Hey, Art

I'm glad to know your recovery is going well!!

And you're back to experimenting! That's another good sign! Awhile ago you were thinking maybe you had tried all there was to try.... it seems your brain is full of ideas, and energy also!

Happy listening!

Rick

Hi Rick and Charlie,

Yes, sitting around a lot does promote thinking - both in and out of the box. It seems that I do much of my listening in the morning when we are having coffee, so I want to have a bit more bass than the Ones provide when listening at low volume. Previous experiments involving direct line-out connections to the Ones LFE inputs did not provide satisfactory results. There was certainly more bass but the musical quality was diminished.

Because I already own the two older Sony 5.1 Receivers and the two external subs, this connection scheme was easy to try and the idea of driving the subs from two different sources had not previously occurred to me. It is possible and safe because I never have both Sony Receivers active at the same time. The interesting part is balancing the level adjustments on each sub to provide the amount of extra music bass I want with the line-in signal, while also providing a satisfactory amount of LFE output when I am driving the subs from the "TV" Sony.

Fortunately, in my case, I don't need a lot of "Movie Bass" because of the types of programming we watch. So, I can fine-tune the subs with the music performance as the primary concern.

I have mentioned this "dual-sub-input" approach because I have not seen posts from anyone else who might have tried this idea and I thought the concept might be useful to some other folks on the forum. I will say that neither of the subs produces bass with as much "musical quality" as the Triton Ones, no matter how I set them up. If I listened exclusively at low volume, I would likely be content with turning the LFE gain controls on the Ones up to near maximum levels, rather than use any external subs. But, I also suspect that few other folks with GE speakers use them exclusively for music - which complicates the adjustment issue so far as bass performance is concerned.

Happy listening,

Art

Art,

Reading this, I'm reminded of the now-rare-to-find loudness control on preamps. Remember those? Maybe this has been discussed before concerning your experiments.

As I remember, when you turned down the loudness control it depressed the midrange more than the highs and lows. So low frequency volume was preserved more as you turned it down. This seems similar to what you are trying to achieve.

Charlie

Hi Charlie,

Yes, I remember Loudness controls on amps. They boosted both the low and high end to emphasize bass and treble at lower volumes.

My objective might be described as similar to the Loudness effect on the low end, but I believe that the similarity stops at that point. With an "old-style Loudness control" there was no ability to fine-tune the bass response. My recollection of using a Loudness control is that the frequent result was more, but muddy, bass.

Just today I have made another configuration change. Instead of connecting a set of L/R Line Outs from my Sony AV Receiver to the subs, I have move the connection to the sub pre out on the Sony. This change affects several aspects of my listening experience. While the Line Outs are fixed volume, the sub pre out varies with the Sony volume control. Since I am using the Sony exclusively to provide augmented bass, I can increase or decrease the volume to balance the bass level with the overall music level. Also, by using the sub pre out I can vary the LFE cutoff frequency in the Sony to fine tune the bass sound (musical bass versus just thump). Finally, the sub pre out is a mono signal which provides bass to both of my subs, regardless of any bass channeling which might be inherent in the recording.

Initial results are very pleasing and I am likely to leave the connection at the sub pre out. Perhaps I have stumbled upon a new way to employ older AV Receivers which might otherwise just be gathering dust.

Happy Listening,

Art

Another Bass Breakthrough !! ??

Hi Gang,

One of the aspects of listening to music being reproduced by my Triton Ones is the smooth integration of the total sound spectrum when connected solely via speaker wires. However, it has been my experience that achieving satisfactory bass response from my Ones has required listening at what I call full room volume - pleasant enough for me when I'm listening alone, but too loud for conversation, etc. when Sheryl is present. Because our morning listening is at a relatively low volume level, I have long searched for a method of augmenting bass at the lower volume level.

My most recent posts in this thread have reported the results of my experiments with a separate Sony 5.1 AV Receiver, driven by a line-level input from my stereo amp setup, but having only my external subs connected to the LFE output, so that I could add bass only when I wanted extra bass and when doing so, have a separate variable volume control for the augmented bass.

This approach has worked for me, as I have described in those earlier posts. But, I have never been totally satisfied with the difference in musical bass as produced by my external subs, when compared to the much more naturally musical bass produced by the built-in subs in my Triton Ones.

During coffee time this morning, another little mental light bulb came on. Now that I have total and separate control of augmented bass, why not move the Sony 5.1 LFE output to the Triton Ones' LFE inputs, thus eliminating the external subs from the musical setup and allowing the Triton Ones' internal subs to carry the augmented bass. I made the necessary re-connections and immediately tested the result with one of my go-to bass test tracks ("The Lonesome Road" from the Dave Brubeck Quartet CD entitled "Gone With the Wind").

The result was what I had hoped for - variable and musical augmented bass emanating from my Triton Ones at low volume levels which sounded like the same musical bass when listening at full room volume with no augmentation. Now, GE folks and others might call this the dreaded "Double Bass" and technically, I suppose it is. However, at low volume levels and with just speaker connections, I don't hear much bass depth from the Ones, so I don't believe that the presence of Double Bass is a detriment when I use my arrangement to augment the bass.

Another potential use for my setup will be to provide small amounts of bass augmentation at full room volume for recordings which are "bass-thin". I have the LFE high cutoff in the Sony 5.1 Receiver set to 40 Hz for now. I am still experimenting with various LFE cutoff points to find the best one to match the Triton Ones' internal crossovers. The goal is to simply augment the bass without adding any additional sounds (such as rumble from transcribed older analog recordings, etc.). I am also experimenting with the LFE Level settings for the Triton Ones' internal subs with the same goals in mind.

My external subs are now dedicated to my "Movie Sound System" and can be adjusted for best movie bass without regard to any impact upon my music system.

Oh, the joys of discovery!

Happy Listening to All,

Art

ArthurDaniels wrote: Another Bass Breakthrough !! ??

One of the aspects of listening to music being reproduced by my Triton Ones is the smooth integration of the total sound spectrum when connected solely via speaker wires.

Art, that's what I noticed too. In the years BT (Before Tritons), I was using a pretty good sub, with lots of controls for volume, phase, crossover, etc. That plus moving it all over the place. I was never able to achieve a satisfactory bass integration with the main speakers.

Then came my T1s, followed by my TRefs. What a difference! Seamless integration of bass.

The only thing remaining were the room modes, and my new DSPeaker Anti-Mode X4 has taken care of those. What a sound!

Enjoy your experimentation, it's very interesting to hear your comments!

Charlie