Sorry, I wasn't very precise.
If I turn off all speakers and *just* have one sub going (so there is no interference), the sound coming out of it sucks. It's just kind of muffled/chuffing and not that strong. Crossover is at 80
The music I was playing is unusual in that it is bass dominant, so in this case they should be drawing attention to themselves.
The much smaller mb quart vera sub I have (sadly discontinued) is way way better. Which is unfortunate. It's fairly precise and still strong enough to shake house foundations.
I'm hoping I'm just doing something wrong. E.g., not enough power from my home circuit?
Are the B475's viewed as good subs? I couldn't find much on the net other than tannoy seems like a respectable company. |
Stringreen --- the RCA butchering was for the crown amp. It only takes speaker wire inputs (+ and -) rather than RCA connections or something along those lines.
The tannoy's use "speakon" connections.
Right now I have the subwoofer out from the pioneer receiver (an RCA connection) going to the crown amp (where I cut out the + and - wires from the RCA cable for the crown's input connections). The crown amp's outputs go to a speakon connector plugged into the tannoy.
The crossover is done at the pionner end (set to 80).
Or did I misunderstand what you meant? |
Wow, thanks for all the responses!
ckoffend: I'm at work, so can't check the crown model, but I believe it's a ct800b: http://www.crownaudio.com/pdf/legacy/ct800sm.pdf
It only has speaker wire inputs/outputs (they have +,-, and ground). It doesn't have 1/4.
I know the subs are pro. I was hoping for volume and not too much loss in precision. They came from SGI's theater room. The guy I bought them off of raved about them & he seemed like a very honest person. Perhaps he was not discerning about bass or perhaps (I'm hoping) I just have them hooked up wrong.
I know the overall quality of the "sound experience" of just having subs playing by themselves won't be great, but you should at least be able judge the quality of the sub output. E.g., distortion, chuffing, etc. Or am I off base? |
Herman: sorry for the unclear description. Connection is:
[pioneer elite, RCA sub out] ----> [speaker wire in, crown] ----> tannoy
where the pioneer -> crown is an rca cable with the RCA connector cut off on the crown end and the two wires attached to the crown.
It didn't sound good full range, which is why I tried it alone.
In retrospect I should have gone w/ a velo or a triad, but this is what I (foolishly) pulled the trigger on so I would like to get it working if possible.
|
Rwwear: I have the extra amps (crowns) to drive them, so that's not a big deal. What cross over are you referring to? The pioneer receiver has a selectable crossover point, or do you mean something else?
The size of the b475s is a drawback in some sense (e.g., my gf isn't enthused) but it's kind of cool to have a couple of huge subs glowering on the sides of the room. |
Herman: sorry for the unclear description. Connection is:
[pioneer elite, RCA sub out] ----> [speaker wire in, crown] ----> tannoy
where the pioneer -> crown is an rca cable with the RCA connector cut off on the crown end and the two wires attached to the crown.
It didn't sound good full range, which is why I tried it alone.
In retrospect I should have gone w/ a velo or a triad, but this is what I (foolishly) pulled the trigger on so I would like to get it working if possible.
|
Problem seems much better when I make sure no stray wires from the cut RCA cable touch + to - (ugh, so stupid) and if I run a ground wire from the crown (it has +, -, gnd) to a screw on the chasis of my outlaw pre-amp.
The one thing I can't figure out is that the IOC light on the crown 800 keeps coming on, which supposedly happens when distortion goes too high.
In any case, subs are much better now. Thanks for all the replies! I don't have a reference for how these should sound, so if anyone has other ideas for improving quality, I'd be happy to try them out.
Thanks all. |
I switched to using an outlaw pre-amp to send send the subwoofer output to the crown amp. The crossover is at 60hz --- you are saying even in this case the sub won't get sub 45hz? How does putting an eq system there fix this?
Thanks! |
Iimig: dumb terminology question --- what is the shield? The crown has +, -, and ground terminals. By shield do you mean ground?
I'm only using the amp for one sub, so there is only one input -- does balanced still matter in this case? |
OK, forget the second question. Doing some reading on unabalanced vs balanced... |
I am connecting the outlaw 950 using a "RCA to speaker wire" cable. The RCA end is going into the outlaw. The speaker wire (+, -) is going to the crown amp (+, - respectively). Should I run the - speaker wire to both the ground and the - on the crown amp? Or do I need to get a different cable entirely?
I'm running the crown in bridged mono mode. |
Oh, cool. I think I got it. I just solder the ground to the outside of the RCA connector?
When I touch a ground wire manually, the hum goes to almost nothing, so I assume that's the right approach.
Thanks for the insights! |
Thanks for the operational breakdown. Unfortunately, I can't tell any difference between that method and connecting an extra ground wire to the case of the pre-amp or to the RCA shield. Which matches your "really doesn't matter" point...
I was going to try a Jensen since they are "only" around $100. From their web page it seems the JT-11-BMCF would be the best bet or is that complete overkill?
http://www.jensen-transformers.com/faqs.html#faq5
The subs are great and seriously tactile at high volume with bass heavy music; I'm just hoping for something more precise at lower volumes. One improvement was from adding a sound isolating pad to separate them from the house foundation (which had various resonances that I'm sure displeased the neighbors).
But, I'm getting the feeling I perhaps should have spent the extra money to pick up some velo 18s that were for sale locally from porchecab or held out for some triad platinums... |
I see a ~$400 velodyne sms-1 on amazon -- is that what you were referring to? Or do you mean JBL sms-1?
The tannoy has a tx2 system controller that came with it. Am ordering connectors to see if that makes any difference. |
Argh. Sorry, missed the velo reference above somehow. Got it.
Thanks for all the suggestions! |
Thanks Rwwear! Looks like I just missed the listing.
Unrelated to the original topic: I wish the audiogon software would send an email notification for subscribed threads. |
I picked up an outlaw 990 w/ balanced XLR outputs this w/e. After hooking this up to crown amp everything sounds much better!
It's dead quiet when no music is playing and seems noticeably louder when sound is on. (Or at least I had to turn the gain on the amp down 1/4 turn after hooking things up.)
Thanks for all the advice! Problem seems solved.
The only issue I have now is that the outlaw has one XLR out but I have two subs. I was going to use an XLR Y cable to split the signal. Is there a better approach? |
