Cerwin Vega (1 Viewer)

[RyanHud]

Hey everyone, got a question.
I have a Panny SAXR 50, with a pair of Cerwin Vega AT12's. 12" woofers rated at 28Hz hooked up to it. Far from top of the line i know, im still livin at home and it does the trick. Anways, I was watching war of the worlds today, and at some points the subs would just shake without producing any bass, now is this because the speakers cant play the frequencies its recieving or is it because the panny isnt giving it enough power. Thanks.

-Ryan

 

[Matt Lagana]

the speakers!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[RyanHud]

Meaning the speakers just arent reproducing the sounds they are recieving?
They start shaking like crazy, i thought it at least get some kind bass from that..but nothing.

 

[Matt Lagana]

Yes....I've got a cd with freq. from 0hz through 100hz. I can watch my sub move and hear nothing until around 17 or 18 hz. I can feel lower freq, but not hear them...Some say we (adult males) can't hear below 20hz...I can..

Matt

 

[LanceJ]

A ported speaker has a specific frequency where the port's output and the woofer's output cancel out each other (this point is usually very close to its lowest-bass rating). So even if the woofers in your CVs are doing a jig, because of the negative bass coming from the ports, you won't hear or feel anything. IIRC this condition is called an "unloaded" woofer.

BE CAREFUL: this kind of extreme low bass can literally tear the parts that suspend the woofer cone-i.e. the surround and the spider-so be careful!!!

>>> This situation also needlessly heats up the woofers' voice coils & also strains the amplifier driving them.

This is why you see subsonic filter switches on older receivers with phono inputs. Warped records can send very low/inaudible ("subsonic") bass through the cartridge and amplifier and cause woofers to oscillate wildly, a scary sight. :frowning:

 

[LanceJ]

Ryan: assuming this intense bass is concentrated in the LFE channel, if you wanted to you could re-program your receiver with "YES SUB"-doing this would eliminate the LFE's bass information from your Cerwin-Vegas which I am assuming you are using as front mains. Just don't forget to re-program it afterwards.

 

[Shane Martin]

Lance is correct. Anyway I thought they really played loud bass(my CV's) but I bought a real sub and the difference was astronomical. Upgrading the CV's was even bigger. They are a good starter set though.

 

[Jay Harper]

Ryan Hud, it's just not your Cerwin Vega's that's having trouble with this movie, most subs would fail to produce this kind of bass at a home theater levels. I saw the water fall graph of the lighting strikes and ship fires the heatray scenes, there is strong bass signals below the 20's that goes all the way down to 9 hz. I am using 2 cerwin vega strokers 18", each one in a ported 5.75 ft3 enclosure that is tuned to 30hz and 3 db's down at 27 hz. I happen to get up and look because I could feel stuff move and each woofer was moving @ 1 inch peak to peak uncontrolled. With bass below it's tuning frequency it does not see a cabinet. When going to the C.V. web site, the sub tuned at 30hz was more than 25db's down at 18 hz, if there was bass there you couldn't hear it because of the level. The dvd should have a warning like the Tchaikovsky 1812(cannon shots)for people using ported and small sealed subwoofers. You would have to spend a great deal of money or custom build a sub that would produce bass levels in the 10hz range at 100 db's or greater.

 

[LanceJ]

Found charts of this movie's LFE channel at the AVS forum:

WOTW waterfall charts

 

[LanceJ]

Cerwin-Vega's redesigned Classic series are finally on their site (click on "CLS Series"). The previously exposed midrange driver is now covered by the metal grill that used to only protect the woofer. It looks a bit better but lost some of the cool "industrial" look they had. They also now have bi-amp capability and the soft-dome tweeter* has a copper shorting ring (IIRC when this is applied to woofers it is used to even out the magnetic field around the voice coil for a more symmetrical application of force).

I found this informative post on the Klipsch forum that helps describe these non-traditional-CV's origins:

For people who've never heard of: Revel or NHT.

They also have a new thin profile sub with dual 8" drivers.

FYI: I don't work for CV, I just like alpha-male speakers like these (I own Boston Acoustics and Infinity speakers myself). It looks like their E-Series is still their in-your-face model line & carries on the traditional Cerwin-Vega sound audiophiles love to hate and the new VE series is their entry level series.

* this is the first time I've ever seen a tweeter like this coupled to a horn - has anyone heard these? I figure you get much of the efficiency of a regular horn system, but since the CVs don't use a metal diaphram in theirs, they don't sound shrill like so many of those other horn systems.

 

[andySu]

Depending on the dynamic range, I can hear down to 16Hz and that’s the limit of me, I can also hear up to 16KHz, so that’s not bad going for someone who’s 39 years old!

 

[andySu]

Attention!

Guys, guys hear you go download this free basic version of “TrueRTA” it’s got a sound generator on it ware you can punch in any frequency between 0Hz and +20KHz I use the same basic model on my home cinema set-up.

http://www.trueaudio.com/rta_abt1.htm

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Guys, come on, these are CVs, you expect them to be able to keep up?

 

[LanceJ]

When was the last time you heard any CVs, particularly the CLS series, properly set up with good electronics playing well-recorded music?

BTW: frat house "demos" don't count i.e. speakers shoved into corners & connected to a 30 year old P.A. amp & a $70 graphic equalizer with an extreme smiley face curve with an iPod as a signal source.

 

[LanceJ]

Just an FYI for people turned off by the CLS' "scowling" styling: I just noticed CV finally altered these speakers' styling slightly, and for the better: the previous version had a rather unlikable appearance because the bottom lip of the tweeter horn tilted downwards giving the impression of a scowling robot - now it's perfectly rectangular. And no, they still have a zero WAF, but we can't let The View and HGTV dictate all our audio decisions can we now?

BTW: these, like other CVs, aren't really designed for movie soundtracks w/uber-extreme low bass but rather for music with lots of bass energy in the 30-50Hz range and as a result they are very "punchy" sounding. And as a fortunate side effect of this, also don't require much power to do this since they can be optimized for only those 30-50Hz frequencies (below-20Hz notes suck up sh*t loads of power).