Question all Outlaws !

Before I accidently drop a brick on this thing. Can someone let me know if I have the sub hooked up wrong ? Here is my current task

I just received a Carver 140x2 amp and SVS 20_39CS sub yesterday. Figured I would try and hook it up to the 1050. Simple right ? I hook up the speaker wire to the sub, then hook a sub rca wire from " LFE"/Sub out on the 1050 to the input of the carver amp ( tried left and right). Then, I went to the speaker settings and now turned the "subwoofer" setting "ON". Then set the crossover setting at 80hz just to start with. Then made sure to turn the speaker db setting to an even 0. I have nothing, nothing at all. To troubleshoot if it was the speaker or amp, I plugged the sub cable into the preamp front speaker output and there was sound. Not much, but atleast sound. One other question, for the individuals that have the 1050's when your receiver is off, there is a small led light underneath the power button that is lit up. When I turn mine on, this led goes off. Is this normal ? Just thought maybe it was supposed to turn a different color or something.

Thanks a bunch in advance, hopefully the replacement will be better. Forgive me anger :v/

The LED on the 1050 does normally turn off when the unit is on -- you're OK there.

RCA cable from LFE/Sub output of 1050 to Carver amp, speaker wire from amp to sub is correct. Then sub set to on. Are you sure you're getting a tone that is low enough?

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Gonk

Oh yeah, I turned Matrix on and nothing. Also did the test sequence and don't even hear the test signal coming out.

Jeff

I just looked at the SVS web site and it looks like the sub-woofer model you have is a powered model. If that is so, I don't understand the need for the Carver amp. Why not go directly from the LFE output of the outlaw to the subwoofer's amp input?

Sorry. I mis-read the model number of your sub. It is not the powered version. You might try driving some of your other speakers with the Carver fed by a couple of the pre-outs of the 1050. That would eliminate it as a problem. If that works okay, it looks like the LFE output on your 1050 could be bad.

Jay, I am not sure about the sub question. But the light on the 1050 is to let you know it is on "Stand-by". To completely shut down power simply turn it off from the switch on the back of the receiver.

I have a Carver m1.5t on my LFE output and it works great. One thing though - I notice I never get anything from the LFE except on Dolby Digital sound tracks.

Not sure why this is. It may be since I have all speakers except center set to 'large', or .....?

I expected the bass from the center to go to LFE, but no dice - I'm assuming it gets split between the two fronts - that's kinda what it sounds like.

Anyway - try a DD movie, and play with the LFE gain. My setup literally shakes the window frames in my house on several movies.

Try JP3, Space Cowboys, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider or U-571.

Charlie

So you're not able to use the subwoofer when say playing music ? Only Dolby mode ?? ?

anyone ??

From what I understand (don't have a sub in my system yet), if the main speakers are set to "small" then the information below the crossover point should go to the sub, whether you're in a DSP mode or not.

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Gonk

Jay-1,

In order for your sub to be active during stereo playback, your main speakers must be set to "Small". A "Large" Setting indicates that they have a flat frequency response to 20 Hz, and do not require an additional sub.

OK - seems reasonable. What about Dolby ProLogic sound tracks? I have 'large' speakers (builtins) all around except 'center' and to tell the truth I kinda expected to get some output from the LFE on non DD surround material, but no dice.

Is this due to the way prologic is encoded into a stereo signal, maybe no bass is sent to center anyway, or..... ?

The builtins are generating useful output down to about 17 hz, so large seems correct.

I thought it would be really cool if the 1050 could have an output activated threshold, such that if the front amps got close to clipping it could route bass to LFE in an attempt to stave of headroom exhaustion, but that would be a lot in a $500 receiver, plus tough to configure without a GUI.

Charlie

Just a guess, but I doubt seriously that the center channel is generally sent THAT much deep info. I've never noticed but I have all small speakers so hard to say since my sub is active most of the time.

Jay-1;

I'm not familiar with your Carver. I do question the need to have a speaker level hook-up with your primary speaker wire AND the RCA LFE connection (if I understand how you have it wired correctly, you've connect both to your sub). With my Def Tech sub, I am only using the LFE.

As Scott pointed out, you need to have your speaker configuration set to "small". If you don't, the only time that you'll get anything out of your sub is when the .1 channel is present as is 5.1 or 6.1 movies.

You also need to set the crossover point on the 1050. Note that in practical terms, switching to "small" sends the information to the sub that is below the selected point and sends everything above the selected crossover point to the other speakers. If you have relatively full-range speakers, then you may want to select the 60 or 80 Hz setting. Having the crossover at the low end helps in not being able to locate the the sub; it also gives your main speakers an easier time since they no longer need to try to hit the deep base notes.

You may also have a variable crossover within your sub. If you only use the LFE connection, then you probably want to set the sub's crossover to its highest setting.

With my set-up, my sub kicks in when I'm playing 2-channel music, movies and television through my VCR, and movies from the DVD.

Mine is really a pretty simple setup:
-Normal speaker wire from the 1050 to the speakers (but not to the sub).
-LFE wire from the 1050 to the sub (with a Y splitter at the sub to feed the left an right channels).
-Set all speakers to "small" on the 1050's speaker configuration.
-Set the 1050's bass management crossover to 60Hz.

That's it.

What type of speakers are you using, full-range towers, smaller bookshelves, or itty-bitty ones designed for sub-sat systems? Someone might have the same thing and provide additional guidance.

Good luck and let us know if you get it working.

Thanks for the info Hi4head !
I have 2 Polk Audio RT55i's for the mains (2 6 1/2 woofers in each box), then Polk Audio R10's for the rear. Don't have my center channel speaker yet,but have the SVS 20-39CS Subwoofer with the Carver 2 channel amp. I did try setting the mains to small and still nothing came out to the sub with it just hooked from the LFE out on 1050 to the left or right in of the Carver. I wish I didn't have to set the front mains to small just to get the sub to work, but will try it this week when I get my replacement. I went and listened to a Yamaha RXV-1000 and Integra DSP 7.1 and neither of these had a problem playing in 2 channel mode with the speakers set to Large and sub playing too. They both seememd to have more bass when playing music. We'll see.

Thanks again,

Jeff

Jay-1
I have a Yamaha, and one thing about it I love is you can set it to where you get bass out of the "sub, mains,or both" which is really nice.

I agree HockeyFan. This is why I just ordered a Yamaha RX-V2200 today : )