Why 8" subwoofer?

It is really not so much in the size of the driver but the quality of the driver, the enclosure and the amp that drives it...I built my H/T sub. It has two old school Kicker Comp 12's in it and a 300 watt plate amp...I have used it with the pre-outs for the sub on my Marantz and it worked great....I also have used my Sansui integrated amp to run my JBL L7 mains off of the "A" speaker outputs and ran the subs off of the "B" outputs over to the speaker level inputs on the sub...The L7's have great low end (12" woofer, 8" midbass, 5" mid and tweeter) and I dialed the subs crossover to play only the very low lows and set the level to just thicken up the overall tone....I really like running the sub this way...it is a very musical sub set up but it also will shake the concrete floor....

if I was to go out and buy a new sub I would probably look into an M&K sub...

 

I agree with quality over size. Also, dont overlook the build quality of the speaker/sub enclosure. Not only does it improve sound quality but also increases the durabilty of your product.


If your concerned that a single 8'' sub wont deliver the sound your looking for, you might be surpized!! Some of these 8's can really losen up a solid foundation with deep powerful bass.


Before you buy, check out a few subs from Velodyne. They offer subs for all types of budgets.

 

it also depends on what you listen to. Do you do home theater mostly or is it for music?

I combined systems with my fiance..... she had boston acoustic speakers, 2 mirage subs (8in with 8pr ) & I have Infinity Kappa 8.1 v2's which do not need subs for music...... My kappas sound a lot better then her bostons so we used my speakers, her parasound amps & my new integra 9.8 pre/pro

For music the 8in subs are OK but in my house with my speakers I prefer to listen to my kappa's w/o the sub running. For HT use it is nice having more low end however they are not close to as clean sounding as my kappa's 12 in driver which isn't as important in HT.

Her Boston speakers have zero low end so a sub was a necessity all the time

Since I use the subs for HT only, I am going to make my own enclosure and use speakers from a company call diycable.com & I will probably use their maelestrom 18in driver with a pair of 18in pr's per 8cu ft box. My Mirage 8's (I have 2) just do not play low at all which sucks for HT use..... If you do not want to make your own REL makes EXCELLENT subs..... I would strongly suggest going to listen to them at a local shop. I heard their entry level 10 & it blew away my pair of mirage 8's.

I was looking at using some car audio subs in my HT setup however every sub I considered didn't have close to the frequency response in house to what the diycable subs do. There is also a company called soundsplinter that makes great subs for DIY speaker projects.

 

I bet those Kappas sound sweet....

I had been out of the HT scene for a while. I lived in a small townhouse (renting) for the last 3 years and my stuff was fragmented in parts of the townhouse...Now I am living with my girlfriend and have set up the HT stuff down in the basement family room...

My front speakers are a pair of JBL L7's...These speakers also do not really need the sub for music and could do very well with movie stuff. I currently am running the mains/sub in an unconventional way. Out of my Marantz HT receiver I am taking the pre outs for the fronts and running them to my Sansui integrated amp. I power the L7's off of the "A" outs and I feed the sub with the "B" out (speaker level input of the sub)...I then set my front speaker setting in the Marantz to "Large" and it will feed all the LF to the fronts. I could also feed the sub from the Marantz sub pre out and I can a/b how the fronts sound with "large" or "small" settings....I have done it both ways...When I run the sub off the "B" section of the Sansui I set the crossover on the sub to almost the lowest freq setting since the L7's have very good low end.

I almost feel as if I am doing an injustice to the L7's if I run them on the "small" setting in the Marantz and feed the LF to the sub via Marantz's pre outs. It kinda will hollow out the overall sound of the L7...needless to say I will be tinkering a bit untill I got the combo that sounds the best...

By the way, incase anyone is wondering. If I run the system with the Sansui out of the loop, the music does not sound near as deep and rich as when the signal is feed thru the Sansui. I used to connect my CD player direct to the Sansui and use that set up for critical music listening. The CD player would be connected to an input and run through the pre amp of the Sansui. I then could take the Marantz and feed the fronts out to the power amp direct inputs of the Sansui and use it to run the fronts in HT. So when I wanted to listen to music I would put the Sansui in the integrated mode and when I watched movies I put it on the power amp direct mode....

My sub is actually one that I built...I built an enclosure out of 3/4" mdf and made two equal sealed chambers to run a pair of old school Kicker comp 12's. I have a 300 watt plate amp in the back and the sub sounds very very good in music and movies...

Willy

 

HT is a lot of fun...... I was out of the hobby for a long time since I was to cheap to pay retail for stuff (sold electronics for a few years).

Anyways, my system is a integra 9.8 (no built in amp) & 4 parasound HCA-1500's for power. My old Kappa's sound a LOT better when I bi amp them however since I am doing 7.1 I do not have enough amps to bi amp my front kappa's (I also use a pair of 8.1's in the rear). Anyways, my next purchase is a new amp, I think I want to try the class D stuff. A company called wyred 4 sound makes excellent products at a fraction of what other companies sell them for since they do not have any retail stores. I am looking at a amp that does 500w at 8owns & 1000w at 4 ohms which should be plenty for my kappa's. They offer multi channel versions so I was thinking of getting a 500x4 am so 2 channels can power my mains then another 2 can go to the subs. They also allow you to add other channels to the amp so when/if I want 500x7 I can do that. MAny of the reviews I have read state their amps (about $2800 for 2 channels) sound better then class A or A/B amp costing $10,000-15,000! So I think I am going to give it a try......

Amplifiers make a HUGE difference!!! I had a Adcom GFA-5500 on my kappa's which sounded 100x's better then my old Denon AVR's built in amps. Going from the Adcom to PArasound was equally a HUGE step forward with MUCH tighter bass/midbass.

 

I hear ya....I ran that very adcom amp for a while...I also ran a carver thx amp (can't remember the model) too....The marantz reciever is a good one but it's only a 5.1 dolby digital/dts version...If I run my CD player straight into an input on the marantz and run EQ flat and then straight out to the speakers it sounds pretty good, but when I run that same way with the Sansui in place of the marantz it is night and day...I think that preamp in the Sansui is just so smooth and that makes a big difference too...

At one point I had a Marantz prologic processor that fed out to 5 mono block marantz amps...I ran the tops of the L7's (straps removed on the binding posts) and my center and surrounds each off a mono block and then ran that carver off of the sub out of the prologic processor to power the 12's in the bottom of the L7's...In my opinion the 2 channel stereo music I listened to sounded better with the Sansui than it did with the separates...I traded three of those amps and the processor for the current receiver I have now and sold the other 2 mono amps...

Have you ever heard the Bryston amps? Would love to hear some...I have heard the Parasounds and they are killer amps as well....Would love to hear those Kappa's....My JBL's are nice speakers...They will put out a very big speaker sound but I think the upper freq are a little harsh in them...Those old school Infinity's probably just sound killer...The infinity's always have just had a very musical smoothness to them....I have seen some on Ebay but not close to my house...Then I would have to try to sell the L7's....I also have a pair of JBL studio monitor series speakers that actually match my center speaker...but I am not sure I like them in comparison to the L7's...

Dunno...Could get lost in all the audio stuff...Love it

Willy

 

My 1st set of kappas came from Texas (I am in Ohio) .... but the seller paid shipping which was almost $500.... & I paid for the speakers which were $700! If it's something you want keep looking, they will pop up but be prepared to drive a little. I drove 3 hrs ea way for my 2nd set. From what writeups state the only music kappa's can's do well is classical which I rarely listen to. The emits are on the bright side but they do sound great. I want a set of 9.1's but who knows if I will every find a set close to me.

Kappa's are VERY power hungry which is why I want something better & more powerfull then the parasounds. A local shop sells Bryston & I was really thinking about getting one, it's just the more I read about wyred4sound stuff the more I think I want to try one. I forget the model but the bryston amp I was interested in was 600ish watts at 4 ohms & for less money I could get a new class D vs a used Bryston. There is another company I think it was mckormick or something like that which is suppose to have excellent value for the money, similar price to Bryston.

I went to the local shop to talk amps a few weeks ago and then got on the topic of cables. We compared $1200 RCA cables vs $150 RCA's (amp to processor) & I was shocked by the difference!!! I am not about to pay that much for cables....... but I want to do balanced lines which he claimed are better yet. But it's going to be a while before I can go that route......

Marantz makes great stuff......