So i recently moved into a new house and setup a new theater in my family room. My new setup lacks bass impact and I'd like some help on what to do next.

I redid the TV wall because there was no good way to fit in a bigger TV. The old TV space fit a 50" TV and limited me to bookshelf speakers. This is the old setup.



The new setup features an 80" TV with a cutout for a 95" TV in the future. I sit about 15 feet away so I am now at the recommended distance of 2X screen size.

I also dropped in in-cabinet m80s and a VP160. Power is from an Onkyo 875 with 130W per channel THX certified. In wall M3s are in the ceiling behind the couch and since the ceiling is vaulted they are pointed at the listening position. The back is open the the kitchen and there are two 7 foot open spaces leading to the rest of the house. So, this is a VERY big room with a vaulted ceiling. Maybe 1000 sqfeet plus a 15 foot ceiling over the family room. The kitchen has a 10ft ceiling. Here's the after picture and I apologize for the poor quality:



Since this space is open to the rest of the house I just wanted decent sound. I didn't need 2 EP800s in this room shaking things off the walls. Especially with little babies in the house. But, I get almost no bass impact at all now and I'm not sure if it a problem with the m80s or my room is just too big for them. I figured I would not get earth shaking bass, but I did figure on some impact. Enough to hear the bass without the need for a sub. I didn't need to feel it in my chest.

My old setup in my old house was in a smaller room but still open to the kitchen had m60s and I rarely needed the SVS PB12 NSD subwoofer turned on. That system is now in my 1200sqft basement and I still don't need the sub. The basement is the same size as the family room but without the vaulted ceiling and I still get adequate impact from those m60s alone. Should I be getting more impact from the m80s? Do you think maybe I have a driver that isn't working right? Or are the drivers' polarity reversed in the speaker canceling each other out? Or do I just need to suck it up and install a sub that I stupidly didn't pre-wire for?

edit: I should note that all front speakers are set to full range. I should also note that I've tried my bass heavy movies and found that I got mostly distortion in the low end. The explosion in the first part of Hurt Locker sounded pretty bad with a little bit of bass but a lot of flapping noise. The drivers were moving a lot and I could feel air out of the port but very little actual impact. This was at about -10 db on the volume dial which is about where I would normally listen to movie if I didn't have 2 11 month old kids.

Last edited by autoboy; 09/24/12 11:33 PM.