speaker level), not high pass. On a sub, the high pass is going to be an output. High pass allows only the high frequencies to pass. A sub's internal x-over is a low pass.

Good catch and my bad. You are, of course, correct. I mispoke myself...not unusual at my age..

HIGH LEVEL!

 

[MDS]

...or, if the amp section of the sub is used, is the amplified signal stepped back to millivolted pre to go into the amp section of the sub?.....

That is exactly what happens. It is stepped down to line-level, the xover applied, and the reamplified.

 

[KY1]

.....question....does using headphones with your receiver kill the speakers when you insert the headphone plug?.....am working toward something here.....

I'm not sure. Ive never used headphones with this one. Ill try it tonight and get back. Thanks.

 

[KY1]

Wow, I can't believe that you need more bass out of those things. I had a set of SM-120's and they had tons of bass. They have 12" drivers in them already. I used to drive mine with a 50W proton power amp and they put out tons of bass. how about an EQ?

maybe its because of the room and/or placement. maybe my amp is overated and yours was underrated. you also should know i was into car stereo's growing up and i'm used to and expect ground pounding bass. especially from two 12's. with car stereo's, i would expect it to be the same with home stereo's, to get good bass you have to have speakers to handle the beating and tons of power. 70 watts isnt alot for a car stereo.

i know one thing that doent compare is prices!! amps for cars rated at the same watts are 10 times cheaper than home amps. i havent figure that out yet.

 

[malvado78]

I believe alot of the car stereo amps are class D amplifiers. THese can be made alot cheaper than the class A, B, or A/B that are normally used in home audio. Class D amps generally have a much higher THD than the other mentioned but with low frequencies the THD does not matter so much.

 

[majorloser]

Hi. newbie here. i have a pair of 10 year old infinity SM122 towers. they consist of 1-12" woofer, 1-5 1/4" mid and 1 one inch tweeter. my receiver is an older yamaha rxv-490. its a 5.1 dolby stereo receiver. front two channels are rated at 70w per channel. the speakers are rated at "10-200 watts". the highs and mids sound fine for me. i cant get enough bass from them that i would like. i listen to music on them only. i would add a powered sub but my receiver doesnt have an output for one. my question is, would more power provide more bass? as far as i know i cant add an amplifier to my system. i was looking at harmon 3480 2 channel receiver which delivers 120w per channel(if i remember right). or would i be better off buying a seperate amp and receiver? or am i on the wrong track in general? thanks!

[Edit: Merged duplicate threads. Please avoid doouble posting. Thanks! - Admin]

I'm not sure what this means. Don't all Dolby 5.1 items have an LFE output? Even Dolby Pro Logic receivers have the subwoofer (or summed channel) output.

You most likely don't have enough power for the speakers. Two twelves should hit hard unless the room is huge. If you can borrow somebody elses receiver or mono block with more power it could tell you a lot.

 

[j_garcia]

I'm not sure what this means. Don't all Dolby 5.1 items have an LFE output? Even Dolby Pro Logic receivers have the subwoofer (or summed channel) output.

I would have expected that as well, but without knowing the exact model, it's hard to say.

You most likely don't have enough power for the speakers. Two twelves should hit hard unless the room is huge. If you can borrow somebody elses receiver or mono block with more power it could tell you a lot.

2 12s doesn't guarantee a lot of bass. I've seen some pretty crappy 12" and 15" drivers... The boxes/drivers may also not be tuned to provide much deep bass. 2 12s on opposite sides of a room without EQing them may also cause cancellation, actually hurting bass response.

 

[KY1]

I would have expected that as well, but without knowing the exact model, it's hard to say.



2 12s doesn't guarantee a lot of bass. I've seen some pretty crappy 12" and 15" drivers... The boxes/drivers may also not be tuned to provide much deep bass. 2 12s on opposite sides of a room without EQing them may also cause cancellation, actually hurting bass response.

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/customer/manuals/PDFs/13RX-V49.PDF

is the link to the owners manual for the receiver. if you wanted to check it out.

thats two very good points you brought to my attention. compared to car stereo sub drivers, these are very small. also its a ported enclosure and it is tuned to a certain frequency. which one i'm not sure. I never did get into calculating air space, ports and tuning enclosures. i know that has a huge impact on it.

if thats the case, would buying better 12' woofers be worthwhile?

thanks to everyone for their help!!!

 

[Sheep]

thats funny, after looking at the manual, the picture only shows stereo speaker outs. it says all over the place that is a dolby reciever, but it doesn't say theres a subwoofer output. hmmmm. I think getting a new reciever is a better upgrade then moding the speakers, or getting a sub, or new speakers.


The Sheep