Originally Posted By: Cujet
Unless you are an audio engineer, it's difficult to get the "punch" of CV speakers from a sat/sub system.
The PUNCH you're referring to is dub'd the west-coast sound. CV's and JBL's as well as others of the time were known for it. Heavy woofers in a
punchy vented alignment. A very fond rememberance of times gone by: Guys and their big stereos! In contrast, Advent's were east coast: moderate woofers in an acoustical (sealed) alignment.
Re: Sat/Sub combinations...phase & polarity are important here as the LAST thing you want is to spend $$$ for a big sub, bring it home, install it and find it wanting: You've taken up living-room-real-estate too. To put it in a nutshell....well it's a bit tough to do that. The easiest way to explain it is using a sine wave. 50% of it is "positive" and the other half is "negative" If you add another sine wave to it at the same freq, but flipped in polarity such that one goes positive at the same time as the other goes negative, they'll cancel and you'll be left with nothing, right? They'd be 180 degrees "out of phase".
If you listened to just one, then the other, you couldn't tell them apart. However, play both at the same time, you'd hear nothing.
Without going into too much detail, the active filters used in nearly all separate subs, may or may not cause the same sine wave fed into it to be the same polarity coming out of your other speakers....it may be flipped. The cheap units will only allow you to choose between 0 or 180degrees. The better ones will allow you to continuosly vary the phase to suit only what's needed.
An interesting experiment anyone can do is to reverse the leads on one speaker only: flip the wires so that now red or positive is connected to the black speaker terminal and black is connected to red. Sit down in your chair and have a listen for awhile, then flip it back. What's different about the sound?
With one and only one flipped, bring them very close together, side-by-side for a listen. Then turn them so they face each other and bring them within an inch of each other. What do you hear? What frequencies are left? This is an aural example of phase cancellation or polarity reversal.
Something similar is going on or can be going on when you bring in another sub, that depending upon its filter network and it's polarity, might "oppose" the bass/mid-bass/low midrange of your existing speakers. This results in the "thin, hollow, weak, flimsy" bass.
To further complicate matters, we invoke surround sound, THX, and the "sub-out" connector on all modern multi-channel surround-sound receivers. No wonder the general public is confused.....the audio game has really changed for baby boomers.
This is why you're not happy with your set-up Cujet. You're not alone either. And I'll agree it's far simpler to use big old speakers. Another annoying problem with a single large sub is that where it sounds the best
for where you usually sit, might not be appropriate! You'd like it to perform best where you put it. Problem is the long wavelengths of the first few octaves of bass are interacting with your room and it's not able to tell you where it will work the best: You have to move it around and listen. Now we get into room modes of open floorplan houses that are in vogue and it gets really complicated. You notice in books and many audio sites, this is explained with a nice, neat rectangular room......the kind most of us grew up in. Our homes today though don't look anything like that, nor those nice pictures in the book. Thus the fad of audio + video in its own room = home theater! We're back to walls again...go figure.
I'm out of time.....
I'll never claim that Cerwin Vega speakers are the worlds best, or that they are even "good" by today's standards. However, I will state that it's difficult to get an audio system today that can achieve rock concert sound pressure levels AND full frequency response with no holes, AND good transient response.
I've been toying with audio forever. I like it loud, punchy and tight. I prefer sealed speakers (a personal preference) and I like the drums to have kick. Not just the bass drum either. All of them.
My current Polk RT9's and 12 inch subs would seem (on paper) to be able to achieve what I want. But, in reality, I have low (subwoofer produced) bass and minimal mid bass punch. Sounds like it has a big hole, right where the Cerwin Vega's would be shining.
Not my system, but similar. That system, will shake the walls. However, the rock-concert punch of a drum solo devolves into dulled deep thumps with no snap. A nice, inexpensive set of CV speakers is much more satisfying to me.
And, before people make all sorts of claims about CV speakers being bass heavy, that's hardly true. Subwoofers make that deep bass.
