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Topic: Active studios/subwoofer or 2.1 speaker system (Read 3378 times) previous topic - next topic
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Active studios/subwoofer or 2.1 speaker system

Hello!

Recently I've gotten really interested in getting high quality headphones and speakers in order to enjoy my music more.

What I'm planning on buying are the ath-m50's and a xonar essence stx sound card.
Now for my question:

I really like my bass and am looking at 2.1 channel setup for speakers. My question was as I talked to my friend about getting Gemini sr-5 active studio monitors, and I really want a subwoofer for that extra bass and so was looking at the subwoofer they had to offer as well the gemini sr-10. But my friend said it's really hard to setup and instead recommended me the Swan m50w powered speaker setup.

So I was wondering if my friend is right and that it actually is hard to hook in and setpu the gemini sr-10 subwoofer with the monitors, or is the way to go instead of the swans m50w's?

Sorry if this doesn't seem too clear, I'm still quite nooby with all the audio stuff.

Hope someone can spare their time and help me out

regards

Sythix

Active studios/subwoofer or 2.1 speaker system

Reply #1
Setup shouldn't be difficult.    I assume those monitors & monitor-sub are meant to work together.  (It can get tricky using an active "home theater" subwoofer with active monitors.)

You may need some adapter cables.

The basic connection is:  Soundcard ---> Subwoofer ---> Monitors.

(All 3 will also need to be plugged into AC power.)

The line-level signal goes into the subwoofer.  The subwoofer has an active crossover that combines the bass from both channels and sends it to the subwoofer's internal amplifier.    It also removes the bass from the left & right signals and sends that filtered line-level signal to outputs for connection to the main monitors.  (The  line-level outputs are usually missing from a standard home theater monitor.)

An alternative is to use a Y-Adapter (aka "splitter") to send the signal to both your main monitors and the sub.  The downside is that the bass goes to the sub and the main monitors.  Since your min onitors are trying to reproduce bass, they won't play as loudly before distortion as they will with bass removed from the signal.  And, the bass can blend poorly (you can have out-of-phase issues &  bass-cancellation, or a bump in the mid-bass somewhere).    And, you need to make sure your subwoofer has stereo connections because you want to get the bass signal from both channels and you NEVER want to hard-wire the left & right channels together.  (Home theater monitors usually have a single "mono" input, becasue the L & R bass is blended inside the receiver.)

A 3rd possibility is to use a 5.1 soundcard.  The crossover & bass managment options are built-into the driver.  These can usually be configured as 2.1 so the sub & main monitors can connect directly to the soundcard.    But since you already have a high-end soundcard, I doubt you want to replace it.

Quote
I really like my bass and am looking at 2.1 channel setup for speakers. My question was as I talked to my friend about getting Gemini sr-5 active studio monitors,
Right...  I'm old school, and I don't consider anyhing less than 8-inches a "woofer".      ...A speaker with a 5-inch "woofer" can't reproduce the full audio range.        Of course, there's more to it than size, but physics does come into play and little things make high frequencies & big things make low frequencies.

 

Active studios/subwoofer or 2.1 speaker system

Reply #2
Setup shouldn't be difficult.    I assume those monitors & monitor-sub are meant to work together.  (It can get tricky using an active "home theater" subwoofer with active monitors.)

You may need some adapter cables.

The basic connection is:  Soundcard ---> Subwoofer ---> Monitors.

(All 3 will also need to be plugged into AC power.)

The line-level signal goes into the subwoofer.  The subwoofer has an active crossover that combines the bass from both channels and sends it to the subwoofer's internal amplifier.    It also removes the bass from the left & right signals and sends that filtered line-level signal to outputs for connection to the main monitors.  (The  line-level outputs are usually missing from a standard home theater monitor.)

An alternative is to use a Y-Adapter (aka "splitter") to send the signal to both your main monitors and the sub.  The downside is that the bass goes to the sub and the main monitors.  Since your min onitors are trying to reproduce bass, they won't play as loudly before distortion as they will with bass removed from the signal.  And, the bass can blend poorly (you can have out-of-phase issues &  bass-cancellation, or a bump in the mid-bass somewhere).    And, you need to make sure your subwoofer has stereo connections because you want to get the bass signal from both channels and you NEVER want to hard-wire the left & right channels together.  (Home theater monitors usually have a single "mono" input, becasue the L & R bass is blended inside the receiver.)

A 3rd possibility is to use a 5.1 soundcard.  The crossover & bass managment options are built-into the driver.  These can usually be configured as 2.1 so the sub & main monitors can connect directly to the soundcard.    But since you already have a high-end soundcard, I doubt you want to replace it.

Quote
I really like my bass and am looking at 2.1 channel setup for speakers. My question was as I talked to my friend about getting Gemini sr-5 active studio monitors,
Right...  I'm old school, and I don't consider anyhing less than 8-inches a "woofer".      ...A speaker with a 5-inch "woofer" can't reproduce the full audio range.        Of course, there's more to it than size, but physics does come into play and little things make high frequencies & big things make low frequencies.


Thanks a lot for the reply, this has really helped me understand how it's all actually connected. The main reason im thinking about getting the sr-5's instead of sr-8's is because of the 140$ price difference for a pair and plus not sure if I'll have enough space on my desk.

It might be important to say that I'm not planning on making any music or so, just listening to music. Are the swans m50w still a viable option you reckon or would I get better sound quality going with the sr-5's and sr-10?