RTi12 bass

[chaos24]

now we all know that 6 seven inch woofers should produce alot of snappy , in your face bass..well my 12's do not produce great bass until i crank my reciever up to about -5db...before i got my second adcom i had my first one driving my bottom end of my speakers....still lacking in the bass ....when i got my other adcom and put them in mono and made my own jumpers out of 12gauge speaker wire..there was just a slight improvement in the bass....what am i doing wrong...i dont want to use my subs for 2 channel listning...i have my mains set to large and crossed over at 60hz...but even in pure direct mode they just do not pump until i raise my recievers dial to about -5db...any info would be appreciated

[ericl]

...i have my mains set to large and crossed over at 60hz...

Crossed over at 60Hz?? Really? There's your problem, if i'm understanding you correctly. of course you're not going to hear any bass, it's all getting filtered out!!

[chaos24]

so what should i do....their specs say they go down to 30hz....should i drop the hz crossover lower...but if i am correct, in pure direct mode disables the recievers settings and lets them crossover at their own settings...i don't know..either way why do i have to really crank up my reciever to get the bass out put im looking for???

[N. Abstentia]

You shouldn't have them crossed over at all! They way you have it set up now you're telling the receiver to not send any low frequency information to them.

[kexodusc]

He's right, in pure direct mode there is no xo applied...they run full range.

How close to the walls do you have them sitting??? Usually placement of your speakers or your listening position excites the room's acoustics. If the speakers are too close or too far out from the wall, you can choke the bass.

[chaos24]

i have them about 2 inches from the wall and each is on a 12 foot wall about 4 feet from either corner and their toed in about 40 degrees

[N. Abstentia]

This is why I always recommend against towers with built in subs. It's nearly impossible to get them set right. Get the subwoofers sounding right and your front stage is gone. Move them to fix your staging, your bass is gone. A seperate sub is always the way to go.

[chaos24]

This is why I always recommend against towers with built in subs. It's nearly impossible to get them set right. Get the subwoofers sounding right and your front stage is gone. Move them to fix your staging, your bass is gone. A seperate sub is always the way to go.
trust me...when i have my subs going it is the sound im looking for, not to much bass just a nice ,hard punch...but you would think 6 seven inch woofers would generate that punch alone....i wanna listen to my music without my subs and the bass is not there like you would expect....maybe im expecting more than they can offer:confused: i could'nt ask more from my mids and highs, their spectacular:ciappa:

[Wireworm5]

I have the 2200 so maybe I can help, the 2600 may have upgraded features but should be basically the same.
First off with 6" speakers I would only expect punchy bass, not hard hitting or slam bass.
These are all suggestions as I don't know what you may be doing right or wrong.
1. Turn Bass extension On.
2. In Speaker settings, have your Mains set to Normal, and bass going to Mains, Sub or Both
3. Dynamic Range Setting to Standard or Max, but Max is more for movies.
4. You can adjust your LFE, 0 being the loudest. This only kicks in on Dolby or DTS sources.
5. Adjust Speaker levels ( bottom buttons on my remote)
6. Then the soundfield parameter ( mine is done manually) have to be adjusted for each soundfield. You can adjust for room size, reverberation, delays, etc..
7. Set speakers to Large

[kexodusc]

There's a few things at work here...first, 2 inches from the wall is far too close for ideal setup.
Second, A sub will still play lower than a 7inch drivers can, though maybe not with the same accuracy above 30 Hz or so.
Also, consider that one 12" woofer has almost as much area as SIX 7" woofers combined. I wouldn't expect most multi woofer systems in that price range to really deliver that gut-wrenching bass. Maybe you have high expectations?

[chaos24]

i understand every thing you guys are saying , but why do i have to really crank up my reciever to get the bass i want from the 12's....at high volumes the 12's produce perfect bass

[SlumpBuster]

Maybe you have high expectations?

I think that is exactly what is going on here. You have to remember that a subwoofer is a powerful beast. That is why they exploded in popularity. Note that before the explosion of home theater, subs were a rarity. Towers with six 6" woofers were even rarer. "Floor speakers" as towers were called in the 70s and 80s almost always included 12 and 15 inch woofers. Manufacturers did that to produce the gut wrenching bass your looking for.

I have a similar set up. Yammie 1500 feeding Yammie 170watt Separate Amp, Paradigm towers with eight 6.5" woofers, and a Velodyne 8" sub. While my towers are satisfactory without the sub, turning on that single 8" woofer starts shaking the walls. In your case, I would be surprised if at lower volumes your sub is giving you an exagerated bass response. A Radio Shack spl meter and test tone CD would reveal such a problem.

[N. Abstentia]

Oh crap I just realized something....RTi12's are NOT powered towered. They don't even have powered subs. When you said it had 4 7" woofers I was assuming they were seperately powered but they are not!

Of course they're not going to be able to compare to a seperate powered subwoofer, they are passive speakers! The woofers share the same power as the tweeters, so there's no way they are going to come close to doing what a seperately powered subwoofer can do.

You're definitely expecting way too much from a passive speaker...not knocking the speaker, it's just not designed to do what you're expecting.

[chaos24]

the problem i am having is not the bass....it is beautiful.. but why do i have to crank up my reciever past 3/4 to get the bass im looking for...they do produce astonishing bass....but i have to really crank up my reciever.....WHY??????

[N. Abstentia]

Sounds like a lack of power to me.

[ericl]

Sounds like a lack of power to me.
he mentions a couple Adcom gfa555's .. those are monsters.

chaos24,
What are you powering your speakers with? They receiver, or the Adcoms?

[SlumpBuster]

the problem i am having is not the bass....it is beautiful.. but why do i have to crank up my reciever past 3/4 to get the bass im looking for...they do produce astonishing bass....but i have to really crank up my reciever.....WHY??????


Just play it with the sub turned on, that is clearly the sound you are looking for. Because at this point the question has become "Why do I have to turn up my receiver to get loud/strong bass?" Umm, because you want it loud/strong. If you really want the answer read previous posts by all, especially Kex's positioning suggestion.

[chaos24]

im using 1 adcom on each speaker in mono....plenty of power for any speaker

[N. Abstentia]

That is plenty of power, problem is you're sharing the power. That will never be able to compete with having seperately powered subs. As you've found out, woofers need more power than mids/tweets.

[markw]

Sounds like a potential candidate for bi-amping* here. That might help somewhat but I doubt it'll be a cure-all.

As to why your setup seems adequate at higher volumes, then this might explain that phenomena somewhat.

http://www.diracdelta.co.uk/science/source/f/l/fletcher-munson%20curve/source.html

In the old days, there was such a thing called a "loudness" button that would help compensate for this.

*NOT bi-wiring

[N. Abstentia]

Yeah good idea. Can you wire the woofers and mids/tweets seperately? If so, run the woofers off one Adcom and the mids/tweets off the other Adcom..wire them for stereo of course. Then you can adjust the balance of the woofers and mids/tweets seperately until they give you the balance you're looking for. Seperating them will sound much better as well.

[N. Abstentia]

Looks like they do have bi-amp inputs. So do that. Change your Adcoms to stereo and bi-amp those puppies. Put those amps to use!

[chaos24]

i'll try that...thanks for all input guys

[N. Abstentia]

Let us know, I'm very curious how this will work for you. I think it will make a huge difference, personally!

[E-Stat]

Also, consider that one 12" woofer has almost as much area as SIX 7" woofers combined. I wouldn't expect most multi woofer systems in that price range to really deliver that gut-wrenching bass. Maybe you have high expectations?
Check your math again. Using the pi * radius squared formula for area, a 12" is equivalent to just under three 7" drivers.

I do agree with your comments about distance to wall and the overall effect of smaller woofers, no matter how many you have. My guess is that is a placement/listening position/room node issue. You tend to get nulls in the middle of the room. After having recently moved and fine tuned three systems for the best response, I have been recently reminded of the vast effect of both placement and room effects.

rw

[jtgofish]

Maybe the woofers are wired out of phase.It could be that one of your speaker leads is crossed or that there is a factory wiring fault to one or more of the woofers.
Try wiring one of the speakers out of phase[reverse polarity] and see if the bass improves.
I have come across speakers that were factory wired out of phase[Japanese even]
To check this you need to take the woofers out and test them for phase with a small AA battery-Pos to pos neg to neg.If the woofer moves forward when the battery is touch connected then that indicates proper phase.

[Wireworm5]

the problem i am having is not the bass....it is beautiful.. but why do i have to crank up my reciever past 3/4 to get the bass im looking for...they do produce astonishing bass....but i have to really crank up my reciever.....WHY??????

I answered your question. Any one of those setting will give you lower bass output and you'll have to turn up the volume to compensate for it. If your receiver is like mine then my guess is that your speaker levels may be set low. You have to adjust the levels for each soundfield. So if your using a soundfield and the surround or center channel are at 50% then you'll have to turn the volume up.
Since you give us little information the best we can do is guess as to the reason.

[kexodusc]

Check your math again. Using the pi * radius squared formula for area, a 12" is equivalent to just under three 7" drivers.

I do agree with your comments about distance to wall and the overall effect of smaller woofers, no matter how many you have. My guess is that is a placement/listening position/room node issue. You tend to get nulls in the middle of the room. After having recently moved and fine tuned three systems for the best response, I have been recently reminded of the vast effect of both placement and room effects.

rw
It would be 3 if woofers were flat, not concave and had no surround or frame...not the case...my figures come straight from physical measurements I've made...if you're really interested, download some software like Unibox or WinISD and run the figures for yourself...it's anywhere from 4.8 to 6.2 by measurement, not all 12" and 7" woofers are created equally.