Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Epic 80 500 with Denon 3808 bass issue(lack of)

Good day folks,

I just purchased my speakers and they made the long and harrowing trip to Canada's frozen North with no major damage except for a dented dust cap!

The setup is the Epic 80 with the 500 sub, and a Denon 3808 receiver.

I have been messing around with the system for the last 3-4 days but I am having a hard time getting any type of bass from the sub. I ran the auto setup, then went back and changed the level of the sub to 0 db, I am sitting 12 feet away from the front M80's and Centre speaker, and the QS8's are 4 feet on either side of the couch. It seems like if I crank the system I can start to get some decent bass,buts its rather lacking, and the low level base is non existent for normal listening. Can someone maybe shed some light on their setup and maybe some suggestions on how to do the crossover stuff as I am getting lost in how I should set those up for the speakers etc.

Thanks for the help.

Martin, welcome to you signing in from the far north(I had no idea what Nunavut was until I checked the Google maps). The difficulty in analyzing your question arises because we don't know what you consider to be "decent bass". The basic concept that applies to setting the sub level is that it shouldn't be so loud that it draws attention to itself; the impression should be that the sub isn't working, but that the speakers are putting out more bass. My setup is calibrated in this way, but you may be dissatisfied that you can't "hear" that sub that you paid so much for. You've already bumped the sub level up more than the Denon auto-calibration set, so it would seem to be sufficient in general. You haven't described the location of the EP500, and that can also affect the bass level significantly.

As to the crossover, try setting the M80s to "Small" and 80Hz regardless of what the 3808 set them at. The bass assignment should be LFE, so that the EP500 is responsible alone for any LFE and redirected bass below 80Hz or whatever other crossover frequencies were set.

In addition to John's usual good advice, I would suggest trying the system with Audyssey turned off, especially if the 3808 is an early model and not updated, I never liked mine until the last update, although I am quite sure the last update didn't fundamentally change Audyssey. You may find that the EQ in Audyysey has sucked all the bass out of it. You may also want to try the LFE setting at LFE+Mains.

If this problem is just in 2 channel, there is a seperate setup screen for 2 channel listening and the sub has to be turned on in this setting.

I am wondering, was the volume(gain) on the sub set high during the initail setup? If so turn it down and then rerun Audyssey and leave the sub level in the 3808 at 0, once the program is done(do at least 2 positions for the setup), You can then increase the sublevel in the receiver as desired again.
DO you have an SPL meter? If so, try setting the speaker and sub level manually, If you are unable to get the sub to the same levels as the mains with pink noise from the receiver, there could be a problem with the sub.

maybe its too cold for the ep500 up there?

Nah, but I have the same system- 3808 m80's and ep500 and It sounds great. is your lack of bass during movies, music , or both?

I would suggest at least TRYING the "LFE + main" setting, and def. set your m80's to small. try the trim on the ep500 at half or full as well.

You will get lots of good adivce on this particular set up since lots of us have it. However, I am going to work.... good luck.

And yeah, as Jakewash mentioned there is a separate place to make adjustments for 2 channel listening (crossover, bass settings, speaker size, ect.) I suspect that your m80's may be set to large in that 2 channel set up so you ep500 isn't working.

Oh yeah, I learned where nunavat was in my world regional geography class several years ago. I actually knew something that Johnk didn't? WOW

One way to check that your problem is not the 500 itself is to go to the channel level settings in the Denon setup menu and choose the subwoofer channel. With that channel selected, as you turn up either the gain on the subwoofer or turn up the channel level with your remote, you hear increasingly loud bass. With the 500, as you bump the volumes up, you really should be capable of shaking your walls, so if neither volume adjustment has that sort of effect, the problem may be in the sub and not in the Denon configuration.

On the other hand, if running these quick tests does produce palpable bass, then the problem will likely be solved using one of the few suggestions above, as they are the most common source of these problems.

Jason

Thanks for the help, I am going to get back in there and start trying some of the suggestions, I am sure its my lack of knowledge in regards to crossovers and freqs as I am stuck in the plug and play HTIB systems that just do stuff when you plug it in.

Thanks again
Martin

If you try the test tones in each speakers, do you hear it when it's the sub's turn?

Thanks for all the help guys, the sub does work and I have started to get some better base, one question I have is in regards to crossover frequency. My current setup has these input via the Audyssey.

Front M80's @ 80hz I set them to small
Centre VP150 @ 90hz
QS8's @ 110hz
VP500(lfe) @ 80hz

Also,should I set the crossover on the sub on the dial at 80hz as well? Sorry for all the questions.

I think it is best to set the crossover on the sub to the highest setting (it may say 150 or bypass)

I have my denon 3808 set at 60 hz for m80's, 80 hz for vp150, 90 hz for QS8, and 90 hz for LFE... these were entered by hand as I am not running audyssey right now.

i have the crossover setting in 2 channel mode at 40 hz, but I often have it at 60.

Many people use 80 hz for the m80's too.

Have you tried different locations for the sub?

One thing you might try is to set the m80's to "large" and change the LFE option to "LFE+main" try this with a 40 or 60 hz crossover on the m80's. This will essentially duplicate the bass below the crossover frequency in both the sub and the mains. you will probably find it too "boomy" but it may be worth a shot. have you tried setting the trim on the ep 500 to half or full instead of flat?

Also, don't be afraid to go into the channel level adjustment and bump the sub up 2 or 3 db in the receiver.

WoW, Audyssey set my M80s to 40 (large) and I switched them to small and increased the XO to 60. It set my VP150 to 60hz and QS8s to 80. Obviously our rooms are very different.

As Terzaghi said, the sub crossover should be set to bypass or turned all the way to keep it out of the loop and let the receiver do all the bass management.

Don't apologize for questions, that is how we learn

Hello sailnunavut and welcome. It's not often that I see someone on the forums that has colder winters than Winnipeg. Now that mountain bike season is coming to a close and I'm prepping for winter, I'm back on the forum and spending more time indoors (by the way is there a mountain bike forum on these boards? ).

I have the same system that you now have. I also felt as you did for quite some time regarding bass before finding what I now consider my optimal settings (at least for the time being) so I thought I'd share my settings as well as as an observation.

First my settings:

M80s as large with crossover at 80Hz
VP150 as small with crossover at 90Hz
QS8s as small with crossover at 100Hz
LFE is at 100Hz
Subwoofer is set to LFE

I manually set all distances to the actual distance that I measured, I set all channels with an SPL meter and I have Audyssey turned off because I didn't like the sound with it turned on (although I haven't downloaded the new feature set yet).

Now for the observation...If you have your original settings for fronts set to small and sub at LFE or fronts set to large with sub set to LFE + mains and you set your fronts to large, it disables the front crossover while maintaining the existing crossover setting at the time you changed the original setting. Boy does that sound confusing. Let me try to explain.

For example, if the front crossover is set to 40Hz and you set the fronts to large then the 3808 maintains a 40Hz crossover even though it appears disabled. Previously I thought that if the front crossover was disabled in the GUI that the fronts were running full range but I don't think that is the case.

I prefer my fronts set to large and once I realized my observation about the front crossover, I had better luck adjusting my system to my liking.

I hope my 2 cents helps. If I'm wrong then I hope someone corrects me, or at the very least, makes fun of me.

There was a thread in the water cooler awhile ago.

Mountain? bike, shouldn't that be hill bike season out in Winnipeg? but I am not one to talk, it has been a few years since I have done any serious mountain bike riding in the Rockies. My neighbor did the Trans Rockies race this summer, now that is mountain bike riding.



The fronts are full range when set to large, the crossover is never off, the sounds below the crossover point are then sent to the sub as well as the mains.

hmmmm.. you mean the frequencies below your surround and center speakers crossover are sent to the mains AND the sub if your mains are set to large?

David, yes. That's why that arrangement is sometimes referred to as "double bass."

Regards,

For some reason I always thought the only bass that was getting doubled was the bass that was sent to the main channels to begin with.

Nice to know that the frequencies that get doubled are the frequencies that are sent to all channels (if below the crossover point of course).

I learn something new every day around here! Thanks for the info Alan.

I am not so sure if the surrounds and center would be directed to the mains, the sub for sure, as any speakers set to small have anything below the XO sent to the sub, as we all know, whether or not the surrounds and center are mixed into the mains channel as well......must experiment.

Yeah... I didn't think that was the case, but then again I never really thought about it.

Neither have I!

This bass management thing seems to have gotten a bit tangled-up, maybe over terminology. If the mains are set large they play full-range(no crossover frequency applies directly to them)and none of their bass goes to the sub unless a bass setting termed variously "LFE+ Mains", "Double Bass", etc. is selected. When that's done the low bass for the mains channel is sent to the sub as well as the mains. Redirected low bass from the center and surround channels below the crossover frequency or frequencies isn't affected by the "+" or "Double" setting and so is played by the sub alone and isn't doubled into the mains. The mains would be responsible for the low bass from center and surrounds only in the absence of the sub(and of course are automatically "Large" when no sub is set).

Thanks for clearing that up.

Thanks again for all the help! I have tried tweaking with the crossovers and setups that were suggested, and I can honestly say, that I am a really happy with the bass output now. Just tweaking the side surrounds and I should be good to go.

Thanks again for all the help, and I am glad I decided to finally purchase these speakers. The speakers and service is great, and the knowledge base here from axiom owners is outstanding. I can finally ditch the shipping boxes my wife has been complaining about!

Thanks again.
Martin

Congrats Martin, glad to hear things are now sounding better. Enjoy the final tweaking and then start lining up your favorite music to rediscover through the Axioms.

It's Alan's fault, his earlier response to the question of surrounds and center being played back through the mains is where the confusion came from; for the most part I think we are all on the same page.

Glad to hear you are liking how your speakers sound now, the shipping baxes have a low WAF.

Since what I once called my "optimal" settings have changed, I thought I'd correct my earlier post for those that might read this thread later.

I now have my fronts set to small. I found that depending on the dynamic range of a movie, my Denon doesn't have enough power to run them at large. I heard some distortion depending on the scene. The depth charge scene in U-571 for example.

How loud were you listening at the time (db peaks?)

I didn't mean to post and run last time but working OT prevented me from posting for awhile.

"Trail biking" might better describe it here, but I thought that might just confuse somebody or I'd find myself in a long-winded explanation of what it was...kinda like right now...

I'd just be guessing if I put any numbers down. I'll test it out and let you know.

I should also note that after changing my fronts to small I lowered LFE from 100 to 80 to prevent what I would call exaggerated bass that I heard while watching music on BD.

I changed my fronts from small to large, did a quick test and I didn't hear the distortion. Peaks reached 93 db. I've changed a couple of settings and moved the placement of my sub since that post so I wasn't able to re-create the exact scenario again. I also can't remember at what volume (on the AVR) I was listening when I heard it.

It's possible that what I heard wasn't distortion...or that I was hearing things.

That is an extreme scene and if you are trying to listen at reference levels, 85 db, I can understand why the Denon distorts a little, if you are 10 ft away from the speakers and if I use 92db sensitivity( a little lower than spec'd) for M80s in room,to cover the 105 db peaks, you would need about 180 watts, which is pushing the Denon pretty hard. From tests avaiable online the 3808 has about 227W available into the 4 ohm M80s but as this particular scene hits all channels, I suspect that the 227W is now much less and you are now into the max or more than what is avaialable from it. And are actually exceeding it's available power for the surrounds.

Kind of makes you want to buy an A1400 right?

I knew that the scene itself was demanding of audio equipment and I was listening at a volume louder than what I would normally listen at. I think I was demoing my system for a buddy at the time.

Don't get me started on an amp. I've been talking myself out of one for some time. It's one reason I set my fronts to small. Unless I can prove to myself that an amp will improve my system, I'm going to continue trying to talk myself out of one.

My daughter is awake now. I wonder if it was the 93 db peaks?

only 93db? Although I must say when I did my first audition with Mojo we had his little 2805(?) hitting 110db peaks in his room and it still sounded pretty clear to me, but we were only about 6ft away from any of his speakers, but the room is still 4000cf.

Maybe double check wire connections to make sure they haven't vibrated loose.