Should you run a full signal into a subwoofer?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 24 сен 2019
- There are more schools of thought on subwoofer connection than Carter's got little pills. However, there's one right answer when it comes to high-end audio and Paul has it for us. Have a question you want to ask Paul? www.psaudio.com/ask-paul/
I have finished my memoir! You can go read it now: www.amazon.com/gp/product/173... It's called 99% True and it is chock full of adventures, debauchery, struggles, heartwarming stories, triumphs and failures, great belly laughs, and a peek inside the high-end audio industry you've never known before.
I plan a few surprises for early adopters, so go to www.paulmcgowan.com and add your name to the list of interested readers. There's an entire gallery of never before seen photos too. 
Наука
I never really thought about the "how it works" between a full range speaker and sub-woofer. Learn something new everyday watching this channel. Thanks Paul!
"almost always logical"
😆😂🤣😆🤣😂
lol
The irony of this is the fact that the guy who made the statement is asking how to connect a subwoofer !!!
You CANNOT make this shit up 🤣😂😆
Paul McGowan says a subwoofer crossover that falls off like a stone doesn't exist that is not true my subwoofer crossover does fall off like a stone my sound system has the best sound in the world cuz my subwoofer crossover falls off like a stone and my tweeters crossover falls off like a stone as well a crossover that falls off like a stone has better sound quality so you should try a crossover that falls off like a stone if you want the best sound
@@patrick7799
Ok, I'll take the bait, please tell us what the "best sound system in the world" consists of ???
patrick Actually you are right. In theory if you had that with no phase problems, then it is the greatest. I have one design where the 2 way electronic crossovers step up. By the time the tweeter gets it signal, it's about a 48db per octave slope.
I would add that even when the sub seems matched with the speakers so that the LF sound as if they're coming from the speakers and you cannot hear where the sub is located, you can still have the sub volume set too high. I found this out when I had to turn the sub off while waiting for a replacement sub driver. It was immediately clear that I'd loved the bass a bit too much and that the sound was really nice. So, I need to back off the sub just a bit.
I've changed my settings for the sub and my stereo speakers according to your video and it does sound actually so much better. My stereo speakers (from Canton) are just more precise and go low enough so that the sub now takes over only the very low end. Thanks for that great advice!
i've been thinking of basically this exact same question for at least the last 10 years. You explained this in such a way that broke it down to the essence!
same here haha. That is his best vid yet
Get a "pair" of REL's. You will never look back. One sub gets you part of the way there. I added a second REL to my Maggie's last year and the difference is staggering. Balanced sound from top to bottom. Just my opinion.
Hi Paul, thanks for this info. I've tried highpassing my B&W CM10 s2's because people say I should and just didn't like it. Later I removed the highpass (MiniDSP DDRC24 dsp) and they came back to life again. Combined with a matching B&W sub I'm very happy with the result. Important thing to do is measure the response in REW with a calibrated mic to setup the subs lowpass. After that I finished with the Dirac calibration and couldn't be happier! Ps. I did put the foam bungs in the ports for the right rolloff to match with the sub. Without it the sound can get muddy, boomy in the low end. Dirac is just fantastic when set up right!
I think Paul does a fine job in answering our audiophile questions. I like the videos. I think Paul nailed it just there with this video regarding subs and main speakers. But not exactly answering the questions he readed.
I think that Paul would not limit the lower end frequency going to the main speakers because of the filter (active or dsp) probably will affect the sound quality/position/image/stage/color/ etc.
If the sub is active it usually has a electronic (opamp based or dsp)filter build in which is adjustable in 'roll on' frequency and slope volume phase etc.i think its preferred to feed the sub with the full range signal. And not the sub out from the 5.1 or 7.1 receiver.
I experienced at a certain point that the crossover i was using also had a 'high pass' rumble subsonic filter in it and thus affected also 20Hz and below. The sub i now have does 14 Hz very well. So i was not happy with the 'rumble' filtering....
last months i also have been playing with adding a sub. Main speakers are already doing a pretty decent low frequency, like 26 Hz -3dB.
But adding the subwoofer, a servo drive Contrabass is just adding the sub bass to it, and gives a real good experience like being at a concert.
A suggestion for a nice song decent recorded which has some near sub bass when the percussion part kicks in around 1:12 -1:38 and through out rest of the song.
Song is called "Freedom Battle" by Michael w Smith.
I would like to hear it at the IRS v5 at ps audio. I think its a incredible experience 😀
The general rule of thumb for adjusting the sub is quite simple:
When playing music you should not hear or be able to localise the sub. But when switching of the sub you should miss 'something'.
My sub is passive, so i used a 12 dB /oct opamp based active filter. First it was tuned way to high at 60Hz mudding the low end of the spectrum.
After tweaking the active filter to 30Hz low pass.(by simply adding twice the amount of capacity, i lowered the crossoverfrequency by a factor of 2) the sound became way better.
I use a hypex ucd400 amplifier for driving the subwoofer. But still busy tweaking.
I was hoping your answer was going to touch on the difference between using an amp’s sub out to feed the sub as apposed to using the amp’s speaker output to feed a sub’s high impedance input. Just yesterday I switched from the former to the latter. I’ve a twin sub system. The difference was incredible. The detail that opened up in the mid to lower bass was so pleasing to hear that I can only recommend configuring one’s subs in this manner provided your sub(s) has the appropriate connections. Keep up the good work, Paul.
A marvelously SUBlime description of the magic of sonics' sublimation. (if you will pardon the flat response) thanking you, I'm as usual, all ears.
I'm wondering if the questioner is referring to a passive un-crossed over sub, (IE a driver in a box). The question would seem to be a moot point if one takes into consideration that most all active subs have adjustable crossover points and volume controls.
That was a very good reply Paul .. spot on !! I'd love one of those phono preamps ... !!!
Janina Palmer I still have my records from when I was a kid.
This is just one reason everyone should have a sound level meter.
Great video, Paul. I’m a sub lover too. Can’t listen without one (or two) !!! My current active subwoofer rolls off with -3 dB at 23 Hz. Crossover is set around 80 Hz. Works fine and sounds delicious haha
Love this question, and the answer!
Thanks for the video Paul.....
Yes it does happen , falling of a cliff in case of ported speakers . And that's the danger here . I am pretty sure these B&W's have a port tuned to ca. 50 Hz and they will fall of a cliff below that as any bass reflex speaker does. The sound of the port is now out of phase with the woofer and thus cancels the output . More importantly , excursion of the woofer starts rising exponentially below the resonance freq of the port , and can quickly reach Xmax or more , leading to damage if played loud enough . So either you stuff the port with a sock or you lopp the output of the woofer . A closed box woofer (sock trick) sees dropping woofer excursion below fc IIRC and so has a built in protection against damage. Anyway , limiting the satelite speaker's range (lopping off) also limits its woofer excursion , keeping it in the linear +/-Xmax range and thus producing less distortion and better mid's
Ported speakers roll off at 18 dB/octave, not a cliff. But they do roll off steeper than closed box speakers.
@@fgroen1225 nope , 24 db /octave , look it up . But the main issue is that under the resonance frequency , ported speakers can withstand only very low electric loads before hitting X-max
@@gerritgovaerts8443 My bad. Indeed, 24dB/oct. Still not a cliff. Stuffing the port is not recommended. Tried it with BR speakers but you tend to end up with a bad CB speaker. I reckon integration of a sub with BR speakers is more problematic due to the large phase swing in the cutoff frequency range.
@@fgroen1225 It all depends on what you call a cliff . And what constitutes a bad CB speaker ? Qtc value is what matters there . Most BR speakers have Qts values that require bigger BR volumes than necessary for a Qtc of 0.7 in a CB volume . So closing up the port will result in a Qtc
I like your belt. Great information as always also.
i personally crossover my subs/mids around 80hz with a 12db roll off (thank you eq!) that way i don't get that little boost in the upper low freqs. without an eq or dsp you can solve this with proper enclosure designs, but that's more of a diy approach. even with good enclosure designs i'd still at least cut off the upper freqs in the sub or you'll muddy your mid bass, and please if you go the ported route roll off the low end below box tuning or you could damage your subs as there is a risk of unloading the driver when playing below tuning.
i run my subwoofer to 120hz 18db roll off. with small 2 way bookshelf speakers there is a lot of impact at 120hz you will miss. for reference my speakers have a 5" midwoofer in sealed cabinet. thanks to monitor audio for making a great subwoofer that has an alu 15" woofer in a sealed cabinet and i can play it high in frequency. but then you got to have the subwoofer somewhere in between the speakers or have two of them.
Purple board looks so cool :)
TheEnzoferrari12345 Is that deep purple
WAIT: I am a DJ, and many of the subwoofers we use intentionally filter the lows out in order to lighten the load on the full range speaker. Can you explain further?
I'm sure Paul knows better than I do, but I have always thought the great advantage of a subwoofer would be that you could remove the low frequencies from the the speakers AND the amplifier. I figure the cool way to do it is to run a crossover between the preamp and the amp. Preamps with a sub out make a lot of sense to me.
Great video!
Wow Sir keep making such video's bcoz these are really helpful.
Paul, I wish you had hit upon ported designed speakers in your examples, as that is what I will be setting up (Specifically, two Joseph Audio Rm25XLs, along with three smaller/ported JAs for surround/center channel duties, and an HSU ULS-15 MKII sealed sub).
I would be interesting to hear you comment on bass management systems, such as Dirac Live, and how they can be incorporated into a two channel system. Also, how dual subs should be located in a room, and whether stereo or mono subs are preferable.
purple pcb's!
Using the voice coil of any speaker as a lowpass filter creates a hell of a lot of unnecessary heat and distortion - better to filter this out electronically some other way than heating the voice coil.
Highpassing the mains is *highly* recommended, particularly if it can be done before the amplifier to reduce DC-like operation and clipping.
Hi Paul. Thank you for yet another interesting video. Now, I wrote to you with a question about tuning in a subwoofer with my TV soundbar, and this video in some ways answer my questions, but I'm still hoping for my 5 minutes, which hopefully also help other people. Until then I'll just watch your other videos, and pretty much learn new details every time.
Happy to see how you addressed the problem with rude comments - free speech was never supposed to take away any responsibility regarding bad behavior.
How do we set the sub crossover? What specifically are we listening for. (Novice here, I understand the theory, but have never experienced good or bad set up as a comparison)
May horn speakers go down without loss down to 35 Hz. Most subwoofers have the lowest crossover point at 40 Hz. What can I do about that if I wished to buy a dub. Passive crossover for the sub? Active crossover for rhe speaker? I do not like either one of them...
What would your simple explanation of that question be to an audio engineer or someone who understands audio very well?
I couldn't have explained that better! Spot on there, but the title says "Should you run a full signal to your sub? A couple of my powered subs have a switch to bypass its internal bandpass filter and let in anything. Now, because my receiver has it's OWN filter, I have the subs in bypass, BUT I did, once, for fun let the whole shooting match into the subs (full range)! It just sounded nasty, especially vocals. The low end midrange was just full mud. That's my take on it.
Yes... That's accurate...
As much as admire and respect Paul, not sure I agree with where he says to run bookshelves full range with a sub. If you cut them off at 80hz, the midrange driver is no longer encumbered with producing the lower frequencies and can therefore play cleaner with less distortion.
Doesn't the PS Audio Sprout cut off the main speaker low end when you use the sub out?
Nope. That would not be a good idea sonically and we would never design a 2-channel product to do that.
one can't help but notice that pro speakers have very little excursion in order to minimize distortion. even bass guitar cabs respect that principle...
why would one introduce that type of distortion by playing 30Hz on the main speakers at decent volume when the sub can play it with considerable less distortion?
@2:20 about feeding the main speakers full spectrum amp signal: why is that preferable?
thanks for your answers, take it easy.
I agree with Paul. I've tried highpassing on the main speakers and it just sucked the life out of it. I put the foams in the ports for the clean rolloff.
My mains woofer is in a reduced size box. It is a PA driver. Naturally, it doesn't go all that low, but free air resonance is 42hz. I can high pass it and have. 60hz and up, on a 24 db slope. You can't hear the difference because of box size and the character of this driver.
Stellar Phono ? Is that the one that Darren designed?
Lopping off the LF signal of the main speakers in a HT setup has the advantage of increasing dynamic range, as the (relatively small) main speaker no longer need to deal with high-excursion LF content.
In any case, integrating a subwoofer into a system does need some understanding of what's going on to get it right. Heard too many systems where this was not the case.
good speakers are sealed so they rolls of naturally anyways, perfect for subwoofer, and you they play louder.
So you don't mention what crossover you recommend. I wouldn't use anything under 80 or over 100 no matter what kind of speakers you have. Correct me if I'm wrong
No Bookshelf be it B&w .. can give u good bass. One needs 2 nos 10” active sub. Means a 2.2 system My fav is a sealed box with MiniDSP or any good active crossover and a nice 200 watts rms class AB amp or Hypex let the 2 subs be behind. U will love it.
Not _quite_ true. What is true is that you're not going to fill any decent-size room with bass using bookshelf speakers. What you can do is listen in the near-field which is what I did in the mid to late seventies. We didn't have subs back then. If you wanted lotsa bass in a big room you built yourself a pair of transmission line speakers and drove it with a powerful amp (75W+).
Johnathan Sturm, I believe a transmission line is could be good. I'm just never going in for no stinkin Line Array. You sold me, Lets get together and plan something for me. Stereo Junky has a lot of Stuff laying around. I have spare 5 1/4 peerless drivers.
10 brand new ones. Is that something to work with? How about speakers for my 5.1? Thats just enough drivers because you want de app a lee toe
arrangement right?
You must have a spec or two of experiance with this, maybe? I thought my design being finished would be enough to stop what I do, but your enthusiasm toward them could be an ace in the hole.
Only if you like to get electrocuted 🤣😅😂 from the Big Bang and thick dark grey smoke you appear and think what the F*#k happened there? 🥵😤🤕
Eh... it’s complicated. IMHO, you need to measure the performance of all the components in the environment, with people in their listening positions (yes, your body will absorb and reflect sound) and then, with actual data to guide you (as well as your ears of course), adjust the crossovers & equalizers to get a good total system response.
Oh - and that’s just for an audiophile setup. For a studio setup, you leave your ears out of the equation, and go for the most accurate, flat response curve you can get out of it (listening for enjoyment and listening while recording or editing/mixing are quite different).
Not always
Almost
When you use a sub be aware that the balance between the subs and the mains affect the crossover point. The louder you play the subs in relation to the mains the higher the crossover point becomes. So if you like your subs loud, lower the low pass on the subs.
Thats a pretty board 🙈
Wife: You are _not_ putting that in _my_ living room!
ruclips.net/video/m7j_wb37Qa0/видео.html
I saw your Instagram feed of the speaker crossover falling off the speaker box 😂🔊
Hey Paul question came up on another website (guy running it is a pro in business not a wanna be) who said if you have a differential amplifier the hook up at the high level taps speaker posts (which you like) could potentially damage the amplifier and thus there were a number of people who chimed yes and no leave the ground wire off won't happen with Neutrik etc.Why can't I make heads or tails of what they are saying?Fortuately I have both options with my Stellar but I am not sure what to do
I have seen that. Hopefully the sub manufacter doesn't have the minus terminals tied together on the input.
Logically speaking you can’t beat a sub for that lovely bottom end after all they do go down deep😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
almost logical???
what is that ?
That's why you need an equalizer.
MY Onkyo sets crossover points with it's automatic "tuning", and my old Polk PSW650 has it's own adjustment for crossover point, but I think the next time I run the tuning I'll probably set the sub's crossover as high as it will go, and let the Onkyo do it's thing. I have Focal Chora 826's for all 7 of my channels, and I think the Onkyo has all the crossovers set to 40Hz, which sounds reasonable for the 826's.
I JUST SET THE CROSSOVER ON MY SUBBWOOFER TO 120,AND LET THE MIC SETUP THE SPEAKERS JOB DONE,😉💪💪✌
hey David Morgan the sub shouldn't play 120 hertz the sub shouldn't even play 90 hertz just try to remove the 90 hertz from your subwoofer know you won't be able to do that
The CROSSOVER is set at 120.💪💪✌
@@Davidarris1969 120 is not good crossover setting for the subwoofer my sound system has the best sound in the world and my crossover setting is 65 and my subwoofer completely stops making sound at 90 hertz so if you want the best sound in the world you have to set your subwoofer crossover to 65 hertz
@@patrick7799 NOT ALL SUBS ARE THE SAME PALL.MY MONITOR AUDIO BRONZE SUBB HAS THE VOLUME SET AT JUST OVER HALF WAY,AND THE CROSSOVER SET TO THE 120 SO THE CROSSOVER ON MY RECEIVER AND THE CROSSOVER ON THE SUBBWOOFER DSNT CLASH,RIPPLE.EVEN T,H,X RECOMEND IF YOUR SPEAKERS ARE CROSSOVER AT 80HZ YOU SET YOUR SUBBWOOFER AT 120HZ.BELEIVE ME WHEATHER ITS 2.1 MUSIC OR 7.1 4KUHD BLUE RAY FILM,THEY BOTH SOUND BRILLIANT AND THE BASS SOUNDS JUST WRIGHT.
@@Davidarris1969 David Morgan the mid speaker crossover and the subwoofer crossover has to be identical if it is not then there will be poor sound reproduction does your subwoofer crossover match you mid speakers crossover ?
letting the mains bottom out is a terrible idea. why? because they will certainly hit resonant frequency, that's the last thing you want in a hi-fi audio system. resonance is uncontrollable oscillation, now i know why you needed servo subs. because you think in a way that intentionally make the system as terrible as possible in the first place.
The servo sub is to control position of a woofer better with the signal. (theory) To over come the pressure in the sealed box. I say we need to "vent" that back wave outdoors or some sort of expansion chamber, an no i'm not joking.
@Ped-Away-G. You must have a really wonderful designed system.
Where in the world do you get your information? Certainly not from any engineering books. "Uncontrollable oscillation"? I am sorry, that is simply incorrect.
Its his lauguage, its coded. You have to get into the mind of PED. Then it is a mixture of his culture and ours. (🇺🇸) I am most fascinated in his mindset. He simply means that at free air resonance the woofer flops around like fresh caught fish flopping on the deck after trolling all day.
@@SJMessinwithBoats you don't need to "overcome the pressure in the sealed box" unless your box is otherworldly absurd.
yes, i have a design in mind but i'm not sharing it with those who don't appreciate me.
and no, i didn't mean free-air resonance, all drivers have resonant frequency even when put in a highly overdamped sealed box.
Would you run the full signal to a tweeter? No
that is not how it works, many woofers dont need a lowpass filter, they naturally roll off by design.
@@sudd3660 woofers don't NEED any cross over but if you want the appropriate frequencys to come out of it without the higher stuff you will, the higher stuff (plus 800 hz) will be wasted going into a woofer.
unless its a 2 way system with a woofer. a subwoofer, that's another type of woofer.
In my opinion I dont think any powered subwoofer should play anything above 80hz.
I also believe that more powered subwoofers should have some kind of infrasonic filter to avoid wasting energy on the really low notes. I found on car subwoofer amplifiers this control does help clean up the sound a bit.
that is a general statement that dont work in all cases, bookshelf speakers can roll of above 100hz and you need a subwoofer that plays to 120hz. if you got stereo subwoofers they can play even at 500 hz and still work great.
@@sudd3660 People must have some crappie bookshelf speakers if they need a powered subwoofer set to 120hz or higher. Its almost like you need to stack a powered subwoofer on top of an even bigger powered subwoofer to blend in the sound properly.
5" woofer in sealed cabinet rolls if pretty high, place the speaker in the rom for imagine and there you go.
a proper sealed subwoofer plays 120hz cleanly. i don't know what bad subs you heard over the years.
Im confused and lost. I know that my full range bookshelf speakers have no problems filling in the 50 to 500hz range clean. No need to set my subs to 120 or higher.