Ascend's with hi-rez music

[stumacdo]

Hi,

I currently have 340's SE's front and 170's rear and utilize my setup for listening to a lot of hi-rez music, specifically SACD. I've noticed that with multichannel recordings where there's a dedicated bass signal, the sound is fantastic. However, many of these SACD's are stereo only and without a specific signal being sent to the sub, the sound seems to be lacking in the bass area. My HK AVR does not allow for bass management on the analog inputs utilized for SACD so I'm out of luck there. I currently have my speakers set as 'large'. Would anyone in a similar situation recommend setting them to 'small' and running the wires from the AVR to the Sub to the 340's ? Thanks in advance.

[tp7539]

I'm about to purchase a 7.1 ascends system, and will use the analog outputs for HD DVD, WMV HD, and DVD Audio playback. So I'm very curious to know how I'm going to be able to manage the bass (since my receiver just offers passthrough with no bass management). I'm going to be running my sources from a new, high pc.......so I'm hoping that a new VISTA operating system will allow me to send some bass to the subwoofer in this situation.

But with no experience with this high rez music and movies over analog, I have no idea how this all works and what settings to use.

I'm thinking that i'll always leave my speakers set to small....but who knows.

[curtis]

Does your SACD player offer bass management? Most do.

[stumacdo]

Does your SACD player offer bass management? Most do.

Unfortunately not (unless it's buried in a sub-menu I've never seen). I've got one of those massive Sony CD/DVD jukeboxes (pretty recent late 2005 model).

[curtis]

Many folks use the Outlaw ICBM for external bass management with great success. Unfortunately, they are discontinued, but you can find them once in a while on Audiogon and eBay.

http://outlawaudio.com/products/icbm.html

[stumacdo]

Would I need to go the route of the Outlaw ICBM or could I just run my speaker wire from the AVR to the Sub to the 340's so that the sub would pick up the lower frequency signals for the 2-channel music ?

[curtis]

Would I need to go the route of the Outlaw ICBM or could I just run my speaker wire from the AVR to the Sub to the 340's so that the sub would pick up the lower frequency signals for the 2-channel music ?

It would not cost much to try it.

Would you still use the RCA connection for movies? I am not sure if you can use the low level RCA connection and the high level speaker connection at the same time.

[stumacdo]

It would not cost much to try it.

Would you still use the RCA connection for movies? I am not sure if you can use the low level RCA connection and the high level speaker connection at the same time.

I would think I'd still use the RCA connection, not only for movies but also when listening to multi-channel surround music via SACD or DVD-A. On those multi-channel discs, a separate signal is typically sent to the sub via the RCA. I would think this would only be an issue if the main 340's were also receiving bass signals. Then again, I'm not sure which is why I figured I'd post

[curtis]

A signal would still be passing through both connections at the same time. I would contact the specific sub manufacturer to make sure.

On those multi-channel discs, a separate signal is typically sent to the sub via the RCA.

Yes...but it is a specific signal that is not created by a crossover. In those cases, the mains could still be receiving bass signals.

[stumacdo]

A signal would still be passing through both connections at the same time. I would contact the specific sub manufacturer to make sure.


Yes...but it is a specific signal that is not created by a crossover. In those cases, the mains could still be receiving bass signals.

I'm trying to think of (oh, the horror !!!) my pre-Ascend days with a Bo*e satellite/sub setup. I know that the satellite speakers went into the sub from the AVR and then out to the sat speakers. I just can't remember if there was a unique RCA running from the Bo*e sub to the AVR.

I'm embarassed to even cop to the statement that I had that system prior to my Ascend set-up