Adding a sub woofer with a pair of 15As

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So I am enjoying my big bad MLs for most of my music that I listen to. The super tight bass, from the sealed woofers are fantastic.

However, I recently put on LL COOL J, Going Back to Cali, as it has some TREMENDOUS lows. I turned up the bass from my Michi AMP all the way. I went to the back of the speakers and turned the knows up.

And after listening to that track, I have to admit, I was a bit underwhelmed. Perhaps do I need a sub woofer added? With built in dual 600 watt speakers and the money I spent I feel that should be unnecessary.

Should I add a aub
 

Robert D

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My opinion, yes. You can set the crossover on your receiver/pre-amp to cut off your mains at around 60hz and that allows them to really shine on bass frequencies higher than that, and then the sub does all of the lower. I use a BF210 with my Prodigy speakers.
 

TiBoneFramer

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I have 15As and currently using 3 BF212s to augment. Nothing against the speakers, but the spot you can put a subwoofer cannot be beat by a speaker. Dont overwhelm the speakers....think headroom not output
 
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I have 15As and currently using 3 BF212s to augment. Nothing against the speakers, but the spot you can put a subwoofer cannot be beat by a speaker. Dont overwhelm the speakers....think headroom not output
3 subs? That is a setup. What do you listen too?
 

Robert D

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I have 15As and currently using 3 BF212s to augment. Nothing against the speakers, but the spot you can put a subwoofer cannot be beat by a speaker. Dont overwhelm the speakers....think headroom not output
Do you have one sub as nearfield, perhaps directly behind the main listening position? Im looking at adding a ML sub for that, to accentuate my BF 210.
 

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One on either side in the corners and one at the back. Think I'm going to add 2 to each back corner and one more to each front for a total of 9
 

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The Hulk exploding in space
One good scene I like in a movie for bass is the scene in Saving Private Ryan where they are in the small ruined town at the end. Its the battle when the tanks come in and the American soldiers are hiding up close to the tank and trying to get the "sticky bomb" on it. The tank shakes the hell out of the entire room. Amazing realism there I feel.
 

TiBoneFramer

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One good scene I like in a movie for bass is the scene in Saving Private Ryan where they are in the small ruined town at the end. Its the battle when the tanks come in and the American soldiers are hiding up close to the tank and trying to get the "sticky bomb" on it. The tank shakes the hell out of the entire room. Amazing realism there I feel.
Are you using BEQ?
 

TiBoneFramer

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Not sure what that is. Is that the setting thats supposed to cut back on wall vibrations? I dont use any of that. I prefer to just keep it as is. Im in my own home and dont have to worry about neighbors.
Bass EQ basically adding back low frequencies that have been severely cut from movies. Saving Private Ryan suffers badly, so if you like it now you'd LOVE it restored to its original intent.
 

TiBoneFramer

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See image. The dotted green line is whats on the disc. The solid green is what it should be
 

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Robert D

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Bass EQ basically adding back low frequencies that have been severely cut from movies. Saving Private Ryan suffers badly, so if you like it now you'd LOVE it restored to its original intent.
Oh, ok. I dont think my receiver has that. The features I am aware of take out bass so as to not make the walls vibrate. The version of the movie I watch is the 4k on disc and it has been remastered. I dont think anything was taken out of that. Ive not heard of Bass EQ. Sounds good, especially for older material.
 

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See image. The dotted green line is whats on the disc. The solid green is what it should be
Thats a huge difference for sure. id like to know if the 4k version I have has that done on it too. I use the nice Panasonic Player they have, their best model and it has a high quality audio component.
 

TiBoneFramer

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Thats a huge difference for sure. id like to know if the 4k version I have has that done on it too. I use the nice Panasonic Player they have, their best model and it has a high quality audio component.
That is the same audio track as you have my friend. If you use RCA to your sub and have $300 it can be fixed. But hate to tell you you've only seen the rolled off version of SPR and almost every other movie
 

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Here is a picture of the back of my disc. Its the 20th anniversary edition. How do you know if a movie has had that work done on it to take down the bass level? You can see this is Dolby Atmos and dts-HD Master Audio. Master Audio is supposed to be from the master tape, right?

saving private ryan.jpg
 

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One on either side in the corners and one at the back. Think I'm going to add 2 to each back corner and one more to each front for a total of 9

At some point this starts to be a waste of assets, as by stacking the subs relatively near to each other, you are just increasing the amplitude, as you already have reached reference levels. [it does not make any difference whether you have 21 or 24dB headroom], it will still not get you nearer to infrasonic area.

This is how my modest setup looks like in-room - purple one is 2x1600 & 2x 1600, placed along the front wall + 2 x 1600 individual in rear corners [see my system in the members area]. This is with the -12dB gain on subs to get to calibration level of 82dB

1677399753348.png



My personal next step is to go vertical and have custom build pcs 15in subs to be placed on wall, as per Trinnov recommendation - one upfront abve the screen and one on the back wall.
 

TiBoneFramer

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Here is a picture of the back of my disc. Its the 20th anniversary edition. How do you know if a movie has had that work done on it to take down the bass level? You can see this is Dolby Atmos and dts-HD Master Audio. Master Audio is supposed to be from the master tape, right?

View attachment 23976
See file. Sorry man no it doesnt work like that. You have not really heard it yet
 

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