After some setup advice

Unicorn · 26 Mar 2017 at 21:33

My current system needs a bit of an upgrade in the front end first as I find it lacks any punch without driving the sub right up which kills the rest of the sound. Suspect it's my front 2 and centre which need changing

I currently run an onkyo HT R390 with the set of skf 548 and passive sub. The amp is rated 110w max at 6 ohm I believe and range is 6-16 ohm also. Is this system any good to be upgraded speaker wise or would a new amp be a good starting point?

Ideally looking for 2 floorstanding fronts and a good sized centre. Budget is about 150 to 200 as iv been limited to money for speakers.

Let me know thoughts on what if anything is possible as I'm really not sure on this stuff

vila · 27 Mar 2017 at 12:47

The speakers aren't the best but the problem with your system is the passive sub - 5.1 is designed to use a dedicated active sub - anything passive is always going to be far too weak.

Unicorn · 27 Mar 2017 at 13:03

vila said:
The speakers aren't the best but the problem with your system is the passive sub - 5.1 is designed to use a dedicated active sub - anything passive is always going to be far too weak.

Yeah I did imagine a sub may also be an issue. It's boomy when it gets going but to drive it I need to really whack the sub up in settings which as said is killing the rest

vila · 27 Mar 2017 at 13:06

It would be the first thing i would change in your setup.

I'd imagine your amp doesn't have any type of auto EQ built in so i would also download a SPL meter app for a smart phone and read a guide on how to set up and balance your speaker levels.

Unicorn · 27 Mar 2017 at 22:13

vila said:
It would be the first thing i would change in your setup.

I'd imagine your amp doesn't have any type of auto EQ built in so i would also download a SPL meter app for a smart phone and read a guide on how to set up and balance your speaker levels.

Iv been having a look at that this evening and it seems my speakers are quite unbalanced so will need to balance them, are active subs a massive gain over passive ones then and how so? Does it free up some power on my amp to produce cleaner sound on my 5 speakers or something else?

hornetstinger · 27 Mar 2017 at 22:17

How are you powering your sub? AVR's don't have amplifiers in them to drive passive subs.

Also just because it's passive doesn't mean it's low end, you can get some monster passive subs (like 18" 3000W requiring offboard amplifier) - but generally passive subs are pretty awful

For your budget don't buy floorstanders, buy standmounts. You won't get good floorstanders for £150-£200 (new)

vila · 28 Mar 2017 at 01:17

Unicorn said:
Iv been having a look at that this evening and it seems my speakers are quite unbalanced so will need to balance them, are active subs a massive gain over passive ones then and how so? Does it free up some power on my amp to produce cleaner sound on my 5 speakers or something else?

That quite a wide topic to get into 'fully' but the short version... for the vast majority of cases 5.1 signals are designed to be played back with a amplifier decoding the 5.1 signal, amplifying the 5 full range channels and outputting them to speakers (often using satellite speakers at relatively low power ) and passing the dedicated 0.1 bass channel to and active subwoofer that will mostly have quite a powerful amp to drive the sub that can hit frequencies even large floor standing speakers cannot.

The vast majority of passive subwoofers are either a budget solution or trying to take the lower frequencies from the front speakers which is very difficult to get right and a bastardisation of the mix.

Ive seen people use very high end floor standing speakers in 5.0 setups without a subwoofer and thats also never right - put simply those dolby and DTS soundtracks where specifically mixed to be used with a sub - its an important part of recreating that mix

I had at the manual for your system on the onkyo website and unfortunately its very difficult to upgrade ;

Although it looks like a standard AVR its really a home theatre in a box kit. it has a sixth channel of amplification for a passive subwoofer -

The AVR has no subwoofer pre out so you can't actually add a normal subwoofer to it.

The AVR has push in plastic speaker clips rather than binding posts which makes using decent speaker wire a problem.

If you want to improve the sound really i think you'd want to consider changing the amp to a proper separates amp and also buying a proper subwoofer. You could keep using the satellite speakers or at least use them as a stop gap until funds allowed further upgrades later.

hornetstinger · 28 Mar 2017 at 08:09

You could get a high level to low level conveter, or perhaps get a subwoofer with high level inputs. For example, I could use my £500 active subwoofer with his AVR and it'll be fine, and it won't be robbing power from the amplifier. It has high level inputs but it isn't used to power the driver. That way he could still continue to use his AVR.
Altough it's likely he AVR has no bass management adjustment, it's probably fixed to small 160hz for all speakers.

Unicorn · 29 Mar 2017 at 07:58

vila said:
That quite a wide topic to get into 'fully' but the short version... for the vast majority of cases 5.1 signals are designed to be played back with a amplifier decoding the 5.1 signal, amplifying the 5 full range channels and outputting them to speakers (often using satellite speakers at relatively low power ) and passing the dedicated 0.1 bass channel to and active subwoofer that will mostly have quite a powerful amp to drive the sub that can hit frequencies even large floor standing speakers cannot.

The vast majority of passive subwoofers are either a budget solution or trying to take the lower frequencies from the front speakers which is very difficult to get right and a bastardisation of the mix.

Ive seen people use very high end floor standing speakers in 5.0 setups without a subwoofer and thats also never right - put simply those dolby and DTS soundtracks where specifically mixed to be used with a sub - its an important part of recreating that mix

I had at the manual for your system on the onkyo website and unfortunately its very difficult to upgrade ;

Although it looks like a standard AVR its really a home theatre in a box kit. it has a sixth channel of amplification for a passive subwoofer -

The AVR has no subwoofer pre out so you can't actually add a normal subwoofer to it.

The AVR has push in plastic speaker clips rather than binding posts which makes using decent speaker wire a problem.

If you want to improve the sound really i think you'd want to consider changing the amp to a proper separates amp and also buying a proper subwoofer. You could keep using the satellite speakers or at least use them as a stop gap until funds allowed further upgrades later.

Did fear that my amp may of come into this, so it's some kind of strange onkyo setup in reality? Yeah the push pins are quite poor don't allow for plugs of any kind which I didn't like. I may have to wait a few months if not and review it again. Just play with it a bit more for now until I'm satisfied for now

hornetstinger said:
You could get a high level to low level conveter, or perhaps get a subwoofer with high level inputs. For example, I could use my £500 active subwoofer with his AVR and it'll be fine, and it won't be robbing power from the amplifier. It has high level inputs but it isn't used to power the driver. That way he could still continue to use his AVR.
Altough it's likely he AVR has no bass management adjustment, it's probably fixed to small 160hz for all speakers.

Its crossover are you on about? That is changeable if so. From about 20hz to 200hz iirc