Help with Sub setup (2 Viewers)

[Jon Bye]

I recently upgraded my receiver to Onkyo 605 and I purchased a powered sub the Klipsch ksw12. I previously did not have a sub so I was expecting great improvement.

Now I am not sure if it is even working. I ran the Audyssey setup and I heard the tones from the sub. It was recognized and set at 16' at -11.
I have the sub set to on with the level on the sub at about 6 and the low pass dial turned up to 120hz

Audyssey set all my speakers to full band and it set the double bass to on.(manual says that bass is from the fronts is also sent to the sub).

I was watching Transformers and I expected to hear the sub kickin during some of the explosions but I really didn't notice anything.

I have a monster cable from the receiver's sub preout connected to a y cable then to the subs L&R in jacks.

I tried setting all my speakers to 80 hz through the receiver setup menu but it didn't change much.

Is there a simple way to test the subwoofer?

thanks

 

[JohnRice]

You don't say what your other speakers are, and that is a rather important bit of info.

Audyssey is notorious for setting all speakers to "large", for reasons explained by Audyssey in another thread. Virtually all speaker should be set to small, so that was a good move to make. I would also raise the crossover frequency in the receiver. Try 120Hz for grins. Also, turn the crossover on the sub all the way up to its max, preferably off or defeat or use an LFE input, if it has that. Also, I believe audyssey tends to set the sub level too low, so you can mess with that without screwing up the other Audyssey settings.

Beyond that, placement of a sub is extremely critical for performance, and is too much to go into here. You can search and find hundreds of threads on it, but a front corner is usually the best place to start.

 

[Jon Bye]

Hi

I have paradigm titans for the front, cc 170 center and atoms for surrounds. Sub is in the front corner
I will try setting the receiver crossover up to 120. The low pass on the sub is turned up to max 120.

I am using the rca inputs, one of which says LFE.

I ran the Audyssey again with the sub volume at max, and the test tones were loud, so it was set at 15 ft and -12db. I reran it with the level back just above half,but Blackhawk Down was unimpressive. Maybe my expectations are too high since I didn't have a sub before.

I will try to play with the Audyssey levels and see what happens

 

[JohnRice]

Jon, use ONLY the LFE input, not both. This bypasses the crossover in the sub, which is what you want. Also, don't turn the volume on the sub up all the way. Just set it around the middle and let the receiver control the volume from that point.

What you most likely want to do is run Audyssey with the volume on the sub itself at about half, then set all the speakers to small and raise the crossover a bit. 100 or 120 Hz is a good place (you might set it higher for the surrounds than the fronts), but a lot of people disagree with me on that. I'm not going into my reasoning because I've already argued it a hundred times before. You can just decide trust me and try it, or not. Then, you can raise the volume of the sub ON THE RECEIVER in increments until you are getting what you want. If there is a phase control on the sub, experiment with that as well.

What you seem to be misunderstanding is that the volume on the sub itself isn't really important. Just set it around the middle. Changing it, then running Audyssey will defeat the change.

 

[Jon Bye]

Hi

Thanks for the help. I was using a y adapter to connect both the left and right rca jacks on the sub, beacuase the manual said that it would increase the sub output by 6db. I will try your suggestions and report back.