Well I finally bought a SUB!!!

[Daz3d&Confus3d]

After 4 plus months of saving my pennies and doing some on/off research....I finally bought a sub.

I had been looking at the following:

UFW12
ACI Titan
SVS PB12 Plus
VTF-3 Mark II
KEF PSW 4000

I was going to go with the Titan (WAF is important).....but today I happened to be close to my local Ultimate Electronics so I stopped in for a peek....They've had a KEF 4000 for 4 months on a discontinued shelf priced at $1497 (originally $2000).....which was a bit to rich for my blood but I thought maybe...just maybe if they haven't sold it yet they've lowered the price....if not I was thinking of making them an offer. Low and behold they had lowered the price this past Monday to $799.00. I quickly said, "sold!" I went home a happy man!

 

[Daz3d&Confus3d]

I have abit of a hum....in my sub.....any ideas where I should start to look???

 

[hopjohn]

A good place to start is to see if your sub cable is running cross any power cords. If it is and there is no way to avoid this, make sure they cross perpendicular to one another. Also be sure that your rca cable is completely pushed in.

 

[Daz3d&Confus3d]

Yeah it's not running by any power cords in close prox. Im using a 9 meter (27 ft) Ixos sub cable. Not sure what it may be. Any other ideas?

 

[mulester7]

Yeah it's not running by any power cords in close prox. Im using a 9 meter (27 ft) Ixos sub cable. Not sure what it may be. Any other ideas?

.....I hate to hear that....I wish I could help but I have no experience with powered subs....

 

[Rutlanda]

Ground Loop?

Have you checked for ground loop issues? Read here for info: http://www.epanorama.net/documents/groundloop/

 

[Rob Babcock]

It's almost certainly a ground loop based in your CATV. Unplug you cable tv feed from the wall and see if the hum is gone. If so, that's the problem. That's easily solved for $20.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

The latest issue of Sound and Vision has an article on how to correct that hum. Next time you're in the grocery store, do a quick read. It will tell you how to eliminate the loop.

 

[Buckeye_Nut]

After 4 plus months of saving my pennies and doing some on/off research....I finally bought a sub.

I had been looking at the following:

UFW12
ACI Titan
SVS PB12 Plus
VTF-3 Mark II
KEF PSW 4000

I was going to go with the Titan (WAF is important).....but today I happened to be close to my local Ultimate Electronics so I stopped in for a peek....They've had a KEF 4000 for 4 months on a discontinued shelf priced at $1497 (originally $2000).....which was a bit to rich for my blood but I thought maybe...just maybe if they haven't sold it yet they've lowered the price....if not I was thinking of making them an offer. Low and behold they had lowered the price this past Monday to $799.00. I quickly said, "sold!" I went home a happy man!

Enjoy!! I've listened to that exact subwoofer at Ultimate!! They had it set up in a smallish professionally soundtreated room with a 60" plasma, a 7.1 surround setup with the Incredibles playing. For the price you paid, you got a pretty darn nice sub.

 

[Nick250]

I have abit of a hum....in my sub.....any ideas where I should start to look???

I have had a hum with my six old Hsu VTF2 since day one. I use a cheater plug to correct it. Others have said this is dangerous, but heck, it said to do that right there in the Hsu manual. I even tried a dedicated sub power conditioner from Monster (I know, I know I felt unclean buying a Monster product) to no avail. Maybe in this thread I will learn how to employ the "non cheater plug" solution.

Nick

 

[Sheep]

I've never had Hum problems, and my WHOLE ROOM (computer, HT, everything else) probably runs off 600 watts...

SheepStar

 

[Daz3d&Confus3d]

Thx for the guidance guys! Currently my sub is across the room from the rest of my av equipment. I have a 27 ft. sub cable running along the carpet until I've settled on placement. Ideally my wife would like it where it now sits. I believe the 'ground loop' assessment is correct in that it is a low hum sound and not static. It sounds as if it could be from either my Direct TV or quite possibly the fact that it's plugged into a different ac outlet. I've ordered a part at the recomendation of the tech from KEF in whom I spoke with yesterday:

http://www.smarthome.com/81285.html

However....when I disconnect the directv box from the rest of my system...the hum seems to lessen but is still present. I have the volume set at about 11:00 on the amp. So I ran a heavy extension cord across the floor of the living room and plugged my sub directly in my surge protector with the rest of my av gear. And that seemed to lessen it still even farther but it's still present.....if it were setting next to the rest of my gear in the front of the room you would not hear it but with it sitting right between my sofa and recliner it definently has an audible presence.

One other note....is that it lessens slightly more when I set the sub from 'cinema' setting to 'music' setting.

Any other idea's on what I can do to resolve the situation?

 

[cyberbri]

Does it hum both with/without the sub cable plugged in? Or does unplugging the sub cable get rid of the hum? Could be the receiver.



BTW, before you settle on a position for the sub, you should run some tests to find what placement gives you the smoothest/flattest (=best) response. You can use Avia or download and burn some frequency sweeps off the Internet (like www.realmofexcursion.com). You'll also need an SPL meter for this. But you don't want to settle on a spot, and get your wife settled on a spot, then get to listening to music or watching movies and find that your sub is boomy and one-noted because of bad room interactions at that location.

 

[Daz3d&Confus3d]

thx cyber....when I unplug the sub cable the humming stops immediately.

 

[cyberbri]

I'm not sure - I could be wrong - but try plugging the cable back into the sub (which should produce the hum). Is the hum there whether the receiver is turned on or not? If you leave the sub cable connected and unplug the receiver from the outlet, does the hum go away? Could be an issue with the power getting to your receiver...

 

[sivadselim]

Does it go away with a "cheater plug" or not?

 

[TABCON]

I just solved this same problem with my Axiom sub by changing the video cable to a Monster 1000 hdmi cable and removing the ground screw. It was definitely a video hum in my case.

Tabcon

 

[Daz3d&Confus3d]

So can you have a video hum without getting the vertical interference on your screen? Because I dont have any interference there....but I assume you can otherwise why would the KEF tech have advised me to purchase the feed through surge protector for my sat receiver? I wonder if i need one for my tv antena as well?

At any rate, sivadselim....I haven't tried bypassing the ground.....I'll give it a go sometime tomorrow but I assume it will.....which will essencially isolate whether its a ground-loop problem or not. But even if it does it wont resolve the problem because I wont want to leave my new sub ungrounded. But it will at least isolate that that is indeed what it is I assume?!

Im hoping the part will be in tomorrow sometime as well.

 

[muncybob]

When you are asking about unplugging or plugging in the sub you are referring to the sub cable connection? I ask this because if I unplug my sub cable I get a very LOUD hum..completely goes away when the cable is plugged in. Don't mean to hijack the thread but is this normal?

 

[Nick250]

When you are asking about unplugging or plugging in the sub you are referring to the sub cable connection? I ask this because if I unplug my sub cable I get a very LOUD hum..completely goes away when the cable is plugged in. Don't mean to hijack the thread but is this normal?

They are referring to the power cord.


Nick