Seeking subwoofer adjustment tips

[lumpywaters]

Does anyone have any tips or a procedure that works well for them for balancing a powered subwoofer with main L&R speakers in a 2.1 stereo system?

I recently upgraded my floorstanding, small tower L&R speakers (Pioneer Andrew Jones)  to small book shelf speakers (KEF Q-100) on 24" stands. Old and new speakers both have same size low freq driver and very similar low freq. rolloff specs and efficiency specs, yet with the new main speakers, I'm finding myself too often tweaking the sub. One obvious difference is that the woofers on the new main speakers are now well off the floor. Before the speaker upgrade, I kept the sub in one corner of the listening area, now the sub is centered between L&R. 

Crawling around the small, cluttered living room while fighting off vicious dust bunnies and ear testing so far isn't working well enough. I do have an old Radio Shack cleaning CD that also has some test tones on it, also have an audio frequency function generator from my DIY speaker building days, long, long, ago, along with a Radio Shack SPL meter. 

[bootman]

What crossover settings? Specs don't always translate to room interactions.

I would put the sub back to where it sounded good before and play instead with the crossover/level settings.

[jlafrenz]

What subwoofer do you own?

[DYohn]

To set up a sub in a 2.1 system by ear without any test equipment: Download a test tone at 100Hz that you can play on your system (burn it to a CD or whatever.) Set your sub Xover to 100Hz and phase (if you have one on your sub amp) to zero. Turn your subwoofer volume to min or zero. Defeat any preamp crossover for your main speakers. Play the tone and set the volume of the main speakers to a comfortable listening level. Slowly turn up the sub until you can start to hear it when seated in your listening position. Try flipping the phase control to its various settings and see if the sub gets louder or softer. Leave it where it is louder. Turn off the tone and try some music. If it sounds good you are done. If you think it's too much turn the volume on the sub down slightly, or if you want more turn it up.

[jmilton]

Set the pre/pro tone controls, equalizer to FLAT and turn off any LOUDNESS adjustment. Grab a friend or wife...but not a friends wife....

1. Turn the Subwoofer Level control completely counterclockwise to its minimum; 2. Turn the Subwoofer Cut-Off Frequency control clockwise to its highest frequency (i.e. 150 Hz). 3. Set the Phase Alignment Control to 0°; 4. While you listen to a bass music or video selection in your primary listening area, have an assistant turn up the Subwoofer Level control until the subwoofer can be clearly heard; 5. Have an assistant try the Phase Alignment control until you hear the most bass. Your subwoofer and front speakers are now in phase. Do not change phase alignment again unless you move the subwoofer or the front speakers to a different location in the room or move or remove large items of furniture or room furnishings (i.e. carpet, draperies, etc.) 6. Turn the Subwoofer Level control completely counterclockwise to its minimum.

7. Turn the Subwoofer Cut-Off Frequency control completely counter-clockwise to its lowest frequency (i.e. 50 Hz); 8. Slowly rotate the Subwoofer Level control until you match the subwoofer output level with the level of your front speakers. Bass should be clearly audible, but not intrusive; NOTE: If using an A/V receiver or processor to control crossover setting, skip the next step and set the subwoofer cutoff frequency control to ‘Bypass.’ 9. Slowly rotate the Subwoofer Cut-Off Frequency control until you hear the best subwoofer/main speaker blend. If the sound is too ‘thin,’ you have not set the frequency high enough; if the sound becomes ‘boomy’ you have set the frequency too high. Adjust until you find the most natural balance.  The sub should not draw attention to itself.

(These instructions are from my friends wife at Paradigm) 

[lumpywaters]

Jun 2, 2018 6:28:20 GMT -5 jlafrenz said:

What subwoofer do you own?

It is a Pioneer Andrew Jones SW-8, a small ported cab with downfiring 8"woofer, pretty similar to the BasX S8 I think, except that the low freq. roll-off is not too deep at 38HZ, vs 28HZ for the BasX S8. As an aside, I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger on a BasX S8 but I want to get a better handle on adjusting the subwoofer I already have before I decide to commit.