Will Adding A Consumer Home Theatre Subwoofer Compromise My Pristine Audio Quality? Options

[qusp74]

Hello Mac music fans,

This is my first post I have been a keen reader of the many threads that appear on this forum and I will take the time to thank all of you who contribute regularly, especially Mac Daddy and mortalengines,

I am a graphic designer/video compositor and animator running MAYA, Shake 4.1, Combustion 3 and Final Cut Pro HD.

I have been a mac user since the Mac plus primarily for design,photography and animation. Music production is a keen hobby of mine. I am the proud owner of
Mac G5 dual 2ghz 4gig ram with pair of (very heavy) 24" Mitsubishi diamond pro monitors
1TB SCSI raid
RME Hammerfall 9632 PCI with XLR breakout option with
Behringer ADA8000 adat interface for extra inputs and pre's
pair of KRK RP6 powered studio monitors
and here's the piece of kit the question is based on I picked it up cheap but haven't connected yet
A Welling powered home theatre SubWoofer
MicroKORG Synth/Vocoder
CME weighted controller keyboard
RODE NT2-A microphone

Also running the NI FM8, Kontakt, Massive, Battery and ARTURIA Minimoog, moogmodular, CS-80V Audio UNITS. as well as Waves diamond and Altiverb 6

I'm Currently running Logic express 7.2.3 (soon buying Logic studio 8 what a deal) for the production of both my own trip hop, IDM and electro mixes as well as pre-production scores and soundtracks for my Video projects. I have been only mildly disadvantaged by the lack of a sub in the past but I have been wanting one badly. I am currently paying off a lay-by on a KRK RP10S to match my fronts but I am currently working on a track that has a lot of bottom end for a competition here in OZ and was able to pick up the sub mentioned for $75 australian my question is;

Will patching the outputs of my RME interface through the sub and the associated high pass filters compromise the quality of the signal that reaches the KRK RP6's? or am i better advised to use the RME mixer utility to bounce the main output to another channel strip and a separate LFE output (adjusting the highpass accordingly)?

Thanks in advance for any replies excuse my relative ignorance

regards,
jeremy

[mortalengines]

Doesn't KRK make a nice subwoofer? I am pretty sure they do (probably not so cheap though). You have some really sweet gear and I am sure the home subwoofer is nice too but I understand that home gear may be inaccurate in its frequency response so you may be over or under representing the bass frequencies in your final mixes. M-audio makes a pretty reasonably priced subwoofer as well and I understand that it works pretty well. Then again, now that you already have it there is no reason not to try it out. Once done try out your final mixes on several different systems and see what you think.....what's to lose?


www.myspace,com/mortal_engines

This post has been edited by mortalengines: Wed 7 Nov 2007, 06:18

[qusp74]

Doesn't KRK make a nice subwoofer? I am pretty sure they do (probably not so cheap though). You have some really sweet gear and I am sure the home subwoofer is nice too but I understand that home gear may be inaccurate in its frequency response so you may be over or under representing the bass frequencies in your final mixes. M-audio makes a pretty reasonably priced subwoofer as well and I understand that it works pretty well. Then again, now that you already have it there is no reason not to try it out. Once done try out your final mixes on several different systems and see what you think.....what's to lose?


www.myspace,com/mortal_engines

Thanks for your prompt reply mortalengines Yes KRK make a nice subwoofer the KRK RP10S thats the unit i have on layby here in OZ and at $700 australian its not cheap but not too expensive, M-Audio make good stuff but a little inaccurate for my liking, I had a pair of Alesis M1's before the KRK's but found them to be too bass heavy and inaccurate in the bottom end where the KRKs are sweet and tight at around the same price point. The heart of my question was probably muddied a bit by my ranting about the gear I have already (designed to give you an idea of where i'm coming from; with just a touch of pride ) since I bought this sub cheap for a temporary fix i'm just wondering what you guys think would be the best way to hook it up to my existing setup. Do I go through the sub thereby utilizing the highpass filters on the sub which may degrade the signal as the welling is a comparatively cheap piece of gear or do i use a seperate output bounced to a channel on my ADA8000 which means forking for another set of high class XLR to rca cables and add a highpass plugin to the signal chain in logic to stop the bottom interfering.

as I said its just a temporary fix until I get the KRK Sub but still would like to get it right and not spend too much money on cables if I can avoid it.

Thanks again for your reply mortalengines much appreciated

regards,
jeremy

[mortalengines]

Yeah..... sorry Jeremy, I shot off a reply before I even read thoroughly what you were getting down to. You may degrade the signal some but, I would work with what was on hand and learn how to mix with it before spending too much more money. You will probably be ok as long as you keep your cable distances as short as possible (not more than 6 feet long) to avoid stuff like RF interference. Buy the good stuff when you get a real sub woofer. I sympathize with your situation. I constantly have to work with bass issues. Bass never seems loud enough on my monitors and when I turn it up, it sounds like crap on most of my "testing" equipment (boom box, home system, car). I'll tell you what helped me recently is I started using reference EQ curves that are supplied with Izotope's Ozone Mastering EQ module and it really helped at TON....of course, I am using my eyes when I should rely on my ears but, results are results, right?

Good Luck!


www.myspace.com/mortal_engines

[qusp74]

Yeah..... sorry Jeremy, I shot off a reply before I even read thoroughly what you were getting down to. You may degrade the signal some but, I would work with what was on hand and learn how to mix with it before spending too much more money. You will probably be ok as long as you keep your cable distances as short as possible (not more than 6 feet long) to avoid stuff like RF interference. Buy the good stuff when you get a real sub woofer. I sympathize with your situation. I constantly have to work with bass issues. Bass never seems loud enough on my monitors and when I turn it up, it sounds like crap on most of my "testing" equipment (boom box, home system, car). I'll tell you what helped me recently is I started using reference EQ curves that are supplied with Izotope's Ozone Mastering EQ module and it really helped at TON....of course, I am using my eyes when I should rely on my ears but, results are results, right?

Good Luck!


www.myspace.com/mortal_engines

Thanks again mortalengines,

glad to here that I can probably get by with this unit until i finish paying off the KRK SUB, i'll let you know the results.

regards,
jeremy

[jinksykatz]

all you have to do is make sure your cut off frequencies match...... if your speakers ..the rps(which you should start calling sattelites) have a low frequency cut off at about 80 dbs ......thenset you sub tocut off at 80dbs...if the cross overs work correct and your sub placement is correct then you should be fine........i use mackie 824s( the serial numbers to low to mention) abd a blue sky sub it works graet because the makies bass response with out the sub was suspect.....clean but had to do a little extra work........if the sub does not have db cut offs just go with good placement and adjust your sattelites to cut off at the lowest frequencies possible you should be cool................................qrsallstars@hotmail.com

[onezntwoz]

I have done quite a few home theaters and am also a novice recorder. My suggestion is that you DO NOT use the high-pass pass through of your sub for a few reasons; 1. You would be downgrading your end signal to the monitors by adding another (and not needed)connection, every time you make another split in the signal use loose some of the original sound. 2. Using the subwoofers filter will also slightly change the phase of whatever you hook up to it, resulting in you not hearing exactly what you are mixing(Phasing has quite a bit to do with how you hear any recording, Incorrect phasig can effectively eliminate any decent staging.)3. It has been my experience that those filters built into the sub are not constructed of the best quality materials, further degrading sound quality. hope that helps