Tag Archives: subwoofer

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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Sub sats

I often get asked why we need reasonably sized loudspeaker boxes. After all, if we’re willing to include a subwoofer in our mix, why couldn’t the midrange tweeter boxes be tiny?

There was a time when this thinking produced an entirely new category of system called the Sub Sat.

I was one of the first to embrace a 3-piece Sub Sat system. Mine was from M and K, a long-ago company founded by LA audio dealer Jonas Miller, and engineer Ken Kreisel. (*I believe the company, M and K Sound still exists but it’s more name than anything else).

This was back in the day when subwoofers were first appearing on the scene. At that time, people thought a good sub could replace a proper speaker enclosure, which is how this 3-piece sub sat system came to be.

The idea of the sub sat was simple: two small satellite speakers with a tweeter and tiny woofer/midrange, and a single subwoofer would finish the system. It was a grand idea, but it didn’t live up to its hype.

If memory serves, I believe I owned that system for a total of about two weeks before I ofted it to a friend who wasn’t as crazy about sound as I was.

As you might have guessed, the problem is that subwoofers only work when they don’t have to play very high frequencies. Once a subwoofer is asked to produce audio above 30 to 40Hz, you start to hear the sub as a separate entity.

Thankfully, the Sub Sat genre died out rather quickly, but it was a nifty idea that I bought into just because it was novel, cool, and filled with potential.

Today we know that in order to produce seamless sound, the satellite part of any system has to have a big enough enclosure to support a decent bottom end.

In other words, your left and right main speakers need to be reasonably full range in order for a subwoofer to do its job.

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek Audio and Paul McGowan of PS Audio, Intl.

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Compressing sound

In recordings, it is quite common for an engineer to use a compressor to better fit dynamics. Especially those of a singer.

I like to imagine the art of compression is like the proper setup of a subwoofer. Properly done you shouldn’t notice it is there.

Unfortunately, that’s not the norm. So many of today’s recordings have enough compression on the voice that we hear it: the singer gets loud but the sound level does not.

Another side of sound compression is when it is used to bring up the level of an instrument or voice that is too soft (more accurately, this is known as expansion but since it is done with a compressor the name remains).

When we use compression to make something louder the same rules apply. It works only if it sounds natural.

Sounding natural is the point of any recording tricks and techniques from EQ to compression.

In the right hands, it can makes magic.

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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This pretty much isnt applicable for Audiophiles, as I’ve only ever used preamps with at least two sets of outputs and subwoofers with their own amplifiers, but for those with AVR’s, applicable.

Double duty

For those that have receivers or integrateds with dedicated RCA subwoofer outputs, this post may have some interest.

For the most part, a dedicated subwoofer output on a receiver or integrated exists because of old-school habits. Long ago, at the beginning of the subwoofer era, there were no built-in crossovers. Subs came in two flavors: an unpowered or powered woofer in a box. If the first the user had to supply a power amplifier and if the latter, a crossover to remove the high frequencies from the receiver.

Over time, subwoofer manufacturers moved away from these crude versions to more sophisticated ones with built-in crossovers and amps making unnecessary the dedicated subwoofer outputs.

The problem with this feature overlap between receivers and subwoofers is the confusion it causes.

Without prior knowledge, what user wouldn’t use the dedicated subwoofer output to feed their sub?

The issue, of course, is having two crossovers: one in the receiver and the second in the subwoofer. Double-duty crossovers make for a less-than-desirable outcome.

If you do have a dedicated subwoofer output check with your instruction manual to see if you can disable it or instead, use a Y-connector on the receiver’s main RCA outputs.

Of course, if your subwoofer allows, the best connection possible is from the amplifier’s speaker outputs.

It’s all in the connection.

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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It’s obvious

It’s funny how obvious something is once you figure it out.

Networking issues are like that for me. A blur of numbers and meaningless data points confuse and bewilder me until I can make a connection. And then, it’s obvious!

Or, how for years you can work on subwoofer setup and come up with all sorts of tricks and methodology to get it properly placed so it works within a room. And then, you hear a direct field subwoofer setup that obviates the room problems. You slap yourself on the forehead and say “Dang! That’s so obvious!”

It isn’t always obvious how something becomes clear until you discover the answer to the riddle.

Then, it’s obvious!

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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The impermanence of trends

Trends are nearly impossible to see in the moment.

When I was growing up men all wore hats and women were daring if they wore pants. That’s just the way it was.

Normal.

Only, normal is a trend: a temporary condition that feels relevant at the time but in hindsight is only a passing phase.

Trends are rather pervasive in high-end audio. First it was owning a console with everything built-in. Then we moved to separates. Turntables were all we knew until the CD came along. No one considered a subwoofer until it’s not cool to be without.

I think it’s healthy to separate trends from qualities that deserve permanence.

A love of music is timeless.

A desire to strive for better feels eternal.

It’s not a trend to fall in love with a great performance in your home.

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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If you have a moment

Our good friend and former editor of Copper, Bill Leebens, is facing some hard times at the moment. Bill’s looking at some expensive surgery for which he does not have the funds to cover the costs.

If you know Bill or would like to help out, a donation link through Facebook (yeah, I’m not a Facebook person either) has been set up here.

Thanks for anything you can do.

As for audio related stuff, how many of us have had the notion to get our money’s worth when it comes to subwoofer performance? I know I’ve felt the urge.

When REL’s John Hunter upgraded my home theater’s REL subwoofer from a smaller 10″ to a massive 18″ version, the first thing I did was crank up the Kevin Bacon movie, Termors to laugh again as Val and Earl fight giant earthworms. Aside from the fact the movie’s a crack up, I was of course hopeful the new sub would rattle my cage and shake my booty.

It did, and then some.

But when the fun’s over and the excitement of the new has worn off, it’s time to put that subwoofer in its place—where we don’t hear it as a separate entity, but rather as it should be: integrated seamlessly with the main system.

Got to make sure those giant earthworms sound real.

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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Fri, Nov 12 at 5:04 AM
Maximizing one’s assets
Separate loudspeaker drivers like separate electronics maximize the attributes of each: amplifiers focus on amplifying, sources are specific to their task.

And so it is with speakers too. No woofer can reproduce that which a proper tweeter can. Take for example the planar tweeter in the upcoming FR30 loudspeaker. Its moving diaphragm has lower mass than the air it is driving. Try that using a heavy-high mass subwoofer. Or the opposite. The thin planar driver is no match for the long-throw woofers used to pump long wavelengths of bass frequencies into the room.

In my opinion, there’s simply no substitute for separates whether in the multiple drivers that make up a loudspeaker or the multiple boxes that together produce music that brings us pleasure.

If high-performance and precision are the desired outcome, then it makes perfect sense to maximize one’s assets.

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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New PS Audio speaker coming.

Tech talk

I am most comfortable in the company of engineers.

It’s more than just camaraderie.

To non-engineering folk, our conversations might sound like a different language what with all the terminology bandied about.

But more than terminology is the implied understanding of bigger concepts. Terms like -3dB, half power, slew rate, open loop, rise times, wave shapes, carry with them major implications. If our depth of understanding of terminology’s implications is shallow, we can often find ourselves either lost or worse, drawing incorrect conclusions.

In a recent forum post, PS engineer Chris Brunhaver was generously answering some questions about our upcoming loudspeaker:

“We’re still preparing some marketing materials on the FR-30 but I can share that the low frequency cutoff is -6 db at 27 Hz. While a reflex/passive radiator enclosure, the roll-off below this is rather steep but you’ll see typically see extension from 20-25 Hz in-room. Still, as other mention, the benefit of multiple subs/ LF sources will help smooth the response wider listening area.

Please keep in mind that, if you listen to dynamic music in the bass and want a subwoofer that “keeps up” with the speaker, you’ll need something pretty potent. A pair of FR-30, with their 8 x 8″ woofers and 8 x 10″ passive radiators is capable of ~120 dB (in half space) from 25 hz and up with (when driven with 600 watts x 2) at the Klippel rated Xmax of the woofers. Of course, you won’t want to listen full range at that level, but the system is certainly capable of it in the low frequencies, so that it has very low distortion at more moderate levels and a feeling of effortless bass dynamics.”

I love that our engineering team reaches out to our HiFi Family.

Chris speaks in very dense terms even when he’s doing his best to keep it simple. Unpacking terms like “Klippel rated Xmax of the woofers” or even the innocent sounding “want a subwoofer that “keeps up” with the speaker” carry with them loads of implied understanding.

The challenge for any engineering-centric company is to figure out a way to effectively communicate complex concepts to a hungry audience and to do so without boring the crap out of people.

Chris does an amazing job and I love it when he talks like that. 🙂

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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Can work either way..

Subwoofer connections

For more than three decades I have strongly advocated the high-level connection of subwoofers—where we connect the output of the power amplifier to the input of the subwoofer.

What amazes me is that still to this day, that viewpoint is considered radical.

The vast majority of subwoofer manufacturers would have you connecting their subwoofers through low-level inputs as supplied by your preamplifier. Their reasoning is simple. The output of a preamplifier is cleaner and more direct than what happens after a power amplifier has processed it.

My good friend, John Hunter of REL subs is one of the few subwoofer manufacturers agreeing with me.

And here’s the thing. The majority of subwoofer manufacturers are correct. There’s no argument that the output of the preamplifier is cleaner, purer, and more direct than the output of a power amplifier.

So why the debate?

Because they are missing the point. Subwoofers should not stand out in the system. The whole point of a subwoofer is to augment the performance of the main loudspeakers. We don’t want to hear the subwoofer. We want to pretend as if it were a perfect appendage to the main speakers. To make that happen we need to do whatever we can to get closer to matching the sound of the main speakers—a perfect pairing.

We want the characteristics of the power amp to color the output of our subwoofer in an effort to more closely integrate it.

Hope that helps.

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Asheville, Walnut Cove, Biltmore Forrest and Western North Carolina’s Audio and Home Theater specialists present Cane Creek AV and Paul McGowan – PS Audio, Intl.

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Spiral journey

For many years I got frustrated in my stereo journey because it felt like I was moving in circles. In my quest for greater dynamics and realism, I would move from speaker model to speaker model and always wound up back in the same place. Forced to add a subwoofer to augment what I had.

This was years ago before I came to the understanding that all full-range systems require subwoofers—either internally or externally. Back then, I had wanted a single loudspeaker system that kicked ass on all fronts: transparency, dynamics, depth, width, realism, full range.

Out of those years of effort came an interesting observation. Though it felt like I was endlessly circling back to the same place I started—a desire for a single-speaker full range experience—what I began to notice is that at the end of each cycle I had made overall progress.

I was not in a circular pattern, but rather a spiral, constantly moving up the improvement ladder.

With every attempt and failure, we grow and learn so that the next round is better than where we started.