[orangechicken7]

[size=small]Alright so right now I just got a pair of Swan d1080 IV's, they are fine in the midrange and high's but lacking in bass so I ordered a polk audio psw10 subwoofer, from what I understand these are NOT magnetically shielded so right now on my desk I have on the RIGHT side the speakers and monitor, about a foot and a half away from my monitor to the left would be where my subwoofer goes, between that is the swan d1080 sooooo I understand the swan's are magnetically shielded so having those next to the polks would be ok right? but I also read having the sub too close to the monitor could mess things up? Also my desktop computer is maybe a foot above the bottom of the desk where the sub would go. So what do you guys think is a good placement for the sub? I want to run it at higher cross over frequencies than 80 so I want to put it somewhere where I can really hear it blend in with the rest of the system. Right now I'm mainly concerned about how the unshielded subs would affect my shielded speakers and monitor. Again it is about...1.5 feet to the left of my system but right to the left of one of the speakers. I'm a huge newb by the way[/size]
 
[size=small]Oh and one more thing the speakers as well as the sub come with this kind of foam padding in the front which you can take off? Does this hurt sound quality if i have it on? What is this meaning of this[/size]

 

[obobskivich]

The sub shouldn't be on your desk - put it on the floor where it belongs. You do not want a high xover; localization is the wrong idea. Also, how are you crossing these two systems into one another?

Anyways, the sub should not interfere with the speakers at all - but may cause trouble for certain types of monitors and other devices (if you have an LCD its far less likely to create problems, but should still be moved away if possible - 2-3 ft is potentially safe in general though).

What foam are you talking about? The speaker grilles? :confused_face_2:

 

[orangechicken7]

Not sure what crossing the systems together means, I have 2 RCA to 1/8" cables one from the speakers to my onboard motherboard sound and another from the sub to the orange output jack on the motherboard sound as well. My concern is I had the Swan m10s and having the sub on the desk was amazing for quality of sound, I feel if I put the sub on the ground and had the crossover at 80hz that I would lose alot of sound, but then again I don't know what I'm talking about, so these psw10's have xover from 80 to...160 I believe, you think I should leave it at 80? And yes I am speaking of the speakers grills....

 

[obobskivich]

The grilles protect the drivers; but they're mostly cosmetic beyond that (they shouldn't degrade the sound).

As far as everything else - you need a crossover between the speakers and the subwoofer (so it attenuates HF to the sub, and LF to the speakers); what are you using to provide that feature?

As far as the ideal placement and whatnot - frequencies below ~80hz are generally considered to be impossible to locate, so it doesn't matter where the sub is placed (of course amplitude will be influenced by placement); you don't want to cross it over so high that you can pick it out against the speakers. Do the bass crawl and place it somewhere ideal, cross it over around 80hz, and let it ride.

 

[orangechicken7]

Huh....I don't know....what do I need for that? Right now I'm planning to just plug both 1/8's into my onboard sound card on my computer, there's an orange and lime 1/8s connectors on there, the lime is where my speakers go into and it says orange is for the subwoofer. There's audio drivers and a program for that called "HD Vdeck" on my desktop I'm guessing that's where I would take care of it? Thanks for the help by the way.

 

[obobskivich]

No computer audio controller that I'm aware of will let you do 2.1 from dual outputs like that; basically what you're describing is highly unlikely to work. That connector will carry both the center channel and subwoofer channel information for 5.1 output.

You have to feed stereo out into a crossover and then feed HPF into the speakers and LPF into the sub. If you don't have a crossover, a splitter may work (and rely on the sub's internal LPF), but it won't give you the best quality.

 

[orangechicken7]

I'm not sure what you're saying, do I need to purchase something else to make this work? If so what would it be or what would you reccomend? apologies I'm new to this.

 

[proton007]

1) Keep the sub on the floor. 
2) Read the sub manual.
 
You don't need crossover. The Swans have their own amp (active), the Polk has its own (active).
Both will work with line level inputs. Use a RCA splitter.

 

[obobskivich]

2) Read the sub manual.

Prolly a good idea. I assume everyone does this kind of thing before asking for help though.

You don't need crossover.

HERESY! How do you expect to keep those nasty LF freqs out of the Swans and those shrill HFs out of the Polk? Or to put it another way, how do you expect to make it sound right?

Bass management is the only way to even hope to make a sub sound right.

 

[proton007]

Quote:

HERESY! How do you expect to keep those nasty LF freqs out of the Swans and those shrill HFs out of the Polk? Or to put it another way, how do you expect to make it sound right? 
Bass management is the only way to even hope to make a sub sound right.

 
The sub already has its filter and a freq and phase setting.
Thats why I say, read the manual first. It also explains how to set up the sub, that too in 3 different ways.

 

[obobskivich]

The sub already has its filter and a freq and phase setting.
Thats why I say, read the manual first. It also explains how to set up the sub, that too in 3 different ways.

Those are irrelevant to what I'm talking about. It's a variable LPF and a two position phase switch. The phase switch does nothing for what I'm hoping to accomplish - it's just there to aid in placement. The LPF is also worthless, it applies no processing to the speakers and therefore there's no xover happening. You get full range and LPF'd full range. There will be a hump.

 

[orangechicken7]

Quote:

1) Keep the sub on the floor. 
2) Read the sub manual.
 
You don't need crossover. The Swans have their own amp (active), the Polk has its own (active).
Both will work with line level inputs. Use a RCA splitter.

Forgive me but don't I just plug the speakers into the lime output and the sub into the orange one on the motherboard audio? Or do I put them both in an RCA splitter which are red and white...which goes in which? and put that one line into the lime output?

 

[obobskivich]

Forgive me but don't I just plug the speakers into the lime output and the sub into the orange one on the motherboard audio? Or do I put them both in an RCA splitter which are red and white...which goes in which? and put that one line into the lime output?

As I've said, that orange jack is not a "sub output" - you need to run a splitter (TRS to 2x TRS) from the lime jack and then stereo into the speakers and the sub; there's no crossover and it's imperfect. Otherwise add a crossover in there; Behringer makes a few that shouldn't be terribly expensive.

 

[proton007]

Quote:

Those are irrelevant to what I'm talking about. It's a variable LPF and a two position phase switch. The phase switch does nothing for what I'm hoping to accomplish - it's just there to aid in placement. The LPF is also worthless, it applies no processing to the speakers and therefore there's no xover happening. You get full range and LPF'd full range. There will be a hump.

 
Ok, let me see if I understand this... A xover will basically split the signal into H/L frequencies. Are you saying that the Swan has a lower range that'll overlap with the sub?
The LPF setting can be set at 80 Hz, but the Swan can go till 53Hz, so the Swans will need to be turned down on bass.
So yes, unless a specific xover is used (as Obob says), the easiest way is to just use the stereo line out, or if your sound card has more than one analog out, just use one for the Swans and one for the sub.

 

[obobskivich]

Ok, I'm not totally sure what you're trying to do here... A xover will basically split the signal into H/L frequencies. Are you saying that the Swan has a lower range that'll overlap with the sub?
The LPF setting can be set at 80 Hz, but the Swan can go till 53Hz, so the Swans will need to be turned down on bass.

The correct way to integrate a sub and speakers is with a proper crossover. Otherwise you get inconsistent overlap - you don't want to let the "full range" speakers peter off wherever they will, you want to cut them off while they still have usable response and route it into the sub (ideally at a low-ish frequency). Same idea as drivers in the cabinet. You can do the splitters thing, but it will either create a mid-bass hump or suck-out. But it requires ~$100 of hardware unless you can get the PC to do it (and again, I'm not aware of any soundcard that actually does this - which is baffling, but it is what it is). Splitters may be better than nothing though.