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Adding a sub - what will I loose?

It seems that adding another piece of equipment to the audio chain would degrade the sound quality to the main speakers (air, immediacy, the mid range, etc). Or am I way off here??

Currently have a preamp with no sub-out and low output tube amp. Plan to use line level to the sub and then out to the amp. That way speakers would not play full range (above 80hz).

tghooper

Showing 2 responses by dbphd

dbphd
1,633 posts
 
"This also flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but I've had a couple of subs that actually sounded better using the speaker connections than the RCAs."

Doesn't that imply that the main amp is superior to the amp in the sub, even within the limited frequency domain of the sub. I'm not sure what's meant by fast in the LF range where wave lengths are long. Perhaps it means the sub is farther from the listener than the mains, but most processors let you account for speaker distances during setup.

db
dbphd
1,633 posts
 
Well Al and Irv, I suppose I should be embarrassed by your uncovering what I didn't know about subs being driven by speaker-level inputs, but in fact I learned something. Thanks.

Johnny, I certainly agree with your point about needing tight control of cone excursion; I'm skeptical about your rise time argument.

On a personal note, I use a pair of Velodyne HGS-15s controlled by a VMS-1 bass manager. The subs blend seamlessly with my KEF Reference 104/2s. I was attracted by Velodyne's high-gain servo and powerful amp, which hold promise for matching cone excursion to electrical input.
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