Anyone using the Sony SA-WM40 as a secondary sub in their HT? (1 Viewer)

[Matt_Smi]

I am wondering if anyone is using this sub as a secondary in their HT. I upgraded to an STF-2 at the beginning of the summer and was supposed to sell my Sony to someone for $100 but he decided not to buy it from me. So now it is just sitting around and I have no real use for it, I was going to bring it up to college but it will not hook into the Cambridge SoundWorks speakers that I have for my computer and I do not have an old receiver laying around to use it with. So I was considering hooking it up and running it as a secondary sub. I don’t really need a secondary sub as the STF-2 fills my 19 x 11 room very nicely, but since its doing nothing I figure it might be worth a shot if I can find a place to put it. My only concern is that since it is a boomy sub it might bring down the sound of the HSU. But I guess if I kept the level down low it would be ok. So is anyone using a nice sub as their primary with this sub as their secondary?

 

[Matt_Smi]

I guess not many are then...

 

[steve nn]

The STF-2 would not be a good choice to mix with the WM-40 Matt. Two like subs are generally the best method of mixing. I understand your reasoning and have been there myself. What would happen is> the WM-40 would muck things up. The HSU performance wise is way ahead of the Sony. To mix the two together would be like mixing water and oil to a certain degree. You most likely would gain some headroom in doing so, but a Freq Sweep would show cancellations not taking the sound into account. This is not to take away from the WM-40 in what it had to offer in it's budget category. I found the TM better but the WM-40 was a close second imo.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

What steve said. Unless you are beyond the limits of the current subwoofer and need a little more headroom (which the sony won't add much anyway), adding in an inferior sub will only harm the situation.

I know it may sound wierd to have a sub be "useless" but it is better that than it mucking things up. It's like having a sub correctly calibrated, it may be down a lot lower than it could be, but things will sound correct that way. The urge to "take advantage of everything you have at your disposal" is strong, but for the best performance, more is not always better.

I would either just hang on to it, sell it, find a friend who wants it, or whatever, but don't add it into your current setup except for maybe fun or to beat it up for parties or something.

 

[Geoff L]

Experiment if you have the time, certainly won't hurt to play around..

But:
More than likely, regardless of the 2 subs placement it will hurt the better quailty SQ & extension bass of the HSU and create a worse room FR on top of the SQ.
Even if both subs where corner or co-located together, the exsisting room FR would become worse just due to the HSU's better quaility bass and extension now being mixed with the Sonys lesser SQ and extension.

With a parametric-Eq involved and (allot of time messing with the sub/s placement, phase, crossover and FR-measureing), you might get them to work together "possibly", allowing for a little extra headroom.
Which,,,, apparently you don't really need as you already made mention the HSU is enough on it's own...

Steve is right in that 2 alike subs are ideal...
Add no pari EQ to help with in room FR trying to run them both & chances are it would do more harm than good to your exsisting HSU bass/LFE..

Again tho, dosen't cost a thing to play around and see what happens.

Regards
Geoff

 

[Robert_Gaither]

I would recommend to leave it at a "bass challenged" friend's home where you watch movies at that you visit often (assuming that you're not always hosting).

 

[Matt_Smi]

Thanks for the input, yeah I figured that it would probably be a bad idea to mix a good sub like the STF-2 with the Sony, and doing so would take away from the sound quality. I am not even going to bother experimenting with it, because I would have to buy a Y-splitter and another sub cable. I guess I should try to sell it, although I do like the idea of using it for parties. I guess it is nice to have another sub lying around and someday I may find a use for it. Yeah I could also give it to a “bass challenged” friend, but like you mentioned, movies are almost always watched at my house, or one of my friends, who has a nice HT in his basement.