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Stupid Newbie Bass Question

Okay all you audiophiles and aficionados- when you watch local and network TV (HD broadcasts) does your bass sound boomy like you're in a freeking flea market? My recently resurrected set-up sounds great with DVD's and movies on DTV, but LFE's are boomy and bloated during commercials, & news, all HD.

I have a 7.1 set-up, NHT VT-2 Towers, VS-2 Center Channel, iC4 x 4 in-ceiling (side + rear surrounds). All powered by a Denon 3803 and NHT SA3 sub amp to bi-amp the side-firing subs on the VT-2's.

Maybe I need to adjust the high-pass, low-pass and phase controls on the back of the SA3? I find adjusting this amp confusing as hell.

Sounds great w/ HD movies and CD's. Maybe it's just my system delivering crappy sound accurately. Thoughts?
760raptor
plato
1,543 posts
 
Don't know... I have Comcast Cable and the sound is well balanced all the way around except that sometimes CD's tend to sound more boomy than other programming.

Though from what you've said it sounds like you don't have the bass fully dialed in. And you're right it's pretty confusing and difficult to get right even when you know what you're doing. I'd experiment more with the settings... sometimes the phase alignment (distance of speaker to listener) makes a rather large difference, so experiment with that as well.
rrog
1,958 posts
 
It's not confusing or difficult with a REL.
mceljo
1,357 posts
 
I have noticed boomy bass before from a TV/Cable source. If the bass sounds great for other sources I wouldn't adjust for TV source if at all possible. I find that Dolby often has too much bass on my system (watching NASCAR comes to mind) so I just choose a different setting on my receiver that reduces the bass. I don't know if you have an option similar to this.
savjam
48 posts
 
I have found the sound quality from cable TV to be all over the place. However, the sound from some programming on premium channels such as HBO, Games of Thrones for example, is excellent as well as the sound from the music channels. If your system sounds good otherwise as you state, I would not sweat it.

I have comcast cable box (2-channel mode only) which sounds slightly leaner than my CD/DVD player. Therefore, I use a slightly higher subwoofer setting than for the CD player.

savjam
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