Need help with bass! (1 Viewer)

[ChuckM]

I recently purchased an onkyo ht-s650 and have been using it for about a week now and everything is great except for the low end. Explosions and other stuff along those lines seem muffled they are not as bright and big as I thought the would be. I believe the problem may be with how it's setup, but I don't know where to start. Right now I'm using the sub cable that came with the htib, which is pretty thin. Would it help if I got a Monster Bass Cable? Any information you guys can give would be appreciated.

Thank You.

And no I don't have the lfe problem commonly associtated with the ht-r500.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

The first thing you have to do is calibrate your system, if you have not already. See the Primer for help with this.

After that (or if you have already calibrated) if the problem still exists, try changing sub placement and set speakers to small. You may just be expecting more out of the HTiB sub than it is capable of giving.

As far as the cable is concerned, if it is a regular audio cable, sound quality may be effected by switching to a monster, but it sounds like you have a volume problem.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

You should be able to use nearly ANY good coaxial cable with the sub. Just make sure the RCA plugs are snug - subwoofers seem sensitive to having a nice, secure connection.

(That sub IS self-powered, right? Does it have a power cord?)

 

[ChuckM]

Yeah it's powered.

 

[Greg_R]

Right now I'm using the sub cable that came with the htib, which is pretty thin. Would it help if I got a Monster Bass Cable?

The amount of current being carried by the interconnect/sub cable is very small (unlike speaker level wires). Having a decent connector and decent shielding on the cable should be all you need. Radio Shack Gold and AR are two examples of inexpensive decent cables.

As mentioned above, you need to calibrate your system. Purchase or borrow a Radio Shack analog SPL meter and rent/buy a copy of Avia's Guide to Home theater (it's a DVD). Video Essentials is another DVD that will work (although it's harder to navigate). Watch the entire disc... it will step you through setting up and calibrating your entire audio and video system. The HTF Faq (top of this section) has a tutorial as well.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Keep in mind that getting volume at low frequency IS the trick.

The Speakers and Subwoofer fourm has lots of posts, but in a nutshell: putting the sub in a corner with the 2 longest un-broken walls will give you a boost at some frequencies. While music lovers dont like this artifical emphasis, it's often great for movies.