subwoofer question reg Onkyo SKS HT500 (1 Viewer)

[Jacqueline C]

I was doing my calibrations on my new system which has the subwoofer and speakers of the Onkyo SKS HT500 system. I set the crossover at 80 and slowly turned up the volume of the subwoofer using the button at the back of the subwoofer. The sound is there, but very soft(it never equaled the left front in one of the calibration tests) so for the heck of it I looked into the hole on the face of the subwoofer. I have NOT touched anything or opened anyting, I just looked into the hole on the face. Is it SUPPOSED to look like the following?: what looks like a piece of cotton on the left without one on the other side, a piece of what looks like cardboard/pressed wood slanting upward from close to back (picture looking up a hill from the bottom). I've never had a subwoofer so I don't know if that is what this is supposed to look like but the assymetry of the cotton pad and the slanting thing in there makes me suspicious. Please advise as I am still within warranty but don't want to foolishly complain if it is supposed to look like that.

Thanks

 

[Neil Joseph]

Hmmm, either this is a dual ported sub with one of the ports partially blocked because of "sloppy" workmanship, or this is some kind of modification made by the sub manufacturer to "improve" upon the sound of the sub. From the sounds of what you describe, it sure sounds like the latter. It could even be possible that there were "improvements/changes" made to the design of the sub, possibly a new type of driver (speaker) and the same original enclosure was used and thus modified to reflect the new driver. This is all speculation on my part.

I am moving this to SPEAKERS/SUBWOOFERS for others' input.

 

[Bill Kane]

In the meantime, recheck the BASS/LFE sub speaker setting thru your receiver remote. It may need to be boosted, too. Typically, these two adjustments are made with a goal of having both end up midscale, i.e., neither at the lowest or highest settings.

Have all spkrs set to SMALL and the Sub for SUB or ON or YES, whatever yours says, but not BOTH/MAIN

 

[DavidQc]

Jacqueline!
I have the same speakers. No worries, the interior of the sub is supposed to look like that.


I hope you enjoy them and purchased them for a good price.

Recently, I ordered the sixth speaker to add to the set (back surround speaker).

I registered the first speaker set to receive bonus Onkyo points. Add that to the 10pts. for registering online, I was able to apply 15 pts. towards the purchase of the back surround speaker.

For $27.50, the back surround speaker was a steal.
And now I'm capable with a 6.1 setup.

Have fun.
-david

 

[James Edward]

As Bill said- if you are raising the level on the speaker itself all the way up and it is still too low, look at the manual and see how to adjust the individual speaker levels. The subwoofer level is probably set close to its minimum level.

 

[Jacqueline C]

The speakers are on small, the sub is on. I will look through the reciever manual to find out about adjusting the individual levels as you have suggested. Thanks.

And thanks for the reassurance that that is what the inside of the hole is supposed to look like, it is wierd that that piece of cotton, or whatever that is, is in only one side, but hey I guess that's just how things are.

I also got the backspeaker just yesterday and will be hooking it up. I registered some other Onkyo stuff I'd bought (DVD, reciever) and since they gave me 24 points for buying some stuff directly from them I got the back speaker for $6. That is right $6. Gosh I was thrilled. It would never have occured to me to go to thier website and register stuff if I hadn't heard about it here at hometheaterforum.

Thanks again to everybody who responded. I'll be adjusting and tweaking my system over the weekend as I just started hooking stuff up Monday and haven't tested everything yet. I just got the speaker stands for the fronts yesterday and have yet to put them together. It's been so much fun learning about this stuff already and I haven't even sat through a whole movie yet. Though the intro of Blade 2 already sounded awesome despite the fact that I heard it through speakers connected with the wire that came with the system, just to see if they worked, but will now be cutting 12gauge. I also bought a Acoustic Research subwoofer cable to upgrade the one the system came with too

 

[Bill Kane]

look at the manual and see how to adjust the individual speaker levels. The subwoofer level is probably set close to its minimum level

This is right on, but injects some grammar confusion...the subwoofer is one level, the other spkrs at other levels.

Jac, you've already told us you've found how to set spkrs to SMALL and the sub to ON. In the spkr set-up menu here, there will be individual up/down +/- setting for mains, center and rear AND the SWFR. The SWFR may have a 20dB rtange -- my Yamaha goes from -20 to 0dB. A good starting point is 1/4 to 1/3 from bottom and am set at -15.5dB (that's just for MY rcvr, tho). This allows my sub gain control to be one position past midpoint.

I am not sure if you mentioned it, but we really need the $35 RadioShack Sound Pressure Level analog meter and a test disk, such as the $15 Sound&Vision Home Theater Tune-up (see amazon.com).

Then ALL spkrs and the SUB can be calibrated to work together as best they can, giving you the best surround sound and a nice THUMP.

bill

 

[Richard Moya]

I recently went through this with a friend of mine.....
The problem was with the amp itself. It was not decoding the LFE channel properly. If you do a search for the amp model number you'll find a few hits regarding the subwoofer mode. Apparently, there is a bug in a batch of amps that does not put out LFE in certain subwoofer mode. My friend had this, went and exchanged it, problem solved.
But you really do need a calibration disk of some kind and an SPL meter. At the very least a DVD that has the THX optimode test to see if the amp is truly sending LFE to the SUB.

Good Luck

 

[Jacqueline C]

I do have a calibration disc and there is subwoofer sound, just not very loud even with the knob at the back of the subwoofer turned up. I looked at the screen that shows individual db's on each speaker and they are ALL on zero including the subwoofer. I'll have to look into it further to see how to adjust the individual levels appropriately, I don't want to turn anything to far up and blow something. I haven't turned anything up too too loud but the calibration disc has a test where it says to compare signals for a test tone between the sub and the left speaker and even with the knob turned up the sub never is as loud as the left speaker. That is why I was suspicious.

I believe the models with the prob with the LFE was the TX-SR500 which is the reason I bought the TX-SR600 in the first place.

Thanks to you all.