SUB + Stereo System

[hawk01]

let me share my experience which closely matches your situation. i used to have dual RELs in a dedicated home theater/stereo room. making them work seamlessly is a hit or miss game! you just cannot establish proper bass management running the front stereo pair full range while (hopefully) trying to blend the subs near the crossover point. while it may work for some material, it sounds incorrect and mostly boomy with others. your hegel will likely have a pre-out only with fullrange signal and no selectable crossover for the stereo fronts. this is not proper bass management and is almost similar to the REL implementation except for the difference in connection. ergo to get proper bass management, you either go minidsp or just buy a humble avr with proper bass management. i just went with the humble avr and bought dual SVS SB1000 and called it a day! the entire system does not take much tweaking to get proper integration. you enjoy more time listening than endless tweaking and wondering why your system sucks!

 

[Georgeadv]

let me share my experience which closely matches your situation. i used to have dual RELs in a dedicated home theater/stereo room. making them work seamlessly is a hit or miss game! you just cannot establish proper bass management running the front stereo pair full range while (hopefully) trying to blend the subs near the crossover point. while it may work for some material, it sounds incorrect and mostly boomy with others. your hegel will likely have a pre-out only with fullrange signal and no selectable crossover for the stereo fronts. this is not proper bass management and is almost similar to the REL implementation except for the difference in connection. ergo to get proper bass management, you either go minidsp or just buy a humble avr with proper bass management. i just went with the humble avr and bought dual SVS SB1000 and called it a day! the entire system does not take much tweaking to get proper integration. you enjoy more time listening than endless tweaking and wondering why your system sucks!

Thanks for sharing. It feels good to know you are not alone

I could ise minidsp or get a dac and feed the sub and then to the amp.. i believe that would work too

 

[sigbergaudio]

I ordered some acoustic treatment from GIK to try to fix some of that..

That was my main target however it seems that the amp is limiting my choices…

I will certainty purchase a sub with HPF and evaluate my choices after that

You will have a wider choice of subwoofers if you had a setup with built-in HPF, but I understand that you'd like to keep the Hegel.

 

[Beershaun]

You will have a wider choice of subwoofers if you had a setup with built-in HPF, but I understand that you'd like to keep the Hegel.

If you are set on keeping the Hegel then I honestly wouldn't spend your budget on a separate dac and dsp to try and work around it. Instead, skip the subwoofer and spend your budget on a new set of main speakers that get you the low frequency response you want. With the thousands of euros you are considering spending you can get some solid main speakers.

 

[Georgeadv]

Just bought the metas …
Despite this every standmount speaker suffers in the lower frequencies

I had a BW bar and sub and the sound was a lot fuller than the kef albeit less detailed and no stereo

 

[Beershaun]

Just bought the metas …
Despite this every standmount speaker suffers in the lower frequencies

I had a BW bar and sub and the sound was a lot fuller than the kef albeit less detailed and no stereo

Understand. I just want to help you avoid spending money in the wrong places and not getting the sound you want. If you are attached to both pieces of hardware you are going to be limited in your options to get the low end reproduction.

 

[Georgeadv]

Understand. I just want to help you avoid spending money in the wrong places and not getting the sound you want. If you are attached to both pieces of hardware you are going to be limited in your options to get the low end reproduction.

Thats good advice and thank you. My understanding is that very few stereo amps have such functionality… even more expensive ones… yet there are below who add subwoofers to their systems with good results
See this for example (is not mine but found it on roon)

 

[tgray]

Uninformed advice: If you are stuck with your current setup, get a sub with builtin crossover, EQ, and maybe DSP, and just integrate it with the mains running full range as best as you can. I've done with/without REW and a measurement mic in the past and have been happy enough with it.

 

[Georgeadv]

Uninformed advice: If you are stuck with your current setup, get a sub with builtin crossover, EQ, and maybe DSP, and just integrate it with the mains running full range as best as you can. I've done with/without REW and a measurement mic in the past and have been happy enough with it.

What do you mean uninformed advice?

If I apply a filter from rew wouldn’t that affect the the sub as well?

 

[tgray]

Uninformed as in it is not as technically sound as the other advice you are getting. If you have a mic and REW, it will help in setting up the sub. If you don't, you'll have to do it by ear, which can lead to decent results.

I currently run my small desktop monitors with no high pass filter on them with a low passed sub. I EQ the whole chain on my computer. Is it as good/ideal as a fully bass-managed system? No, but it's still a lot better than with no sub.

 

[Beershaun]

Uninformed advice: If you are stuck with your current setup, get a sub with builtin crossover, EQ, and maybe DSP, and just integrate it with the mains running full range as best as you can. I've done with/without REW and a measurement mic in the past and have been happy enough with it.

Hi. If you read above That is exactly what I have recommended. The OP had additional concerns and seems to have a healthy budget based on their other posts and so I am steering them to additional options to consider before doing something like buying a DAC and DSP.

 

[Georgeadv]

Thank you guys for the advice. Truly helpful.

I will purchase the kef kc62 that has a high pass filter with the potential to utilise that later.

I will not purchase a dac at the moment but its something that has been on my list from the outset. The choice of the sub and dac could potentially affect one another and thats why i brought it up.

 

[Chrispy]

From the diagram presented above, the room isn't large enough to propagate a 20 Hz sound wave (17 meters).

Maybe 40 Hz, but not likely much lower.

What has that got to do with anything particularly?

 

[Jim Matthews]

What has that got to do with anything particularly?

Physical principles, mostly.

 

[Chrispy]

Physical principles, mostly.

The relevance particularly if a wavelength is less than a room dimension?

 

[Jim Matthews]

Please review the thread.

 

[Chrispy]

Please review the thread.

Eh? I'm familiar with the thread, just not your sticking in this bit about room dimensions/frequency wavelength which you're just not clear about.

 

[Jim Matthews]

Eh? I'm familiar with the thread, just not your sticking in this bit about room dimensions/frequency wavelength which you're just not clear about.

#8, #52, #54 & #57

Half wavelength cancellation frequency:

fc = c / 2(dreflect-ddirect)

 

[Chrispy]

Thanks for sharing. It feels good to know you are not alone

I could ise minidsp or get a dac and feed the sub and then to the amp.. i believe that would work too

Not sure how you would insert the minidsp with the Hegel same as using the hpf signal from the Kef sub (which itself is fairly expensive for what it is sub-wise). If you had digital sources passing thru an external dac you could possibly insert a minidsp between the dac and amp for sub management (and be limited to sources routed thru your dac accordingly for use of the sub).

 

[Chrispy]

#8, #52, #54 & #57

So he should do what particularly since he's not likely to change rooms? Just avoid using anything but his little speakers to avoid deeper bass?