Good 'budget' subwoofer for modest 3.1 setup

agw_01 · 10 May 2020 at 20:27

gailjon said:
Room is about 5.5m x 4.5m but oas it is a general use family room, separate to the sitting room, we are only using it to watch family movies together we are not needing thunderous bass.

My front speakers are MA Silver 1's and MA Silver C150 centre and the amp is a Marantz 1509, none of which scream massive overkill.

I am tempted to just get the Gemini and see ho wit goes, at adding bass to my music and allowing us to watch films with some

Echo my point above, you do not want to go too small a sub. You'd only kick yourself if you had to mess about selling it in order to upgrade.

In that sized room, I'd say a BK XXLS400 would be perfect. There's a second hand one on eBay now for £350. If you didn't want a 400, I'd probably go with a P12, a Double Gem or finally an XLS200 in that order.

The reason the LG had plenty of bass is because it was tuned to a high frequency. It takes a lot more power to produce proper sub bass frequencies and moving to a proper subwoofer that's too small for your room will leave you disappointed after spending all that money. I have a 5x4m room and would go no lower than an XXLS400 personally, but then I do also run big front speakers. Remember, you can turn down a big sub but you can't turn up a small sub!

Buying a bigger sub now also gives you the headroom if you want to upgrade the speakers in the future. The Silver 1's can always be moved to the rear in a 5.1 setup

hornetstinger · 10 May 2020 at 21:41

Yeah that isnt a tiny room, I'd say Gemini not sufficient, go xls200 minimum ideally xls400.

hornetstinger · 10 May 2020 at 21:45

My room is cargo ship hold so yeah

hornetstinger · 10 May 2020 at 21:57

Damn great watching couple of movies both subs on, hehe motorbike engine onscreen and felt exactly like the real thing.

And only listening to full 1.5mb/sec bitrate lossy DTS over optical, not hd lossless (old preamp)

gailjon · 11 May 2020 at 08:15

agw_01 said:
Echo my point above, you do not want to go too small a sub. You'd only kick yourself if you had to mess about selling it in order to upgrade.

In that sized room, I'd say a BK XXLS400 would be perfect. There's a second hand one on eBay now for £350. If you didn't want a 400, I'd probably go with a P12, a Double Gem or finally an XLS200 in that order.

The reason the LG had plenty of bass is because it was tuned to a high frequency. It takes a lot more power to produce proper sub bass frequencies and moving to a proper subwoofer that's too small for your room will leave you disappointed after spending all that money. I have a 5x4m room and would go no lower than an XXLS400 personally, but then I do also run big front speakers. Remember, you can turn down a big sub but you can't turn up a small sub!

Buying a bigger sub now also gives you the headroom if you want to upgrade the speakers in the future. The Silver 1's can always be moved to the rear in a 5.1 setup

That's the danger - getting a pair of MA floorstanders and shifting furniture to fir the 1's at the rear. Then getting a pair of Monoliths just to add to the overall feel of the film!

I think the XLS200 will do for the moment...

agw_01 · 11 May 2020 at 09:40

It's a slippery slope

Yaayuh! · 12 May 2020 at 07:40

Not sure if it matters to you, but only the newer BK subs have an auto power function.

gailjon · 12 May 2020 at 11:16

Deed done, ordered a white XLS200 from the BK ebay shop. Satin white to match centre speaker and AV unit.

Auto power off is not really an issue for me so much as quality of the sub itself although it would be nice to have.

Waiting for delivery is the tough part!

agw_01 · 12 May 2020 at 11:19

gailjon said:
Waiting for delivery is the tough part!

haha, I feel your pain. Waiting for my Monolith was painful, especially when DPD refused to deliver it because it was too big and heavy :eek:

Good buy on the XLS. You definitely made the right choice over the Gemini. Don't forget to do the subwoofer crawl when setting it up!

hornetstinger · 12 May 2020 at 12:12

(White)

Urgghh. Shudders

gailjon · 19 May 2020 at 08:48

BK have confirmed that the sub arrives today in all of its white gloriousness!

I have so far resisted running audyssey on the Marantz amp so will get it set into the corner of the room, tweak the dials and run that.

I have been looking at various videos regarding sun setup and seem to have some idea of what to start with and am hoping to get a real boost for stereo as well as films.

Looking forward to it.

MrRockliffe · 19 May 2020 at 08:53

gailjon said:
BK have confirmed that the sub arrives today in all of its white gloriousness!

I have so far resisted running audyssey on the Marantz amp so will get it set into the corner of the room, tweak the dials and run that.

I have been looking at various videos regarding sun setup and seem to have some idea of what to start with and am hoping to get a real boost for stereo as well as films.

Looking forward to it.

Remember to use high level and LFE :-)

gailjon · 19 May 2020 at 09:23

MrRockliffe said:
Remember to use high level and LFE

That was exactly what I was going to ask.

I see that REL rave about using high level and LFE at the same time and of course, the BK subs also have both inputs.

I can understand the LFE working with the surround codecs of the amp, setting the speakers to small. 80 hz crossover, etc and all fine.

However, when the amp plays stereo, automatically changing to stereo setting, what happens with speaker size, crossover, etc?

Do the speakers remain small and the crossover at 80h? Also, how does the sub know which input it is going top use? Can the amp be set to use LFE for films and high level for stereo?

gailjon · 19 May 2020 at 09:30

I see that when using the sub's high level input you should set the main speakers to large to ensure that the full signal is sent to the sub.

This is starting to get confusing.

MrRockliffe · 19 May 2020 at 09:31

gailjon said:
That was exactly what I was going to ask.

I see that REL rave about using high level and LFE at the same time and of course, the BK subs also have both inputs.

I can understand the LFE working with the surround codecs of the amp, setting the speakers to small. 80 hz crossover, etc and all fine.

However, when the amp plays stereo, automatically changing to stereo setting, what happens with speaker size, crossover, etc?

Do the speakers remain small and the crossover at 80h? Also, how does the sub know which input it is going top use? Can the amp be set to use LFE for films and high level for stereo?

Rel have some great videos on YouTube that you might want to take a look at :-)

gailjon · 20 May 2020 at 11:43

It has arrived and has been setup but there is a problem - a transformer hum when attached to the rca cable.
Remove the cable and the hum disappears.
I have tried different mains sockets, and had the cable attached from sub to amp completely separated from any other cables and potential interference but no change.
The hum is related to the low level gain as it gets louder when the gain is increased, and quieter when it is decreased.

jpaul · 20 May 2020 at 12:11

I've removed earth connection on some double-insulated audio components to fix that ... but this link maybe saner .. cross connect high level ground?
https://relsupport.zendesk.com/hc/e...9588-How-do-I-stop-my-subwoofer-from-humming-

hornetstinger · 21 May 2020 at 11:44

Ummm not a electrician but isn't that dangerous?

gailjon · 22 May 2020 at 08:33

New shorter subwoofer cable and all well. No hum at all so I presume the supplied cable was not well shielded or was not grounding effectively on the amp end. It was rather loose whereas the new one has a nice tight connection.

Enjoying the new sub as it adds a lot of extra bass, enhancing both movies and music without overwhelming either.

One issue is that I seem to have to have the volume up quite high when listening through the amop compared to the TV's speakers.