Listening to Music with Sub (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Kohn]

I think the big issue is not how "musical" your sub is. You don't have to spend several grand to get a good sub that has good impact and sounds good with music; just ask any SVS owner.

That said, if the in-room response of your sub has peaks and nulls (which it will in almost all cases if you're not EQ-ing), those peaks will be much more noticeable in music. For home theater, a little extra oomph at certain frequencies might not sound too bad (some people probably like it), but it really stands out in music, and not in a good way (unless you mostly like hiphop/club/techno music). Also, many people prefer run their sub a bit "hot" for HT, and this too can have a negative effect on music.

Although I have tower mains capable of playing into the 30's, they are set as "small" with an 80hz x-over. But my sub is EQ-ed with a BFD for a smooth response. And my pre/pro allows me to set independent sound levels for each sound format, so I can run a few db hot in surround modes and evenly matched for stereo music. Music sounds very good with this setup; in fact, I don't think you would be able to guess where the bass is coming from during music playback if you couldn't see the LED on the BFD. And the flat in-room response also sounds better for Home Theater IMHO; you can actually hear/feel the lower frequencies because they're not getting drowned out by the peaks.

 

[Christopher~O]

You may be able to get around this with your amp. My HK AVR 525 allows individual speaker settings for each input.

I have mapped the coax digital in from my DVD player to both the DVD and the CD input on the receiver.

DVD gets Small fronts, Sub, etc. CD gets Large fronts, nothing else.

This may change though as I have some serious messing around planned for the weekend.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Jose G]

Thanks, Mike.