I’m not 100% sure but it sounds like you might have been double ganging the filtering. You say your subwoofer output from your preamp or amp is 80 dbs, I think you might have meant 80Hz. If so, in most cases you would NOT need the low pass filter set at all on the SVS subwoofer itself then. The correct thing to do in this case is to either bypass it entirely (which you have found sounds better) or to turn the setting on the subwoofer as high as it would go, say 250 Hz or whatever, such that the slope of the crossover in the sub doesn’t interact with whatever slope is used by your preamp when it does its low pass at 80Hz. Anyway, that is what my old Klipsch subwoofer manual says to do. In other words, you’d only engage the sub’s crossover and low pass filtering if you were sending it a FULL range signal from your preamp. So, I’m just guessing here, but what you were hearing before might have been the crossover slopes of the preamp or amp subwoofer output interacting with the slope of the crossover in the sub. Removing the one from the sub filled in that "hole" you were describing, so it now blends better with your main left and right speakers.
SVS SUB BETTER WITH LOW PASS FILTER OFF
After endless tweaking and experimentation, I have concluded beyond a shadow of a doubt, my system sounds profoundly better by turning OFF the SVS "low pass filter"! My amp has a sub out with a filter option set at 80 db's. Like all good audiophiles I carefully followed instructions, searched google to tweak all settings. I tried all variables in frequency. Until one fateful day, for no special reason, I turned it OFF. "WAIT", I said to myself. This sounds better. "Can't be!" "It must be boomy, or bloated, or congested .....or something bad. NO, it wasn't. It not only sounded more cohesive but the "hole" in the sound stage was gone. (I had a sense there was a perceptible hole in the musical picture which kept vaguely appearing which destroyed the whole overall enjoyment. I'm interested if anyone else has tried this heretical approach?
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- 18 posts total
- 18 posts total