BK Monolith Problem

[thestorm]

Hi all
I purchased my BK monolith subwoofer around 2006 after positive feedback from this site.
The problem is, i haven't used my sub for maybe 2 yrs and I've just bought a new AV receiver. It's an Arcam AVR400. I'm not getting anything out of sub, perhaps just a very very little vibration when i put my hand under the sub. I know there is nothing wrong with the amp as it's was taken out of the box in front of me and demonstrated working perfectly with a B&W PV1 sub.

I bought some new cables recently as the other ones were causing the sub to hum when ever they were close to electric cables.

the Arcam is connected correctly from its SUB pre-out to one of the terminal on the sub.
I have the following settings :
Set ALL speakers to small
Set cross over to 80Hz on the amp
Phase set to zero
Frequency Contour to MAX and then clicked on the dial
High Level Gain Zero
Low Level Gain 11 O'Clock

I have run a SPL test/adjusted spl. from all speakers incl sub is 75DB, and also physically measured my speaker distances and adjusted accordingly.

what is it that I'm doing wrong? Please can you help with this as I wasn't expecting to watch movies over Xmas without a sub!
If something has failed then I'll have to speak to BK Electronics in the new year.
I was also considering the B&W ASW610 / Rel T3 if fixing it is too expensive.

someone please help this is sooo depressing.

Regards, Shaz

 

[Badger0-0]

I wonder.

We were having a discussion about an Arcam on here the other night and between us, we managed to find the following in the manual;

The Auto Speaker Setup function is found within the
Setup menus, see page E-36. By default, Room EQ is not
applied to any of the source inputs. You should enable
Room EQ on inputs you think benefit from this feature,
as required,

Absolutely stupid idea by Arcam, imo and I can see many people getting caught out by it.

Try the above and let us know if it works.

If it does, I'll ask if a post pointing this out can be made a sticky in the Arcam forum.

If the sub produced a tone in the auto setup, I very much doubt it's faulty.

But if the room EQ hasn't been applied, 11 o'clock on the sub ought to sound too loud

 

[Badger0-0]

It's not clear if you ran an auto setup before.

In which case I'd suggest you do so and then enable the room EQ, to see if that solves the problem.

I don't see anything wrong in the way you've set it up, but it could well be another Arcam quirk.

Here's another one I've just noticed;

Note that if the subwoofer is
enabled in stereo mode,

But I'm not sure what that means without reading the manual properly.

You don't happen to be in Stereo mode do you?

 

[thestorm]

Hi Badger,
Thanks for the tips I'm going to give this a go tomorrow morning and let you know my findings.

 

[thestorm]

> Try the above and let us know if it works.

I ran auto setup again, and it didn't switch Room EQ on.

> If it does, I'll ask if a post pointing this out can be made a sticky in the Arcam forum.

I've manually switched on Room EQ - the system overall sounds much better, more closer to how it sounded in the store demo room. I have a big smile on my face now! Thanks for the tip!


> If the sub produced a tone in the auto setup, I very much doubt it's faulty.

yeah it produces a gritty rumble

>But if the room EQ hasn't been applied, 11 o'clock on the sub ought to sound too loud

11 O'clock is about 30% of the volume level so not too loud.
I haven't had a chance to really crank the sound up on the system as we have a young kid in the house and don't want to scare him! So i'll listen to the system again with a clear head.

I don't know anyone who is such an AV enthusiast as me, as it would really really help if I could get a second opinion.
The bass is definitely back the sub is moving a lot more.

observations :
-after setting the front speakers (ProAc S125) to small the dynamic bass has gone, i think i preferred the deeper bass from my ProAc's but it might because I'm so used to it.

-is it worth me setting it back to large and keeping my sub settings? what cross over should I use?
at the moment its at 80hz

-the auto setup process is far from accurate for me every-time, mainly because the room is very large approx 6m X 4m, it's an extension to the house with 4m of bifolding glass doors to one side and open spaces(no doors) to the others rooms and passage way to the rest of the house. So I have to manually adjust the speakers SPL and distances.
When I adjusted the sub pressure level I found the spl was off the scale on my SPL meter, whilst the other speakers were around 69DB the sub is around 86DB. I have had to reduce the level on the Arcam itself to about -10DB, is that normal?

a couple of pix attached with my settings.

 

[thestorm]

It's not clear if you ran an auto setup before.

In which case I'd suggest you do so and then enable the room EQ, to see if that solves the problem.

I don't see anything wrong in the way you've set it up, but it could well be another Arcam quirk.

Here's another one I've just noticed;



But I'm not sure what that means without reading the manual properly.

You don't happen to be in Stereo mode do you?

I only use DD for DVDs & Blu-Ray and my streamer(popcorn hour), for CD I use stereo.

I wish i could use multichannel for SKY eg for non DD material I'd like to be able to send the sound to all speakers without any processing. My previous Denon amp used to do this. As that option is not available I have to use it in stereo mode for that.

I was hoping to be scientific about the changes I made so I could make ONE change and then see what difference it makes. I have noticed another configurable item :

Dolby Volume- i will listen again tomorrow to see if it has made any difference to the system but I think it did.
Should I enable that as well?

pic attached

 

[Badger0-0]

Re: the crossover, the spec I've seen says they go down to 30hz.
Hence you could try setting them back to large, but I'm not sure if that'd turn the sub off or not.

At a guess, I reckon you'd be best to leave them at small and try lower crossovers.
I'd guess 50-60hz might work best, but you'd have to try it and see what you think.

As for the rest of the questions, you'd do best to ask seperately in either the amp forum or better still, the Arcam forum, as you're more likely to get answers from people who actually own the amp, as I've never even seen one.

And tbh, we're diverting the thread from it's main subject

If the sub is producing a gritty sound, my first instinct is to say the driver or amp might need looking at.