2 channel and subwoofers

[Lex]

How many of you folks listen to your 2 channel with a subwoofer, vs. without?

Myself, I have found it just depends on the mood, and type of music as to my preference. When it's background, most of the time I prefer the sub off, just so it's not so distracting. Of course, for ultra critical listening, off can be better as well, due to the tighter bass delivered by my Grand Prix's.

But now, if I want to rock, it's sub time baby. Jazz, it usually goes off.

Lex




Cable Guy DVD Collection

[John Holmes]

I don't have much choice since my speakers will not play much below 80hz. However, this is not bad for me since my sub blends so well with my mains!




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[JohanK]

I believe in subs with 2 channel; stereo units if possible. Removal of distortion from the satellite speakers is a good thing. But, I listen to techno and rock so maybe that biases my POV (???).

IMO, subs shouldn't be distracting no matter the type of music you listen to. If they are distracting, I would turn them down rather than eliminate them.

[Crimson]

Lex,
Funny you should mention this. I'm in the process of convincing my SO that a pair of Vandy 2Wq's will knock our socks off! The reason I'm doing so is to:
-Actively 'biamp' the system, letting the Maggies concentrate more on the mids and highs, with info under 50Hz going to the pair of subs. Funny thing is that I never thought I'd be able to clip my Bryston 7B's with 800+ watts of power to each channel, but it does happen on occassion simply because thier woofer panels suck all the juice out of the amps.
-Go all the way down to about 20 Hz.




Q.

[John Holmes]

Crimson,

On occassion you clip an 800 plus watt Bryston??? I am really curious how or should I ask, Under what conditions?




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Andrew Pratt]

no kidding crimson clipping the bryston! Ouch I knew my 1.4's deserved better amps but I didn't realize quite how much more of an amp I need. Anywho my sub is on all the time but toned down given my residential status

[Markj]

I tried to integrate my subs into my system so that I don’t have to turn down or off the subs, but (and there always seems to be a but in the best of plans) after getting a Nintendo 64 for my son I do turn off the subs during game play. Recently I have found that watching public television with certain programs I need to turn down the subs.

[Tom Vodhanel]

Subs always on.

TV

[Lex]

Yeah Andrew, you can't go waking up the other inmates late at night. They would surely get you in the rec area, lol.

I am just surprised you can have HT at all in San Quinten. lol. Hang in there, that house will happen soon enough. Ok, maybe not soon enough, but it will happen!

Lex




Cable Guy DVD Collection

[Robbie]

Subs always on.

Robbie

[P-Dub]

Subs always on. But I do have to change the level depending on listening material.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[Crimson]

John/Andrew,
On bass-heavy source material I can get the amps' power indicators to turn red. I don't actually hear anything at this point because I quickly lower the volume, but in experimenting have found that this can occur between 90-95db at the listening position. BTW, a 'friend' of mine actually got both amps to shut down and blew both fuses on both speakers a few months ago when I stepped out of my listening room for a moment. That taught me a good lesson.

Thus my wanting a single/pair of the Vandy's - take some of the load off the Brystons.




Q.

[John Kotches]

Crimson,

It is more likely that the "clipping" sound you're hearing is the Magnepan panels doing their equivalent of bottoming out. When the panels do this, they are impacting the magnets behind the panel.

At 800w input you should be frying your input fuses, as evidenced by your friend's blowing the fuses.

Unless you're sitting at a ridiculous distance from the 1.6s, hitting 90-95dB should be reached relatively easy.

Let's assume you sit 3m from the panels, about 10ft.

Power output is 86dB/2w/1m. Dropoff from dispersion for a planar loudspeaker is 3dB for every doubling of distance (doesn't follow inverse square law as they aren't point source radiators).

At 2m, the SPL is 83dB. At the listening position, it's around 81.5dB (let's call it 81 to be safe).

To reach 95dB at the listening position you need 14dB of gain, which equates to somewhere around 50w of power input, that's it.

To reach 101dB at the listening position, you need 20dB of gain, which means increasing power by a factor of 100, so you'd need 200w of power.

At 800w of power you'd be pushing 107dB at the listening position.

So, either you're listening from your neighbours house, or you need a new SPL meter :-)

Just a thought.

Regards,




---
Editor, PC/Home Theater
Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity
My Home Theater
NEC LT-150 specific page.

[Crimson]

John,
A couple of things:
1. The 3.6's (not 1.6's) are rated at 83db efficeincy.
2. I'm not 'hearing' the clipping. I'm seeing the clip indicators activate on the amps.
3. Bottoming out the bass panels and seeing the clip indicators light up ususally does not happen together (wierd).
4. I sit about 12' from the speakers.
5. The clipping only occurs on certain albums with a lot of low-level content.
6. I may indeed need to replace the battery in my SPL meter!




Q.

[John Holmes]

I am curious, does the load of the planers carry any real significance here? I'm just floored that this is happening.

I don't have any clip warnings on my set-up. Nor am I sure if a certain scene/score/cd ever forced my system to do so, I wouldn't know what it sounds liked anyway.




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[John Kotches]

Crimson:

1) It is possible that Magnepan has changed the sensitivity, the currentrly specified value for the 3.6 is 85db/2.83v/1m

2) Doesn't make sense unless your preamplifier is being driven into clipping to produce the required output. A clipped input signal could result in a clipped output signal earlier than would otherwise seem "wrong".

3) Makes no sense at all -- well I suppose if you had the right signal, then yeah, maybe, in theory.
The "published" output maximum is 250w for an 8ohm load max input. 800w should cause the mid/bass panel to impact the magnets before the amp is driven into clipping.

4) The dropoff from 3m to 4m is inconsequential (maybe 1dB due to the fact that planars degrade at a linear 3dB for each doubling of distance)

5) I still don't see the clipping happening without the panel impacting the magnet arrays.

6) What does the battery test show?

You might prefer listening a little louder than I do. The most I've ever measured in my listening position, about 2.5m away, is 105dB on peaks.

Regards,




---
Editor, PC/Home Theater
Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity
My Home Theater
NEC LT-150 specific page.

[John Kotches]

Crimson,

I'm really not picking on you, just trying to figure out why you're getting the results you are

Also, I never really did answer the question.

Unless the material contains substantial deep bass, I just run the mains with no subwoofer. Right now that consists of the Audiostatic ES100+SW100 configuration, which gets me 30Hz out of Electrostatics.... Woo Hoo!

Regards,




---
Editor, PC/Home Theater
Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity
My Home Theater
NEC LT-150 specific page.

[pf]

Straight 2 channels no SW all the way! That's why I tried so hard to get a pair of near full range speakers so I don't have to worry of 'bass management' with the newer formats.

PF

[MRWILLL]

I had a pair of NHT 3.3's. I played them against my NHT VT-2's w/sub, and the VT-2 combo came out the winner. IMO, if you sub is good enough, you will get its full impact at low/high volumes. A good sub intergrated with your front spks, can make them sound like they are double/triple the price. My vote, sub on.




STOP!!...LOOK!!...LISTEN!!
DVD...Hear it from the people who
mixed and mastered it "LEXICON".

[Pat]

Sub is always on.




Pat's Page

[Crimson]

John:
OK, so the battery indicator was on the low end range of normal, but I replaced it and this is what I got:
Clip indicators on amps go red at peaks of about.................

110db

Makes me think about 3 things:
1. How much higher the peaks will go with the low end taken care of by a sub/subs.
2. Don't trust the battery indicator on the SPL meter.
3. Maybe I should get a hearing test.

BTW, I know you weren't trying to pick on me .




Q.