Hey guys, Ive been building up a new home theater system. I have 4 mono amplifiers to run 4 speakers. So far so good. Just wondering what you guys think about using an "active" subwoofer which has an integrated amplifier? Do you think its really worth the effort to get another mono amp just to run a passive subwoofer? Im tending toward the "active" design also because im not really an audiophile anymore meaning im not a perfectionist but want good quality, it should just sound good and be simple to hook up, also Im running out of rack space slowly how many watts do you think I need for a subwoofer? would 400-500 W be enough? when there is an earth quake in the movie, I want it to feel like an earth quake I also need to do something with a center speaker. John
car audio is more my thing than in home stuff...but I know a fair bit... In theory a mono and passive sub is 'better'. and certainly allows more flexibility. i.e. you can pick any speaker/enclosure/amplifier combination you want. It also means that should you want to change/upgrade a certain part (e.g. more power or a larger(more efficient) driver) then you can change individual parts as/when required. But that doesn't mean that an active solution can't work for you. It largely comes down to budget and space available. quite a lot of active solutions are pretty good value (and can have good performance), you could try one for a while, and then only 'upgrade' if you really need to. Many good hi-fi shops will let you demo gear (often in your own home). This is probably the 'best' solution. If you already have 4 mono amps, I presume you are on pretty good terms with your hifi shop? I would be pushed into having a dedicated mono amp and passive sub, just beacuse it's the 'better' way. It may simply not be neccessary for your requirements. A good friend of mine works in high end specialist domestic and commercial hifi installations, so I can pick his brains for you if you want a more specific answer. Drop me a pm with details of the rest of setup, and I'll have a chat with him I suppose it comes down to what you want to achieve & how much you have/are prepared to spend. FWIW you could probably make some sort of analagy with the requirement for coil overs on a 'fun' trackday car. i.e. while nice to have, they are not a neccessity for sufficeint performance. there are performance gains to be had, but wether these are needed is dependant on your requirements & goals.
the sunfire adwo posted is excelent. I sold hifi for 3 years, some car audio, but mostly home audio. It's been a few years since i've really been in the industry, but from what i can remember... If your doing a home theater setup, i cannot stress enough how equal your front sound stage should be. you should have a minimum of 5 speakers, front left and right, rear left and right, and the center channel. If possible get another speaker that is a dedicated center channel speaker made to compliment your front sound stage, or an identical speaker as your left and right, but stuck in the middle of the two. most of your dialoge and on screen action goes through your center channel speaker, so it is important not to skimp out on this area. Getting speakers matched is important for getting a balanced sound. you don't want your center to be blarig loud, and hear nothing from the left or right speaker, and vise versa. enough about front stage. many active subs are very good quality. valodyne and sunfire imediately come to mind as very good quality subs. instead of investing in a mono amp and a passive sub setup, i would get an active sub, and a mono amp that is the same as the others for your center channel, so everything is equal accross all areas (i go even so far as equal length speaker wire, but that's a bit much to most people) back in the states, my mom has a kick ass hifi setup since i couldn't ship it to germany I spent most of my money on my front speakers, these; energy veritas http://www.energy-speakers.com/v2/products/product-line.php?id=2 anyways, enough of my rambling, and active sub of good quality is just fine. what are your speakers and amps?
This is funny. I just spent two hours moving my sub around the room trying to get the optimal location for sound quality. Small room acoustics suck. The room modes are impossible to get around unless......you have more than one sub. There are so many possibilities with the question you asked John that we could go all day. It is like asking what cams are best? There are a few parameters for the answer: Tonal match to the other speakers in the system in regards to the crossover point and slope. What are you going to use for the signal? Sub out from a receiver or from seperates? What is the cutoff and slope of the sub out of the processor? Is the crossover on the sub defeatable? If not then the the slope will be added to the slope of the processor. Not good since the fronts probably roll off at a different rate. It is a pain in the ass to get all the speakers in "tune" with each other in a small acoustics environment. Don't even start with the automobile cabin...... I spent hours with the RTA doing measurements and sound checks and will never get the sub band integrated ideally. You have to compromise. Music or movies. If you have the ear it will always bug you, if you don't you can almost place it anywhere. I can hear the missing notes on the bass guitar and the missing 10k harmonic on the kick drum skin. Sound quality is subjective. I would try to get two or more smaller subs and place them in 1/3 boundaries, one on the front wall and one on the side wall. The best way to integrate a sub into the system is to place the sub where you will sit and raised up to ear height. Turn on some familiar music and the start crawling around on the floor, around the boundaries of the room. Where ever the sound is the best to you, place sub #1 here. Do this again with sub #2 and it will fill in the missing freq band that the room modes are canceling (null) or enhancing (boomy). When I do sound demos for large arenas, we have large arrays of subs and they integrate in the free air environment easily. Put this setup in a room with reflections that hold magnitude and it sounds like ass. Small room acoustics suck. T
funny, when i started reading you post i was thinking of mentioning to first anchor the sub in a corner, this is usually best for people who want max bass for sound effects in movies. I was also going to mention the place the sub in your seat and crawl around the room method if the first wasn't satisfactory. I was delighted after reading your whole post how much time it seams you've spent setting up your system. In my old house with the energy's i spent about 10 hours setting up the two main front speakers! Adwo, lovely speakers aren't they? I love the construction with the rod bolting the speaker to the back of the speaker box. I've taken both the 2.2i and the 2.4i appart to replace drivers, and the construction on the inside was quite fun to look at. I found for home theater my denon avr3801 is enough, but for music, it didn't have enough juice to play the 2.2's at full range, so i switch to my parasound amp when i want to listen to 2 channel. man i miss this stuff!
