Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions subwoofer not working..i think im an idiot

Let's check a couple of things re: the subwoofer :

1. Make sure the cable is going from "Sub Out" or "Subwoofer Out" on the receiver to "Line In" on the sub. If you are connected to "Line Out" it isn't going to work. You are getting a green power light so this is probably OK but check anyways.

2. Make sure the crossover is set all the way up, ie 120 Hz. You're not actually using the crossover in the sub; turning it to the highest frequency makes sure it won't filter out any frequencies.

3. Look in the speaker setup menu on your receiver and make sure all the speakers are set to "small". This will take the bass content from each channel and route it to the subwoofer, along with the "LFE track" or bass sound effects on the .1 channel. If your speakers are set to "large" then the sub will only get bass from the LFE track, which isn't always active on many DVDs.

4. Adjust the sub volume control on the back to maybe a quarter of the way up; play a DVD with 5.1 sound (an action film, no chick flicks ) and turn up the sub volume until you hear something...

What do you have the volume set on the back of the sub, a good rule is 10'o clock to 12'o clock position. Do you have the crossover set on your receiver? I have mine set to 80hz and all my speakers set to small. For CD's and radio music I listen in Direct mode. Also, if you click the round button on the remote while your listening, it will cycle through each channel, what sound level do you have the sub set at? Have you run the Auto Setup with the Mic on the Denon?

>>For CD's and radio music I listen in Direct mode.

Of course you have M60 mains, not M2s

I would still think with M2's you would use direct mode, as it shuts down other un-needed functions on the receiver to make a more pure sound. In Direct mode the sub still works, so I would think it would be the same for smaller speakers. As long as he has speakers set to small, and has his crossover set correctly, he should be good to go. He may have to bump up the crossover to 120hz or so since he is using bookshelfs.

I have to admit, I have never been able to fully understand exactly what Direct and Pure Direct modes do on a Denon.

The HK's are really simple -- you can turn the DSP off, but you lose bass management.

The Direct modes on Denon seem to drop out the tone controls but keep the DSP running unless you also turn off the sub. Seems to me, though, that if the bass management is still running (it's the DSP that filters the bass out of your main channels when running the speakers in Small) then you aren't really running what I would call Direct, are you ?

Or is the idea that the mains are getting a full-range signal bypassing the DSP, but the DSP is still running to peel off the LF information and send it to the sub ? If that were the case the sub info would still go through the DSP but your mains would get "pure direct signals"

Any ideas ? When you have the mains set to "small" and run in Pure Direct do you get deep bass out of the mains ? If not, what other than the DSP is... um... de-bassing the signal ?

EDIT - I have read the manual a few more times and am starting to suspect that Pure Direct is only different from Direct when the sub is turned off. The manual for the 2805 says a few times that "the Subwoofer channel must be set to Off in order to disable the digital circuits" or something like that. My guess is that the DSP keeps running as long as the sub is enabled.

Anyways, thread drift... back to getting this guy's sub running

ok i tried a whole bunch of stuff...receiver setup, testing with dvd..bla bla...still dead as a doornail. So i called axiom up and they had me run a few tests. They said run a dvd and plug one of the rca's into the sub..i got nothing. They also had me test the cable by licking the end while plugged into the sub...got nothing. They said it may be the cable...I went a bought another cable...still no sound with the new cable. Sooooo, they are shipping me a new sub. Thanks for the help...We will see what happens when i get the new sub...thanks again.

Very interesting, I can't wait to hear the results...

Jonn,"...test the cable by licking the end while plugged into the sub..."? Did they explain this?

Man, that just don't sound right .

It's better than licking the power cord...