Subwoofer help

[twin2]

We just renovated the house and added a HT room and I'm just a kid so i couldn't get anything extravagant but i have a yamaha HTR-6130 receiver, Paradigm atoms as fronts and paradigm cc-170 as my center. I just got an Energy S8.3 sub and i set it up correctly but i cant get a peep out of it. Any suggestions? also, is there any way to test if its the sub or if i just set it up incorrectly? Thanks

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum!

There are a number of easy things that you can do to troubleshoot this. I'm downloading your manual to get some specifics for you, but my hunch is that you just need to set your speakers to "small" in the receiver's menu system. That setting will redirect the bass from the speakers to the sub.

I'll write again after I check out the manual.

 

[Adam]

On page 22 of the manual, it shows the menu that allows you to set the receiver up to use a subwoofer. You need to tell the receiver that you have a subwoofer connected.

Page 45 begins the menu explanations for setting up your speakers to large or small, setting up bass direction for LFE content (from Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks), and for setting the crossover for the sub.

Page 56 contains the troubleshooting section on no sound coming from the subwoofer. It explains some situations and settings that could lead to that and how to fix it.

Because the receiver is doing the bass management and handling the crossover frequency, you'll want to turn the crossover frequency dial on the sub (if it has one - I'll check on that next) to the highest number. That way, assuming that number is higher than the number that you set in the receiver, the crossover in the sub won't be interfering with the signal being sent to the sub. That sub might also have an LFE input that bypasses the crossover. I'll check on that, though.

EDIT: You can download a copy of the owner's manual for the receiver at this link here. Just go to the "Downloads" tab.

 

[twin2]

i must've missed the page about the sub having no sound. The subwoofer has a bypass switch. I have to go double check the rest now.

EDIT: In the basic setup I have subwoofer set on but when it does the test tone no sound comes from it. I followed the suggestions on Pg. 56 and they didn't help much. Once i got the sub i changed the fronts to "small" but whenever i try a test tone the receiver automatically changes it back to "large"; probably because it doesn't have any signal from the sub. Could it be the speaker wire? It's just a plain old radioshack cable.

 

[Adam]

Some receivers don't send a test tone to the sub during those checks. I don't know if yours does or not, so that might not be a good check.

Have you tried listening to a movie or music with the speakers set to "Small" and the sub set to "Yes"? That would be a better test, IMO.

It could be the cable. It would be more attributed to that specific cable being bad and not attributed to it being a Radio Shack cable. In general, you can use any cable with an RCA connector on each end.

I'm going to eat lunch now, but I'll look into your sub after that to see if something might need to be changed on that end of things.

 

[Adam]

Alright. I just took a look at the subwoofer manual, and some things come to mind.

For the Subwoofer

• Set the power switch to "On". If you had it set to "Auto", then it's possible that the subwoofer output level on your receiver was set too low to trigger the auto-on sensor in the sub. We'll fix this later so that you can run it in auto mode, but let's try just turning it on for now.
• Set the "X-Over Mode" switch to "B" to bypass the crossover.
• Check the volume control on the front panel. I'd say set it to about the halfway mark to start with, but certainly make sure that it didn't get accidentally set all the way down.
• The status indicator light underneath the volume control should turn blue when the sub is functioning. I imagine that it will turn blue when you set the power switch to the "On" position.

For the Receiver

• Make sure that the "BASS OUT" setting is set to either "SWFR" or "BOTH" (see page 46 of the manual).
• Set the speaker level for the subwoofer to at least "0 dB". Experiment and change that to a higher positive value (page 46).
• Set the "LFE LEVEL" to "0 dB" (page 47).

 

[twin2]

I've followed everything to the point. The power light on the sub is on but maybe something inside got disconnected when it was shipped to me? The part of the woofer that i can see is in pristine condition. I even grabbed an RGB cable and just used one to connect the sub and receiver; still nothing. So i know it's not the cable.

 

[Adam]

You can check the sub without using the receiver by directly connecting one of your sources to the sub. You'd use one of the analog outputs from a CD player or DVD player, for example. You'd want to start with the volume level on the sub all the way down and then work your way up on that - that's because the level coming from the source won't be attenuated by the receiver's volume knob.

Also, you could use the speaker-level inputs on the sub to check it out.

It's possible that the sub just isn't working right. Often it's something to do with the set-up, but sometimes the hardware isn't functioning correctly.

 

[twin2]

Alright i'll check it out. Thanks for all your help.

EDIT: I tried the speaker level inputs, a different tv, my ipod, and ps3. Still nothing.

 

[Adam]

It's virtually impossible to tell over an internet forum, but it sounds like you might have gotten a dud. Can you return it for a replacement?

 

[twin2]

I can only return it for my money back. Oh well. I'd prefer a Paradigm PDR8 over this one but this one was virtually new and $100 so i settled. The seller is taking it back and paying for shipping.

On another note, i have a pair of Paradigm Atoms V.1 and a pair of B&W dm610i. Which do you think would be better fronts in terms of a stereo setup? I wasn't sure because the atom's sound great for the size and the DM610's are larger but also roughly 15-20 years old.

 

[Adam]

I don't have any opinion on which of those speakers would be better. I'd say give them both a try (and give them some time to get used to them) and decide which set you like the best.

If you haven't already, maybe you could ask the seller about the sub not working for you. Perhaps that person is aware of some issue or finicky behavior.

 

[twin2]

He said it worked before he shipped it. Just gonna claim insurance and thats that. Thanks for all of the support. I'll be coming back for any other questions.

 

[ThA tRiXtA]

Are you sure you're connected to the subwoofer pre-out and not the multichannel sub input?

They look the exact same on most AVR's and often trick people.

Hope this helps.

 

[Exit]

You might want to check that your Yamaha receiver is not set to the pure-direct mode because that will cut out the subwoofer on my Yamaha. I also set all the subwoofer controls to half way figuring at least some sound will come out of the subwoofer. Once you get it running you can set each control one at a time to their best setting.