The amount of program material heard around 80hz is much higher for music than for Movies or TV. Concert performance disks excepted of course. It is not a glaring error and the wife and I are the only ones who notice. Different media types are mixed differently as well. The audio mix on my BluRay of Surfs Up has little in common with my CD of Steely Dan's AJA when viewed from the mix engineers point of view.

I went from Polk SDA's fed by a Pass Labs designed pre-stage so I knew stereo quality was going to take a hit. It came as no surprise the $500.00 Outlaw could not match the stereo output quality of the $1,500 stereo only unit. I listened to that stereo for better than 15 years. I can hear the difference where the extra crossover point has been added.

In the spirit of full disclosure the Outlaw is much better for TV and Movies even when listening two channel only. Fed via HDMI from either the Dish receiver or OPPO BDP-103 the Outlaw does much better with downmixing. For two channel CD reproduction I use the analog out R/L from the OPPO BDP-103 and HDMI for all multi channel. Radio stunk on ice this morning so I loaded a handful of Little Feat disks into the Sony ES2000 carousel feeding the Outlaw via optical through the toss link, (SPDIF I think it is called). It sounds nice but could be better.

Am I nitpicking? Probably


It is a wish list thread so I thought I would throw out a feature set I think myself and others might find useful. While I would prefer a full range option the Velodyne unit you linked is similar to what I was thinking. With the current level of processing power available building something with those capabilities (and more) into a Pre/Pro should be a doable thing.

What do you use as a subwoofer?

I am using a Polk Audio PSW-125. 12" 150/300 watt (nominal/ peak)

Not a beast by any means but does well in this smaller room.

I wonder if you're hearing a difference in phase between your mains and the subwoofer in the cross-over frequencies when you listed to music? If they are out of phase they could be fighting each other.

Does your sub have a phase adjustment that you can tweak or just a 0/180 degree switch?

I think it is only 0 or 180 but will check when I get home. I did not think of phase issues and it could explain what I am hearing.

Thanks EEman

I would run the front R/L full range only for music and take the hit in the lowest registers if it did not require going into the menu to diddle the settings every time.

switching from 0 to 180 with the phase switch made a big difference in music reproduction. Not sure if it will present any problems for TV and Movies but when we played with it at the old house we decided there was little if any difference.

Thanks again

I would still like to have more adjustment options and flexibility. From what I see at other boards would show I am not the only one

You sub has to be in sync with the other speakers or the bass and LFE will be muddied up. I suspect that is what you were hearing when the crossover was reached. Hope that fixes the issue.

It made an improvement. For TV and Movies it does not seem to make much of a difference. For music it is night and day in this room. Listening to organ music I can still hear the transition but that is to be expected. I would still like to have the adjustability but that is no guarantee it would be any better.

It makes an argument to go back to the SDA's and getting rid of the bass cabinet all together.

Limited phase adjustability at least the sub if not all.

Forgive my ignorance in asking as none of my HT front ends came w/an "auto setup" feature. I have & will continue to rely upon my ears.

Do the set-up apps in many of the AVRs do any sort of tuning or tweaking of sub or channel phase?

How tough is it to give a pre/pro manual phase adjustability either all or just the sub?

Thnx, Tony

Some subs have infinite phase adjustment and at least Audyssey will adjust the LFE level of the sub after it takes measurements via microphone. Again the SMS-1 gives that capability and much more but you are likely to have a hard time getting one at a reasonable price.