Subwoofer slam vs boom

The reason you have sloppy bass is probably the fact that you have so many different drivers trying to move air at low frequencies. When it comes to tight bass less is sometimes more. The less things you ask of each component, the better they can work. The first thing you should try is setting your speakers to small and allowing your subs to take over below 90hz (usually the point most preamps/av receivers are set to). You may even want to go with a single sub- the VTF-3 puts out quite a bit of bass from what i've heard. I don't know what kind of bass management capabilities your processer has but you may want to invest in outlaw audio's icbm. This will allow you to fine tune each speaker's crossover point with the subs, particularly helpful if some of your speakers produce nice bass below 90hz. Lastly, two woofers operating in phase fireing opposite each other will cancel each other out, you may want to adjust the phase of the subwoofers. Keep in mind two subs do not equal twice as much bass, the only reason you should use a second sub in a room is to account for an odd shaped room that may have some sort of acoustical imbalance (i.e. open on one end). You may even be drawing too much AC out of the wall, five speakers and two subs, plus a TV if you are watching a movie will draw a hellava lot of current. This should be easy to spot b/c your lights will flicker- turn something off!. With your equipment you should be able to loosen fillings, bowels, cement and so on, its just a matter of proper setup. Let us know how it goes-

Thanks for the help all, just pack to tinkering I reckon...

The processor has stereo sub outs, with the usual large/small speaker sizes and bass redirect and roll off. Cross points are 50,65,80,90 and so on up. The processor can be switched from one to two subs, or none.

The amp and subs share a 30amp dedicated line, with the source equipment on a 20amp dedicated line. Current "should" not be a problem, I have 200amp service to the house(renting, guess I should have asked before I installed the lines...) with an old Push-Matic circuit breaker box. New breakers for the lines.

I still am confused about the speaker settings, to me if a speaker is large, so flat to 40hz, and you set it as a large, does this speaker play stuff at 40hz, with the subs playing the same thing at 40hz? Back to what is in the .1 track.. Does this track contain the same information as in the front mains? My guess is yes, so their is no reason to have "large" speakers.

I really love the idea of the Outlaw ICBM, with the ability to tweak each speaker. I just having a hard time sticking a $250 piece of gear smack in the middle of $20k worth of electronics. The cables would all have to be unbalanced, ect. On the other hand, for $250 bucks, this is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest.

The current room does have an open corner. Stereo subs are impossible to "localize", blend in very well. Sounds silly, but it is hard to hear one sub when you have two.

Thanks
Marty

opps, the subs are both in the same phase, different phases kills the bass

Hmmm i don't think you'll need an icbm, your preamp seems to have the right features. That whack in the chest feeling you are looking for occurs in the 70-80hz area. Real bass below 30 is felt in the bones more then it is heard. I'll bet your friend was using a subwoofer that didn't have as flat a responce as your subs. My first speakers were a pair of cervin vega at-12's. They could hit you in the chest like oj but really didn't put out much below 40hz. If you want a flat responce you can't have a big bump in that upper bass region. I now how have a pair of Dynaudio 1.8's which have a much better bass responce, but don't put out nearly as much slam as those old vega's. It could be that your gear is too good. You probably have a nice flat responce down to the upper teens, i bet with the right song you could crap your pants heehe. What you need to do is un-audiophile your gear a bit. Set your speakers to small, and your crossover to 80 or 90 so your subs will work that upper bass. Set the subs to max output and let it rip. Make sure there are no pets or small children nearby and then play some good old rap music or that scene fom Heat where they bust out of the bank. Those M16's should sound like a sledge. In responce to your other question, the .1 is a discrete low frequency channel movie makers use to place only low frequency information. The information on this track will only be sent to the subwoofer if one is present or 'large' in a system without a sub. When speakers are set to 'small' all information below the crossover point is redirected first to the sub, and then to any 'large' speakers. The bass management abilities of preamps and recievers varies greatly and tends to be the weakest link, but if you can choose the crossover point, you probably have a pretty good one. Having large speakers in a hometheater setup is still a good idea because all channels are full range these days (20hz-20k).

... I thought I would get kicked out of here for saying the C word(Vega's). Those were my first speakers years ago, sounds funny saying that I am 26. I still have them, the DX-9's. I tried to use these as passive subs, disconnecting the tweeters and mids, running the .1 channel straight to the subs via a Bryston 9B amp. Just did not like the result, the HSU-2 I have sounded way better. The Vegas just sounded like someone put a metal garbage can over my head and was beating on it with a rubber hammer.

I was thinking of bypassing the HSU-3's amps and running the signals through a channel on my Simaudio Titan amp(7ch). Anyone know if this idea would be worth a try? I am wondering if the Sim might have better control over the HSU drivers. No the best solution, drawing the juice out of the Sim might not be the best idea, but this thing is so dang big, I don't think it could ever run out of power.

Thanks
Marty