Adding a Subwoofer for £100.. Thoughts??

[Giggity21]

Hi all,

i would like to add a subwoofer to my current set up comprising of two Mission 757's powered off a Linn Classik Preamp (All are about 15 years old with RGB outputs) but run really sweetly. they are standing currently on my carpet in my room, (i think i need to put them up on spikes becuase it seems like the bass is shooting into the floor as i can hear it when im low down in the room but not su much futher back, any advice?)

I listen to a fair amount of differing music, mostly it handles it all fine and sounds great, but sometimes it dosent get enough of the low end.. (think the bass line of Rap God by Eminem just as an example) it lacks a disincive punch. I have found some pretty nice used small units on eBay for around £100, including a 8" Velodyne SPL 800 which looks pretty perfect. (The room is rectangular shaped about 6M x 3.5M and has a sloped roof, the speakers are effectivly in one corner and shoot sound into the room).

Hope there is enough detail for someone to give me an idea of what to look for, i dont really know too much about this and would appreciate any advice. I know Velodyne are a good brand and as the rest of the setup is pretty nice i dont mind waiting for a good deal on a nice brand, some good looking KEF stuff on there too atm... looking to spend around £100-£150 on a used unit to hopefully get a better unit for less money (of course).

All help much appreciated

 

[CnoEvil]

Try and stretch to a BK Gemini (£214): http://www.bkelec.com/hifi/sub_woofers.htm

 

[SpursGator]

My best advise: don't.

It is really unlikely that a small sub is going to give you what you are looking for. It will not give you nice clear sound with extra punch - it will give you your current sound accompanied by a booming noise (and it will still lack punch).

If you wanted to add a sub to give a two-channel system more realistic low bass, you would need at least a 12" woofer, preferably in a heavily stuffed sealed box. Velodyne, REL, et al can sell you this but it is going to cost more than a hundred quid.

The small subs on the market are designed to fill in the low end in a home cinema system with small satellites, so that explosions don't sound pathetic. They will not improve your system and may in fact give you quite a headache.

Don't get me wrong - I know exactly what you are looking for and why. But it won't work the way you are hoping. In the tiny cabin of a car an 8" sub can give you strong bass, but not in a living room, even a small one. I encourage you to really research this before making a decision.

You want a 12" woofer designed for music first. Normally I would say 15" but your room is small - the 12" will do it.

There are a lot of reasons why but consider that you really only need extra support below, say, 80 hz. So anything that the sub does above 80 is irrelevant to your needs. Now look up the frequency response of any 8" driver on the market - there isn't one that doesn't start to roll off well above 100 hz. You can put it into a box and make it louder, and put a port in the box and make it louder still (and boomier). But the only way that you're getting a decently flat response below 80 hz is with heavy equalisation, which leads to distortion on heavy bass (more boom).

An 8" driver is most comfortable in the 100-200 hz range, and using one in a sub means you are driving it exclusively in the 20-80 hz range. No amount of design trickery can get around this basic mismatch. It will give you some boom in your explosions but expecting this setup to make good music is simply denying the laws of physics.

I haven't posted in awhile but having just built a subwoofer, and thus having just spent a lot of time thinking about this, I couldn't resist. Everyone wants more bass and wishes they could buy a little box to stick in the corner that would transform their system, the way it might in a car. They can't, and it won't. I learned the hard way: I bought ProAc D18s, and wished they had better bass. So I bought the very expensive B&W PV1D - which features two 10" woofers. It was NOT a success. The ProAcs produce beautiful bass, it just doesn't go that deep. Adding a basketball-sized sub that the reviewers loved seemed to make sense but it really just mildly reinforced the bottom end with slightly lesser-quality bass in the same region as the ProAcs' port tuning. 20-40 Hz was still a big empty except for the boomy room gain, and using the B&W's EQ to fix that mostly just made the bass disappear.

The truth - the TRUTH! - is that subwoofers for two channel home audiophile systems are either fairly big, or not very good. The mythical small box in the corner that gives your speakers great bass does not exist (unless your sats are very small indeed).

 

[Giggity21]

Thanks for such a complete response, i had wondered if this was a possibility, I'm glad I posted here first and saved myself money and disappointment! Alas I would have liked to add one but it seems a 12" or greater will be out of my price range for some time, in which case I am going to look into putting spikes on my speakers to get them off the carpet and get the bass more audible and out into the room, its still pretty good as it is to be fair.

Cheers for your response, this was a big help!

 

[davedotco]

Thanks for such a complete response, i had wondered if this was a possibility, I'm glad I posted here first and saved myself money and disappointment! Alas I would have liked to add one but it seems a 12" or greater will be out of my price range for some time, in which case I am going to look into putting spikes on my speakers to get them off the carpet and get the bass more audible and out into the room, its still pretty good as it is to be fair.

Cheers for your response, this was a big help!

SpursGators response is pretty much on the money, though looking at his kit and reading his post, it is pretty clear that he is pretty serious about his bass reproduction.

Whilst I concur with his views in general, the BK XLS200 and XLS400 models make a reasonable job of extending the bass on systems that are a little lower on the foodchain, both models feature a 10" woofer and decently powered amplification, a little over £300 or £400 respectively.

But, and it is a big but, my experience with these subs has been for 'normal' music only, ie I do not listen to hip hop, dance or any of the modern 'bass driven' styles of music, and they work pretty well when carefully set up. I get the impression that a lot of modern music requires something else though, maybe mid bass presence, to give it some 'kick' and deep bass 'weight' to underpin everything.

The 'kick' does not come from the sub, this has to come from the main speakers and sometimes smaller stand mounts do that better than floorstanders, the sub then simply adds the 'weight'.

In the end it is all about cost, a cheap sub will give you some boom and rattle, might even be quite fun but will do nothing for your music, SpursGator is spot on in this respect.

There are ways ro get what you want for relatively modest sums of money but it will be rather more tha £100-150 and wouldrequire a radical rethink of your system.

 

[letsavit2]

Are we all talking domestic hi fi here?

I have a 10inch bk sub in a 4.5x3m room. My neat speakers have 4inch woofers and can produce enough bass for most music, but when I'm playing house/D&B my sub can produce more than enough bass for me, something I'm sure my poor neighbours would also agree on!

 

[CnoEvil]

Thanks for such a complete response, i had wondered if this was a possibility, I'm glad I posted here first and saved myself money and disappointment! Alas I would have liked to add one but it seems a 12" or greater will be out of my price range for some time, in which case I am going to look into putting spikes on my speakers to get them off the carpet and get the bass more audible and out into the room, its still pretty good as it is to be fair.

Cheers for your response, this was a big help!

Although I agree (mostly) with SpursGator, I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic. I have heard the Velodyne SPL800R which is similar to the 800i, but with a remote and EQ. It is able to sound more powerful than its size would have you believe, due a 1000W (I think) amp, so it can shilt a lot of air. If you can get it within budget, I don't think you will be too disappointed.

If buying new, the BK is as good as you can get for the money, but the 800i is a much superior Sub......I replied this morning with little time to read your post, so this is a fuller response.