Question about setting speakers to small (1 Viewer)

[Derek Duncan]

I have verry small speakers & set them to small. I like the added bass, much better, but my only problem is people's voices,the subwoofer picks up people with deep voices, it's not that bad, but is this the way it should be.

Derek

 

[Jim_Stu]

Derek,

I set my center speaker to 'large' for better dialog, when

I'm using the WEGA's speakers as the center.

JRS

 

[Drew Eckhardt]

Two answers:

1) No. Sub-woofers should be crossed over at or below 80Hz with a steep (24dB/octave) roll off so you can't localize voices, etc. to them. Your problem comes from crossing over beyond 80Hz. Changing your cross-over setting (which could mean a new receiver if that's where it is, or replacing the sub-woofer if you have a line-level cross-over in that) will fix this part of the problem. However, it will also mean loosing the bass between 80Hz and your speakers' natural roll off, and lead to bottoming out (excursion requirements increase as frequency goes down, and small speakers don't have much) the midrange drivers in your speakers if you play them loud on any material with bass content.

2) Yes. Hoffman's Iron Law says that low frequency output is limited by how loud you need it (low bass needs to be loud just to be audible), enclosure size, and power. Who ever designed your system realized they couldn't get acceptable bass response out of the small mains, and opted to move it into a separate woofer. IOW, it's supposed to work that way.

If it bothers you enough or you're an otherwise incorrigible gadget junky like the rest of us, your best bet is probably to upgrade to something a bit bigger (like an NHT SB1 - probably 10" x 6 x 6) that will play flat below 80Hz, and doing what it takes to cross-over at that frequency (I tried 120Hz on my center speaker and found it disconcerting, 100Hz is alleged to work, YMMV).