Mystery with woofers. Help!

low bass is the most power hungry

what model sub?

what amp(s)?

at issue is whether you send ALL frequencies to the amp and it then continues to makes low bass (ignore the speakers for a moment) or if you 'offload' low bass to the sub and then everything else above that to the amp, then to the speakers.

at issue is whether

1. the amp tries to make low bass or if a self-powered sub makes it's own low bass

2. all frequencies prior to sub crossover, jumpers in place: if the signal contains all frequencies, then the woofers will still be trying to make low bass

or, low bass removed by sub crossover, jumpers in place, the woofers only try to produce upper bass. the sub's adjustable crossover is of importance here.

To add to what @boxcarman said, I prefer attaching the speaker cables to the upper binding posts which drive the mids, tweeters where most of the music lives. then make sure the bass is still good, which is should be if your jumpers are well made. swap into the bottom taps and make sure there is no significant change in the bass; there shouldn’t be, then leave them plugged into the top. All that said, I’d call it a good practice and likely in a blind test you can’t tell the difference (with good jumpers).

Passive cones makes the most sense. 

Remember that jumpers are part of the speaker cable line and get good ones.  I replaced standard stamped metal jumpers with cyro treated strand jumpers and it made a big difference.

This reminds me of the time I was at a friends house. He has small floorstanders and the woofers had ALOT of excursion. My Avior ii speakers don’t have very much excursion but give tremendous bass. I was curious about the difference so I asked Duke at audiokinesis and he said a woofer that moves a lot is trying to do too much and the sound quality will suffer. He did say that it’s not a design flaw when the woofer has that much movement though. Happy new year to all 

Fair play for owning up.

I feel like an arse

I'd find some wire in my garage and make some temporary jumpers and be reporting back how the bass sounds by now.

Thanks everyone!!

@knotscott Interesting. I think you’re correct about the bass. The midbass was taking care of all but the lowest frequencies, and then crossed over to the sub. This explains how I missed the inactive woofers.

I texted with Dick Diamond of GTT Audio today. He is the former director of sales at YG. He also suggested that I consider bi-amping in the future. In the meantime, I’m excited to get some jumpers connected and hear what the Haileys will produce on their own.

If the info I ran across is correct, that midbass crosses over to the woofer at 65 hz,so it’s actually producing all but the lowest frequencies of bass, which your sub is covering. If you ended up plugging the woofers back in, you may want to adjust the output of your sub.

There are pros and cons to every speaker design choice, but I’m a fan of those crossover points because it puts the whole vocal range in the midbass driver vs splitting it between the woofer and midrange driver. Nearly exactly how my speakers are designed.

p.s.: that crossover point is very conducive to bi-amping.  I'm running tube amps on the midbass and tweeters, and a SS integrated amp to the woofers...best of both worlds.  

Perhaps the bass sounded adequate because they were acting  like passive cones.

Room.  The room gain can do a lot. 

And woofers stop working for all sorts of reasons.  Shipping can disconnect a wire or (my fave) break an inductor's connection right at the circuit board. 

Of course, next time you have this problem grab a 9V battery to see what is and is not moving. :)

I think the answer is simple---I need jumpers!!! The woofer section isn't powered up! Duh. I feel like an arse, but the question remains---why does the bass sound adequate without the woofers powered up and sub disengaged?

Check impedance for both speakers left and right using multimeter . must be same. if nor remove the woofer from Loudspeakers and check impedance the  woofer alone and you see the issues 

woofers are the easiest to see/feel movement. they are not working. both sides? unlikely driver failure if both sides, so why?

to allow bi-wire you have OEM straps between the woofer and upper drivers terminals, normally connected for full range use. are they in place? using a sub, they might be removed

lower/raise the sub’s crossover, anything?

fully disconnect the sub, any change?

typically you are supposed to go in the sub and back out of the sub to your amp without the low bass the sub is doing? IOW, no signal is getting to the woofer

what specific model sub do you have?

can you get to the woofer’s terminals? have a meter? touch wires to any other small portable speaker you have, see if you can see/feel/hear anything.

to prove they are ok, remove sub, put straps in place, hook up speakers, woofers working?

a cd with specific frequency test tones will make it easier to diagnose problems when they occur.

an historic low price of this which has 29 1/3 octave tracks

https://www.ebay.com/itm/226096080476?_skw=amazing+bytes&itmmeta=01JG9PDRA8C8Q165JERJ63AZF7&hash=item34a460665c:g:VSwAAOSwVu9mHojR&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA8HoV3kP08IDx%2BKZ9MfhVJKkEyFU6rmOm8alRQjHtGGjsfFY6KHXeZv%2BV5fdbGppQQZOkViuTW3ZdxmFsd4rEaiejBPAp%2BOp3drdH4nuCGGA1n0Lyz6hg0WPRhXtZeHT88vrtl8MRzwzNQ9M4traBoN5DaOG7iOLgGAj%2BSXz7HZp2CO1h%2Fgsfn0EF7RI7jcKHXZm1C7RNGOUvyJHHX8LYiWuEDl9w%2F91q9uQPxTgFBhzYv3zNdWpg24I0qNV9LR4EJrXRXDVkg6MK%2BuAmXGA3bMqV7oKkjZtOu7JsMFWVsmpyR2xHFstRUQt%2F6Plm8OQfgw%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR6CFt7aCZQ