Lacking bass- Is a Sub the answer

[Paulx10111]

Hi my set up is Myryad Z40 pre/headphone amp, Myryad Z20 Dac, Myryad T60 power Amp, Monitor Audio Silver speakers on target stands ,Bi-wired Chord Clearway, QEd interconnects, Project Turntable, and a spare Pioneer Bluray as CD player.
This system is severely lacking in the bass department, I can compensate when using Foobar on laptop by adjusting eq, but thats not possible with vinyl/cd. Is a Subwoofer the answer, if so any suggestions on make etc and how would I connect it to a stereo amp?
Budget around £250

 

[Ugg10]

Which ma silvers do you have (model number)?

Worth checking the obvious -

If they have two sets of terminals on the back of the speakers then are the jumper bars in (red-red, black-black)?
Are the speaker cables connected correctly, again red-red, Black-Black?

I know it is stating the obvious but we have all done it, worth double checking, the speaker wire should either be colour coded, have a line on one wire or have a raised ridge.

 

[Paulx10111]

They are RS1, the speakers are connected correctly, I did say in the post that I can compensate by adding eq whilst using foobar. It is the amplification that is lacking bass with no tone controls only a volume knob.
I want to know if a subwoofer would help and if so how I would connect it.

 

[Timmy C]

Are floor standing speakers not an option for the room? Peoples opinions differ on this but for music and particularly when the budget isn't open ended, I would usually choose bigger speakers over smaller ones with an added sub.

 

[Hoku]

Can I ask a couple of questions that might initially seem irrelevant:

How large is your room?
How far are your speakers from the rear wall?

Obviously your RS1's are reasonably small standmounted speakers, so there's a limit to their low frequencies anyway, but moving speakers closer to the back wall can reinforce bass. If you have a large room it could simply be that your bass expectations need modifying!

Not sure how you'd integrate a sub in your set-up as your pre-amp's pre-outs are already being used to send a full-range signal to your power amp. Pre-amps that have been designed to incorporate a subwoofer usually have a seperate pre-out for that purpose.

Have you considered some used RS6's? If you like the sound of the RS1's but just want more bass, that might do the trick. There are plenty of examples used that ought to come in on budget, or a host of other similar speakers.

 

[dazed&confused]

It's easy enough to connect a sub - you would just connect to to the same terminals on your amplifier that you are using for your stereo speakers. Then you would adjust the filter on the sub so that it only plays frequencies below those that your missing from your main speakers.

Whether or not you're likely to benefit from a £250 subwoofer will depend largely on your room dimensions. People will be able to give you better advice if you can tell us your room dimensions, where your speakers are positioned in your room, and where your listening position is sat relative to the rear wall.

Also, what kind of music lacks bass? Are we talking acoustic, or guitar based rock, orchestral music, or something that's heavily bass laden such as pipe organ music or some of the stuff from the likes of Massive Attack?

Would you be happy buying second-hand? Buying new, £250 would get you a BK Gemini, which would perhaps be quite modest in a large room.

 

[Paulx10111]

Not an option now (previously had Naim Credo's they provided more bass, but the tweeters were crippling)
I just need a touch more bass
When I play music from laptop in foobar, I initialize the eq and have only to tweak the lower end a touch and it sounds amazing.(in fact just switching on the eq with all levels flat is an improvement)
but when playing vinyl or CD I only have the volume knob, thought about getting a graphic equalizer but then thought against it, So a sub seems the only option left.

 

[Andy98765]

I have just looked up the pre-amp, what are you using for a phono pre-amp as there does not seem to be a connection for a turntable.

 

[Paulx10111]

I should have added the reason not an option now I have a Dolby Atmos Ma bronze set up in same room, and before anyone asks I have tried plugging in the Bronze's to no improvement.
I feel that if the Myryad had tone controls I would just need to nudge it up one or two clicks and it would be perfect

 

[Paulx10111]

room is approx. 15x10ft speakers are on 15 ft wall 3ft on either side of the centre, the speakers are as close to the wall as the base of the stand will allow about 6cm away. the sofa (sitting position) is 5.5ft away from speakers. The equipment is in a target spiked stand each component has a marble chopping board plinth with rubber feet
The phono amp is project phono box DS

 

[benz0]

To me it seems really obvious that you should swap your amp for one with tone controls, or a a reveiver with more options such as room correction and equalization.

If you're happy with the sound given by a few tweaks of the eq then there is your answer.

 

[Andy98765]

As the RS1's are rear ported speakers the manual for them states.
"The RS1, RS5 and RSLCR are rear ported cabinet designs. Because of this design, we recommend that when fixing the loudspeakers to a wall that the port bungs are used. This may also apply when they are positioned very close to a rear/side wall"
Have you got the bungs in the rear? This will affect the bass.

 

[Paulx10111]

Not using bungs, and fitting bungs is to lessen bass if I understand correctly

 

[dazed&confused]

So the two set-ups (stereo with MA silver) and multi-channel (with MA bronze) are entirely separate from each other? Have you thought of integrating them, with just one pair of front speakers and a sub that could be used both for music and for movies/TV ?

 

[Paulx10111]

Hi dazed & confused, have not considered that, how would that work, the AV amp is the Denon Avr x2400H

 

[BlueWizard]

I want to haul cargo freight in a Mini-Cooper. But ...realistically... that is not going to work.

You Expectation have to be realistic relative to the speakers you have. I think the RS1 are 5" (130mm) at best. That only moves just so much air, and only goes just so deep. That's the nature of the beast.

Actually it is a 150mm 6" bass driver according to this review -

Monitor Audio Silver RS1 specs

Most Subs have one of two connections - Line Level (pre-out, sub-out) or Speaker/High Level, the second of which connect directly to the amps speaker wires. Many Subs have Both of these.

Given that the speakers go down to 43hz at -3db, it would probably work best if you either get a Subwoofer that can be set to 40hz or below, or that you add some Bass Management to the Front Speakers. Though you would set the Sub in the 40hz to 45hz range.

Generally you either have some degree of bass management or you set the Sub Crossover at the natural Roll-Off of the Front Speaker, which in this case would be in the range of ~40hz.

To add Bass Management, very limited Bass Management, you could use RCA "Y" Splitter cables attached to the Pre-Out and run one leg to the Sub and the other leg to the Power Amp.

In the Lines going to the Power amp, you could potentially add High Pass Filters similar to these to limit low frequencies in the Front Speakers.

"Harrison Labs FMOD Inline Crossover Pair 50 Hz High Pass RCA" from www.parts-express.com!

"Harrison Labs FMOD Inline Crossover Pair 70 Hz High Pass RCA" from www.parts-express.com!

"Harrison Labs FMOD Inline Crossover Pair 100 Hz High Pass RCA" from www.parts-express.com!

Likely 70hz High Pass is the best choice. Unfortunately these are USA links, I don't have EU/UK links to similar products, but most likely they do exist in the EU/UK.

With these in place, you can set the Subwoofer Crossover to the matching frequency. As suggested 70hz, though 50hz and 100hz are also available.

If you are going to simply blend the Front and Sub, then you can use the speaker terminals and simply set the Sub Crossover to match the natural roll-off of the Front Speaker (~40hz). In this case the Front speaker will still be running full range, but the Sub will fill in the very lowest end of the frequency range.

Connecting the Sub to the speaker terminals will not add any load to the amp, it won't even know the Sub is there.

As to Subwoofer, though there are alternatives, BK Electronic makes good Subs at a very fair price. With your budget, the BK Gemini-II 10" is probably the best choice -

Sub Woofers - Sub Bass - Subwoofer

Gemini

Just a few thoughts.

Steve/bluewizard

 

[dazed&confused]

Hi dazed & confused, have not considered that, how would that work, the AV amp is the Denon Avr x2400H

First of all I would ask if you have actually tried using your AVR for stereo duties, with the use of its tone controls and active bass management for a subwoofer?

If you did want to integrate both of your systems then once you see how it's all connect up, its simpler than what I'm about to write might sound.

Most people would use an AVR that has analogue pre-amp outputs. Take the front stereo pre-outs from the AV amp and connect them into a spare pair of inputs to the stereo preamp. The stereo pre-amp goes to the stereo power amp as usual, and the stereo power amp to the front speakers as usual. Then, when using the AVR, just set the stereo pre-amp to 0 dB gain and use the volume control in the AVR as usual.

For stereo duties people connect the stereo gear directly to the stereo preamp as usual. They have the AVR switched off, doing nothing.

Now, your situation is slightly different because your AV amp does not have pre-outs. Consequently you would have to insert a switch (e.g. a Beresford switch) between the speakers and two amps so that you flick the front speakers between AV amp and stereo amp

Use a subwoofer from the likes of someone like BK electrics that has both a line-level input and a speaker-level input, with separate filters and gain control for each. The LFE output from the AVR is connected to the line-level input as usual. Connect the speaker-level input into the sub to the same terminals of your stereo power amp that are being used by your front speakers, and set the speaker-level filter on the sub so that it plays all frequencies lower than where your stereo speakers start to significantly roll off (probably somewhere between about 40Hz and 60Hz). Then set the sub's speaker-level gain (volume control) to the level that gives you the amplitude of bass you require just for stereo duties (the amplitude for AV duties would be set in your AV amp).

You could then sell your Bronze speakers and have more money to invest in a more powerful subwoofer.

 

[dollag]

You may not want to hear this but the best thing to would be sell your avr and myrad gear and get a very good avr to manage both stereo and av.

something like the nad t758 v3 with dirac.

I am fairly confident that the nad will outperform your myrad gear with dirac being a key feature in that statement.

Put your Silvers in your av set up and get the bass from your subs. Dirac will blend the MA silvers seamlessly with your subs and they will sound like one speaker.

I recently had 2 set ups consisting of high quality amplifier (creek evo) and a very good dac (oppo sonica) and my arcam avr with dirac just trumped it. so i sold it all and now just have the avr, albeit i use power amplifiers for extra juice.

Also, your home cinema experience should also improve.

it also frees up space as it isnt the biggest room.

what sub/s you using?

just my 2 pence anyhow.

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

It's interesting how many side-tracks this question has generated.

As Steve says, the RS1 has a 6" woofer, which is not going to produce decent bass. You can sort of try to force it to do so by jacking up the low frequency power, which will sort of work badly, won't sound all that good, and sooner (or later if you're lucky) will destroy the speakers.

The answer is as per your question - add an active subwoofer. Steve's call on the Gemini nicely fits your budget.

 

[dollag]

It's interesting how many side-tracks this question has generated.

As Steve says, the RS1 has a 6" woofer, which is not going to produce decent bass. You can sort of try to force it to do so by jacking up the low frequency power, which will sort of work badly, won't sound all that good, and sooner (or later if you're lucky) will destroy the speakers.

The answer is as per your question - add an active subwoofer. Steve's call on the Gemini nicely fits your budget.

It's not side tracking, the OP already has a h/t system in the same room and assuming already has a subwoofer. the room is 15x10 so imo, throwing even more speakers in that room is not necessarily the answer. Yes i agree a subwoofer will cure the problem they are having but i personally do not think it's the most logical way to remedy the issue.

In addition, a 6" woofer imo is more than adequate to give more than decent bass in that size room. I had a pair of kef r300's which has very similar specs in a larger room and there was never any need for a sub. This is however subjective as peoples perception good of bass varies which i understand.

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

In addition, a 6" woofer imo is more than adequate to give more than decent bass in that size room. I had a pair of kef r300's which has very similar specs in a larger room and there was never any need for a sub. This is however subjective as peoples perception good of bass varies which i understand.

I ran Quad ESL-63's for years without any subwoofer, and also never felt any need to increase the bass by adding the Gradient SW-63.

But as you say, this is highly subjective and if the OP wants to play organ music and feel the low pedal notes vibrating his seat, he will not be able to do it with a pair of RS1's, no matter what size room he has. Post #1 clearly indicated a desire for a lot more bass (admittedly contradicted by post #9 which indicates he just needs a minor tweak), and asked if a subwoofer would address that need in the context of his stereo setup. The answer to post #1, quite simply, is yes.

 

[dollag]

The answer to post #1, quite simply, is yes.

Ha not going to disagree your spot on!!

I still believe the OP should rethink his whole situation, hence my post.

 

[Paulx10111]

Hi & thanks everyone.
I really don't want to go down the sell everything & start again root, and I have to admit it, I hardly use the avr nowadays, anyway there is a 2nd hand Monitor audio Radius 360 R360 Subwoofer available at half my budget price.
Would this be suitable.
And not really into pipe organs, Zappa,Funkadelic/Parliament & jazz more my thing.

 

[dollag]

do you have an existing sub?

if you have both high and low level inputs you dont need a new sub, you can connect both avr and stereo system.

 

[mushii]

+1 for Gemini II. I run one with my JBL Control 1's in my office. Lovely little sub that is really responsive for music. I dont actually notice the sub, until my wife complains that it is disturbing her in the lounge below, then when I turn it off it is really obviously missing.