SUB with 1.7i

[ksaudiophile]

Hello,
This is my first post here.... I just joined the forum.

I purchased my 1.7i almost a year ago. Since then I've played with DACs and preamps... I'm afflicted with the dreaded Audiophile upgraditis bug...

Yesterday, I was playing around with subs setup in my home theater.... I have several NHT subs. One of the subs was an 'oddball'.... a 10" ... the others are 12".

So... I had an idea. I took it into my listening room and put it center between my Maggie's... it has speaker level inputs AND outputs. I ran 12TC from my Bryston 4b to the sub and then an additional pair from the outputs of the sub to the 1.7i's. The x-over set to 50hz .... after much listening.

This is friggin amazing!! I'm guessing it's got something to do with the Bryston really liking the load it's seeing.... THIS SOUNDS GREAT!!!
Image dead center... soundstage go's far beyond my walls of my 12' x 21' room. The Maggie's are singing like I've never heard them before! I didn't expect this...

Magnepan... make a sub!!! A real sub.... just try it... please.

BTW... I've used subs with my Maggies before using line level inputs and running the Maggies full range... just sounded like you would expect... like a sub following three steps behind.
This is musical... and the Maggies opened up like never before... it's wonderful. I don't have other amps to switch out, so I can't test my 'load' theory....

But... this sounds good...

I know... take the pill...

 

[DonH50]

Welcome to WBF!

I made my own servo sub decades ago to mate with my MG-I's. I have always felt subs complement the sound and add to the music. Maggies distort heavily (tens of percent) when driven with large bass signals, so especially need a sub, but one that does not ring and muddy the bass. I don't think the Bryston cares much about the reduced load, but the panels most certainly will like not dealing with deep bass. Offloading the low-frequency signals from the panels makes them much more linear and adds much-desirable headroom for the higher stuff where they can do their magic. It's hard to believe how much better the panels sound when they are not constantly pushed past their limits by deep bass.

When I rebuilt my system and brought my old MG-IIIa's out of storage I looked around at subs, heard a few, and ended up with Rythmik subs. They are also servo, using a similar circuit to my old design (which I like better than the accelerometer-based Velodyne approach), but much improved (and with a new patent -- should have patented my idea way back when!)

Personally I would cross 1.7's higher than 50 Hz, up around 80 Hz (an octave above their LF corner), to reduce the load on them and shift it to the sub that is designed for it.

All IME/IMO - Don