Advice on adding a sub to my system



Hi all,

After a year with my system, I am thinking of adding a sub (and a DAC, but that conversation is ongoing in another forum...) I have a system I love, almost: Jolida 302 tube amp, Quad 21l2 speakers, and a Music Hall CDP 25.2. Speaker wire is wireworld and silver copper interconnects for the cdp.

One piece of the sound I don't love is that I feel the sound is thin at times, especially at the lower end. Detail is good enough for me, and the soundstage is fine, I just wish the music had a little more presence and richness.

What would I need to get this given my current equipment. Is this just a limitation of my current speakers?

If I had a sub, I would really like to keep it under 500, but is this what I need?

Thanks!

Marty
martyw
So last night, I decided to double check my wiring and while the speakers were not out of phase, I did have the bired spades, with the bottom two spades attached to the tweeter. Argh.... Anyway, from some listening last night, the bass was definitely more pronounced, even when played at low volumes.

I have a lot to learn -- I knew that black spade connected to black output, red to red, but I did not think it mattered which set of spades went to the speakers as long as one of the cables went to the tweeter and one to the midrange/woofer...

Bass is still not what I would like in the long run, but definitely improving....
Post removed 
Here is what happened -- I have the Jolida 302 amp bi-wired to the quads with Wireworld oasis speaker wires that have 2 connections on the amp end and 8 on the speaker end. With the speaker cables approaching the speakers, I accidentally inverted the connections and thus connected the top cable (+ and -) to the low frequency terminals and the bottom cable to the high frequency terminals.

Does that make sense? When I first set up the system, I guess I did notice that I was connecting the cable upside down, and that I had the high and the low frequency connections reversed. In your opinion, would that account for weaker base?
I still think you might get by using SED Winged "C" EL34's.
They are the most rich,and musical modern EL34's I have tried. New Sensor's choice of EL34's are sort of laid back sounding in comparison to the SED's. Then if not,try the sub option.The deal with the cables might not have much any affect to amount anything by the way you had then hooked up,unless they have a lot of capacitance and inductance in them.Then they may have some crossover affect. Their link doesn't say much about them.
Welborne Labs recommended speaker wattage link>>>>[http://www.welbornelabs.com/recomendspeaks.htm]