New KEF KC62 Not Responding?

OK, I've had a full week with the KEF KC62 subwoofer now. The rest of my system is a Rangarok-2 amplifier, Rega Planar 1 Plus turntable, and KEF LS50 Meta speakers.

My taste in music is somewhat eclectic: I listen to a lot of jazz and big band now, along with an enduring enjoyment of mainstream pop/rock (Elvis Costello, Beatles, etc.) and of classical music up through the Romantic period.

Before describing my experience and impressions so far, I want to make it clear that I am not an audiophile and do not consider myself to have a very discriminating ear. This might understandably make what I have to say of little interest to many of you. 

• As already noted, just getting the KEF KC62 to activate and do its thing with the Schiit amplifier was a puzzler. Turns out this is a non-intuitive setting on the Schiit, requiring that speaker mode AND headphone mode both be "on" in order for the connection between the Ragnarok-2 pre-outs and the KC62 to be live.
• Once this was done, I suddenly had a very sensitive and punchy bass presence in anything I put on. There are 40 positions for volume on the KC62 (10 markings, 4 clicks within each group). I initially had it somewhere around 10 and it was way overpowering. I dialed it down to 4 and that was easily enough for the first few things I listened to. Over the course of several days I went up as high as 9 and seem to have settled in at 6. How much of this was the sub running in and how much of it was ME adapting to the fully-revealed bass in my records, I'm not sure. But at least in my early experience, the KC62 can deliver way more bass than I can ever anticipate using. And it's hard to imagine anyone running this very near to its enabled volume. There may well be reasons that I'm not aware of.
• The listening experience is fantastic. Satisfying. I would go so far as to say that the LS50 Metas WITHOUT the sub are not worth the price IMO. They are fine speakers, but the reason I was willing to spring for the sub was that the missing bottom in so many things was disappointing to me.
• As I experienced the bass levels in different recordings, I began to wonder if I would want/need to adjust the sub volume for each record. This was not a good feeling. I then read a thread here about this topic and felt more comfortable finding a "set it and forget it" volume. I'm not so finicky that I can't live with that. Or maybe every once in a while, for a certain song or record, I will crank up the sub a little. Whatever.

In sum, I am extremely pleased with what I have now. I might upgrade the cartridge on my turntable at some point. Aside from that, my only additional investments might be in modifications to the room I have the equipment in.

Here are the records that I listened to during this week of burn-in and testing:

• Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
• Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil
• John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
• Elvis Costello - This Year's Model
• The Beatles - Revolver
• Rickie Lee Jones - self-title debut
• Mahler - Fifth Symphony
• Ashkenazy/LSO - Rachmaninov Piano Concertos 1 and 2
• Count Basie - from The Greatest Jazz Recordings of All Time
• Frank Sinatra - Ring-a-Ding-Ding
• Linda Ronstadt - Simple Dreams
• Steely Dan - Aja
• Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
• Michael Johnson - There Is a Breeze
• Nat King Cole - The Very Thought of You
• Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
• Rubinstein/Wallenstein - Mozart Piano Concertos 21 and 23

For sure, I will report back on my situation.

@dprendergast      Pleased to hear you got it going.  The connections on your amp are very unusual and far from intuitive.

As you may have read, I am shortlisting two or three KC62s in my system.  Opinions seem to be divided.  Some say the new tech is a breakthrough that enables small subs to perform like larger ones.  Others say a small sub can never produce strong deep bass.  Most reviews are very positive, at the 9/10 level.

It will be really helpful if you will report your findings after you have run them in and listened for a while.  

BINGO! That was the issue, thanks mspot. Also received email from Schiit pointing this out. Much thanks to all, I am grateful for taking the time to help.

David

Looks like mspot is on to something.

Who'd have thought to make sure speakers AND headphone output should be selected. 

OP, have you checked this out?

You need a Y cable to combine the L/R from your amp into a single mono into the sub. 

Wouldn’t that also work backwards to make the left and right become mono?

Which output mode are you using on the Ragnarok 2? The pre-outs are active in headphone+speaker and headphone-only modes. Pre-outs are not active in speaker-only mode (in other words, you need to select a mode that includes headphones). It is in the owners manual. I and many others think this is very strange.

See Jason Stoddard’s comments:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-happened-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-improbable-start-up.701900/post-15019440

Obviously, use the LFE input only, unlike what I posted above.

@dprendergast 

I posted a photo of the back of my KC62 on my system page. A link is below. I apologize for the dust and the hair from our English Cream Golden Retriever. LOL. This is on and operational when I snapped the photo. Best wishes

russ69 - Right, sub volume I not at zero. I tried the left channel only and manual mode - no go.

ghastly - Interesting idea regarding Y-cable - I'll wait for your follow-up post, thanks.

I don't believe you should have anything plugged into LFE on the sub and it should be set for manual. You need a Y cable to combine the L/R from your amp into a single mono into the sub. I have two of these subs at home, one in an upstairs TV room with a pair of Kef LS50 wII and another in a system downstairs where it is fed via a single rca cable. I will check tonight and post if you havent got it sorted by then.

I'll assume the volume on the sub is not set at zero. Switch to manual with just the left channel RCAs to the sub. If that doesn't work, it might be DOA? 

LFE setting on the sub won't work unless it's connected to a home theater processor which takes over all of the functions.Good luck and hopefully KEF can provide a solution.

Here are pictures of the back of the KC62 and the Ragnarok 2

OK, tried the left preamp out to LFE IN with sub set to LFE. Still nothing.

I am getting some email from KEF now and sending them pics of my connections and settings.

After taking a quick look at the Ragnarok owner manual it looks as though you can set  either,not both at once ( single ended(RCA) or balanced(XLR) but I can't tell if that includes outputs as well as inputs.

Preamp out > LFE IN > Set sub to LFE. Try it with just left channel to LFE IN first.