Hi everyone still no luck getting the pros from my local stero shoppe. I have been playing phone tag with them all week and its starting to piss me off. Well its been a week with the EP500 and I still have to turn the volume past 12 O clock to even get the driver moving during music. It is in a small bedroom so it should blow me away in there right? I have the sub on bypass and the xovers all at 80hz on my amp. I am thinking it might be the amp, the standbye mode quit working completely on it which does indicate some kind of problem (sherwood R772) Since this only my second sub from the EP175 I really am not sure what the performance should be in a small bedroom but for the price I paid it should blow the bedroom out. I wish there was some way I could tell if there is a problem but I guess I wont know til I get the pros out here with another amp to see. My Epic grand master 500 sounds good but the bass isnt that noticeable except during movies as long as the volume is cranked way up. And if I crank it too far it distorts which according to the product discription it is not suppose to do. It really doesnt sound any louder than the 175 which is why I think somethings wrong.

If you want to test the EP500 and eliminate that as a problem here's something you can try:

If you have an iPod or other MP3 player get yourself a 3.5mm to RCA adaptor cable. Turn the volume ALL THE WAY DOWN on the MP3 player. Set the gain/volume on the sub to about 1/4-1/3 of maximum. Make sure the sub is OFF then plug the MP3 player into the sub using the cable. I typically connect the left channel but I don't think it really matters. Turn on the sub and MP3 player then play a song with some good bass in it. Slowly turn the volume up on the player.

You should be able to turn the volume up pretty high on the MP3 player with the sub set at 1/4-1/3 but increase it slowly. With an EP500 you should be able to FEEL the bass from it. Especially in your small room.

If the EP500 works fine then it's an issue with your receiver's subwoofer line-level pre-out. IF you still get very little output with the MP3 player cranked up you can try turning up the EP500. If you need to get past 1/2 with the EP500 before you really feel it slamming then there's probably a problem with the EP500.

Ya I have to do that now go past 12 oclock for everything before I even see the driver moving.

For every input? I thought you said movies were fine. Also, definitely try Foobarred's test there--that's pretty much the definitive test.

Ya the movies sound fine but I still have to turn the volume up past 12 0 clock on the sub to watch them. That cant be normal even the instructions say a quarter turn. Dont have an MP3 player or cord to do that test.

Plug your dvd player directly into the sub and play a bass heavy cd. That is the same as the test noted above. If it works then you have trouble else where. If you get nothing the sub amp is bad.

I emailed JC at axiom about this and he said axiom lowered the gain volume on sub making 12 o clock possible. The instructions say to just do a quarter turn though. I dont know why he didnt tell me this before either he is just telling me what I want to here or what but I still go PAST 12 0 clock to hear the thing.

I still find it very hard to believe you have to place it at 12 o'clock, unless you have the sub channel on the receiver at -12dB. This just does not make any sense. If I placed my old 500 or new 600 at 12 o'clock, the freaking foundation would crack, and that is not far from the truth.

Now don't go getting paranoid friend. I can understand all of your frusterations, believe me, but the people at Axiom are not crooks. They are good people who will assist you with any problems you may be experiencing, including sending out a new sub if yours is indeed bad.

But naturally the first thing to do is make sure there isn't anything else that's wrong. Because if it is indeed a problem with your receiver, then a new sub wouldn't do you much good at all. So take a breath and relax and go through all the steps, including having those people come out and look at it that you mentioned. If it turns out it is the sub, you will be 100% taken care of by Axiom.

If nothing else, Axiom certainly stands behind their equipment!

I do not get the obsession of where the gain control on the sub is (1/4, 1/2, 3/4). The important part is cablibrating the sub properly between the sub and receiver and if it is the case it is at 1/4 or 3/4 it really doesn't matter as long as you are not over driving the sub in distortion. SPL meters are good investment for calibtrating your sub properly
I do not recall you ever mentioning the subwoofer setting you have set for your EP500 on your receiver which controls the voltage/trim being sent to the sub which will effect the sensitivity of the gain knob on the 500 and the sensitivity of the auto/on feature (if it has one).

Are you still calibrating by ear?

Right now the channel levels are all at 0 and I still have to put the volume past 12 0 clock Im not kidding. When I emailed axiom to see if this is normal (which I knew it wasnt just wanted to see what they said) JC came back and said they lowered the gain control. Its like I have to crank it past 12 with ME RIGHT NEXT TO IT IN A SMALL BEDROOM just to notice it. And if I crank it all the way it still doesnt shake my room but the bass that comes out on some parts only is a little distortion present. Something is wrong because my EP175 was actually louder. I am going to compare it to another sub and with another amp. I can watch I whole movie with the volume ALL THE WAY UP if it isnt an action movie. Even an action movie on full volume only has a little distorted parts and it doesnt even shake the small room a little. I am watching The Hulk right now with the volume ALL THER WAY UP and it doesnt even shake my small bedroom. Yup something is wrong somewhere. I always had the volume on the EP175 all the way up which leads me back to the amp.

I thinks its been the amp all along thats why my EP175 sub volume was up all the way all the time and at plus three on the channel level. And even then it still was not loud enough thats why I got the 500 and still a problem.

My new Oppo player has direct analog output at 5.1 can I just plug the sub out put into the sub? For that test?

Those channel levels you speak of are very important. You will have a channel level for each of your speakers and subwoofer. If they are all set to 0, go into the subwoofer channel level in your receiver and increase it from 0 to +2 (the receiver manual will be of great reference). Then play around with the 500 volume knob and see if you notice any difference beginning at the starting position to the 12 0'clock position and beyond if need be. If there is a noticable difference and it is not satisfactory enough increase this setting to +3 or +4, try again and come back to us with your thoughts.

You can connect the Oppo directly, you should be able to do the same test there. Only thing you need is the subwoofer. My living room is about 20X20 with another 10x6 hallway leading to the door (about an 8' ceiling). With the EP500, I could *NOT* watch hulk at full volume. It literally would have knocked down some pictures on the wall. So something is quite wrong. Make sure you tell Oppo that you have small speakers and that sub is active.

BTW, out of curiosity, are you setting the SACD preference to DSD or PCM?

th3at3rguy did mention that axiom has changed the sensitivity of the amp. The 500 just might need the singal/voltage increased from the receiver to get it set up properly. I do not think he has tried this yet.

Yes, you can do that, and it is a really good test as it eliminates all other variables. But start with the volume knob on the EP500 all the way down. Bring it up gradually. Running a full line level, like the outputs on the back of a player, is the same as having volume turned all the way up (-0 dB) on a receiver.

The Oppo does have it's own volume control too. Make sure it is at 100%.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, just hook the Left of the stereo out of the Oppo to the sub. That way you won't have to full with the cross over settings in the player. You should just be able play a CD, and hear the bass portion of the music coming from the sub.

When I try and do this the bass gets distorted instead of louder so I really cant.

I am starting to think I do have a problem with the Sherwood R772. It has 2 sub modes, normal and subwoofer Plus. It has been at sub plus the whole time because when I put it to normal the sub doesnt work at all. It did the same thing with the EP175.

I finally was able to listen to another EP500 (older model) and it sounded alot better. Im wonder why they changed it I think the older version sounds better. I might ask for an older amp and send them back this version. It sounded better for movies and music his whole living room shaked during demo. His gain was at like 10 0 clock and it blew mine away all the way up.

How near does this person live to you? Would it be possible to invite them over for help setting up your system?

Axiom would not have made such a huge to a sub to make it sound worse. The removal of the trim setting, and changing the range of the volume knob will not make it sound any different.

Barring defects with one of your components, it is almost surely a configuration problem. I understand that it is difficult for you move things about and rewire a lot, but have you been trying anything people have suggested here? Nearly every suggestion, or even replies to your questions seem to be ignored while you go and try something else. It's hard to help you trouble shoot when you don't tell us the outcome of a test.

Someone brought a EP500 to your place and you tried it at the exact same position? If you tried it in his place and he does not have bass-cancellation room issues like you seem to have, then it does not help you at all.

Having your speakers set to large doesn't help either, which could also cause some cancellation issues. As I said in the other thread set all your speakers to small, 80 crossover and use the sub normal mode instead of the sub plus mode.

Its hard for me to judge these test because this is really my first system so I dont know what is normal but On sub normal mode on the R772 the sub doesnt work at all(thats why I think amp is defective) and as I said in the other thread my AV DOES NOT HAVE SMALL OR LARGE SETTINGS on the speakers just crossover which I have at 80hz, Distance (which I have correct)and channel level(which right now is at 0). The oppo player had the small and large settings but I didnt use those anyways so it didnt really matter that I had it at large (its at small now but didnt make a diff)And as a result of the trouble shooting here I think I have an amp problem and not a sub problem. My room is just a small bedroom so it is not eating any sound. But I think the older version has a different sound but they both still sound good. I just need to try a diff amp and see. Sorry if I didnt keep everyone updated to all my trial and error but thanks for everyones input it helped alot.

FYI, the smaller the room, the squarer the room, the worse bass you will have (bug peaks and nulls).
When the sub is playing, move around the room to see if you hear big variations. That will give you more hints than anything else.
And again, please try the sub at various locations in your room. The more room-related changes you make, the more you may know if a sub change will help you or not.
If you have bass-cancellations, you can have 4000Ws, it will get cancelled just the same.

IMHO all your bass problems are directly related to the size of your room. This type of porblem became aparent to me many years ago when i bought my first regular cab pickup. No matter how much power and eq i threw into that little area i just could not make bass. The bass wave length exceeds the area it is being played in.The bass is by all rights self canceling in that small room.

http://www.realtraps.com/art_small_rooms.htm

some good reading

Are you saying even if I am right in front of the bass if the room is small I might not hear it? Because I make my judgements when I am looking right at the front of the subwoofer. And I had the EP175 in the same spot. But I will give that link a look I didnt think a small room could eat bass but I guess it can so I stand corrected.

Yes. The frequency distribution is different at every point in the room and you can have nulls right next to the sub (I have one if I stand 1' to the right of my sub).
You need to find a place for the sub that provides the best response for the place where you will be doing your listening.
Axiom has an excellent video on how to do that.

If i sound harsh i really dont mean too. im just trying to help out as best i can. I know from other posts you are limited in you abilities. Maybe someone can come give you a hand ? On that site there is a video about mini base traps, make an effort to look at it,it will really open yours eyes,it did mine. i am now doing more reasearch on diy base traps. I am a decent mechanic but i dont know near as much as i thought i did when it comes to audio, but with the web and the help of others im learning alot.

Richard, for the sake of technical accuracy it should be pointed out that the wavelength of a bass note being longer than the room dimensions doesn't make it harder to get strong bass; the contrary is true. When the wavelength is longer than the longest room dimension it pressurizes the room and causes "room gain". The smaller the room the higher the frequency the room gain begins at. For example, consider the boomy bass possible inside a car.

alternatively does a small room not increase cancellation by reflection?

i have better bass outside my car , 2x12" woofers ported box in trunk.

All rooms regardless of size weaken frequencies with the speaker at about 1/4th wavelength from room boundaries and strengthen frequencies with the speaker about 1/2 wavelength from the boundaries. This is one reason why care should be taken to have the speaker cone at different distances from the closest boundaries, to the extent possible.

perhaps the OP should get to basics and work on the placement as described by alan loft in his excellent article. once that is done maybe bass traps should be considered.

I have moved around alot in my lifetime ,and lived in many different houses,some big and some small, and my trusty hpm 900's were always there. They definetly had better bass in some houses than others. Im still convinced the OP has more than one problem here.Hopefully he can get it worked out,and get back to the music.

I think all this discussion of room size and bass cancellation is a wild goose chase. You have set up an 80Hz crossover on your front speakers (small) and your sub only works (somewhat) when you set the Sherwood to subwoofer plus but not in normal mode. You are connecting your OPPO to your Sherwood with HDMI.

I believe that narrows the problem down quite a bit. Keep in mind that you may have other things such as placement, etc that can be improved; but you are not getting normal LFE information out of the Sherwood at a level that your sub can make use of. It could be defective equipment, but it is much more likely to be a setup problem with your combination of OPPO and Sherwood.

You have been given great a idea of hooking up directly from your OPPO to your subwoofer using an RCA cable. This will confirm if your sub is OK. I don't think you have tried that or at least reported the results.

Go back and read Clubneons post again. If you will try that and let us know the result if will be an additional confirmation; and we can be more helpful to you in troubleshooting.

I think that about sums it up.

It must be a setup issue, especially since you say you had to keep the EP175 cranked to max volume at all times.

That should never be the case in a properly calibrated system.

As others have suggested, try the Oppo directly to the sub.

I thought he'd already done that and said he wasn't sure what the 'right' way for it to sound would be snce this is his first system? Perhaps I got that mixed up with something else, but that's what I thought I read.

Another thought. Many receivers have a 10dB boost for LFE. It's a little annoying because the settings can be "0dB or -10dB" like in Marantz, or "+10dB or 0dB" for my Denon. Basically you want to use the "which ever is greater by 10dB" setting. Looking at the R772 manual, you want to select 0dB for your LFE Level Setup (page on the manual)

To sum up
1) Set your speakers to small or *not* full range (whatever R772 calls it)
2) Set you LFE to 0dB for Dolby and DTS.
3) Set your speaker crossover at 80hz,
4) Turn off "night mode" and/or DRC - Dolby Range Compression

Finally, you can try running through the autosetup to see what it does. It maybe worth a shot to see if your baseline config is good to go or not.

R772 calls it "Full Range" (same as setting the speakers to "LARGE") So it looks like as long as you set the crossover, it assumes SMALL.