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Lack bass from KLF-30


AZNracerx1989

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My Klf 30's seem to lack bass when I don't set "rock" equalizer mode on my dvd player... But rock mode messes with the midrange too much. I have a passive preamp that is transparent. To attemp to fix this problem, I turn the equalizer off and bought a subwoofer, but the subwoofer is wayyy too boomy for my taste. The bass I want is the heart thumping kind, like at concerts, not the floor shaking. I think this is around 60 hz. How can I improve the bass output of this range? Should I just try an equalizer?

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Something's gotta be wrong, those KLFs should be pounding the plaster off of your walls. Where do you have them located in your room? How far away from a wall are they? Where do you sit in your room? (Square in the middle, closer to the back wall, closer to the front wall, etc?)

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Nothing is wrong with the KLF-30's I still have bass. I just think that the 60 hz range is too weak. Or maybe the mids are too bright to turn up the volume for the bass to shine through. I am sure it is placed pretty well. I hate the sound of subwoofer bass because on alot of songs it sounds "boomy" I like the techno kind of bass. My subwoofer is well admired by, but I cant seem to set it up to work good with my setup. I turn my subwoofer very low because of this.

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Or maybe the mids are too bright to turn up the volume for the bass to shine through.

That's how I like to listen to my music.....with the mids turned down just a tad. It allows the bass and treble to be more present.....especially the bass. I could never understand how some guys whoset their tone controls or eq with the mids turned up could listen to music that way.

Subs can be a PITA to dial in for music.....but when you get it right it's awesome.

You might want to try an eq or a crossover to get the sound you want. That's what I do. I have to.

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If there is nothing wrong with the speakers or amplification it is most likely the room/placement that is keeping the bass hidden. For the low frequencies your room is going to be doing most of the work. Spend some time (alot) on speaker and listening position experimentation. You will be surprised by the results. For a serious listening session I have to move everything around. The optimal placement doesn't work for normal use of the room.

From The Complete guide to high-end Audio by Robert Harley (not my favorite reviwer/author but the book is chock full of common sense stuff I didn't know, not having any myself):

"It has been said that a loudspeaker designer has 100% control over his product's sound above 700Hz, 50% control from 300Hz to 700Hz, and only 20% control below 300Hz. This aphorism reflects the increasing influence of the listening room on sound quality at lower and lower frequencies."

Hope this helps,
D

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Alot of people are against EQ's in this forum, but I think I need to adjust the sound a bit to my taste. I have been thinking about an EQ for a longgg time... Even some good Mcintosh preamps have bass and treble control

Nothing wrong with using tone controls if it gives you what you want.

Go for it......be a rebel. [Y]

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If there is nothing wrong with the speakers or amplification it is most likely the room/placement that is keeping the bass hidden. For the low frequencies your room is going to be doing most of the work. Spend some time (alot) on speaker and listening position experimentation. You will be surprised by the results. For a serious listening session I have to move everything around. The optimal placement doesn't work for normal use of the room.

From The Complete guide to high-end Audio by Robert Harley (not my favorite reviwer/author but the book is chock full of common sense stuff I didn't know, not having any myself):

"It has been said that a loudspeaker designer has 100% control over his product's sound above 700Hz, 50% control from 300Hz to 700Hz, and only 20% control below 300Hz. This aphorism reflects the increasing influence of the listening room on sound quality at lower and lower frequencies."

Hope this helps,
D

That is a pretty cool quote.

Each of my Klipsch speakers wants to be placed differently in a room.

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First make sure you are in phase. You can try inverting the phase if that gives you higher bass output in your room (some people might not like the sound of inverted phase). The thump in the chest comes from the mid bass not the subwoofer. Hsu Research makes a mid bass module just for that purpose. I've haven't tried it but if you want thump...............

Thanx, Russ

P.S. Count me into the anti EQ club. If there is no thump on the record there is no way to make it thump without messing up something else. "If it ain't in the groove it ain't going play".

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I feel your pain....

I recently moved into a new house and have had a heck of a time getting my KLF-30"s to sound right!. I don't us any EQ and run my pre flat except that I find that I like the loudness on, which adds +5dB @ 100Hz? My bass sounds tight and punchy with this setting, but in an effort to get off the loudness crutch (using other built in pre-amp effects) I get a "droan" in the lower frequencies. Then....

I installed the Crites cross overs and really liked the change in the mids and highs and not so much in the lows, but I also made a basic mistake by doing two mods at one time..... While I was installing the cross overs, I dynamat'd the lower part of the cabinet thinking that it would help the low end and maybe solve the droan. The result is that the low frequency is even more sensitive to this droan and I don't know if it is crossover or dampening material related. Worst part is that neither one is easy to remove to troubleshoot the problem.

I think that I can eliminates the dynamat by installing some thin acoustic foam over the dynamat to kill any reflections.So I will be adding the foam in the near future to see if I can get a positive result. Also in line will be the addition of a sonic maximizer (BBE 2002R) as I have heard good things with this add.

I have also ordered a Marchand cross over (@825Hz) with a notch filter @ 3KHz (Grundy effect... thanks Rich), which I hope will solve some of what seems to be inherent with horns, the forward mids... especially at high volume levels! The ironic thing is that at those high levels is when the bass finally comes into it's own, so I hope the notch filter works out. Of course this means that I will be bi-amping the system which creates more than one change to the system again!

One other variable… this new house has a sub-floor foundation and all my other stereo rooms had concrete foundations… Hmmmm.

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hi, sorry guys but i dont understand why the bass would matter that much. i would personally recommend using an external subwoofer with your setup. i have a pair of cf-4 and those things can shake floors on their own but i put a synergy sub 12 with my setup and it made a huge difference, everything got clearer. I listen to all my music and movies in direct mode, everything sounds so much cleaner[:)], i know the klf-30 have bass reflex design so u could probably adjust the distance from your walls to reinforce bass. You said you listen to music like techno, from personal expirence i can tell you that techno is a very poor choise in determining your speaker qualities (since it varies), try some bass testers and see if they sound "right" to your liking. i have my crossover set to 80hz,while 80hz is far from perfect it does balance my sub and the mains.

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I have a passive preamp and I am unable to adjust the crossover. It is basically just a volume controller. I put the subwoofer on one of the other outputs of that preamp (unbuffered) while speaker amps go onto buffered. I adjusted it last night and it sounds good now.. But some songs have a grunt to the subwoofer that I don't like. I like pure clean bass..

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But some songs have a grunt to the subwoofer that I don't like. I like pure clean bass..

What do you have the crossover set at on the sub itself? I think with KLF-30's you're looking at it being crossed over at about 60hz.

If it is crossed over right.....and is phased right.....and is in the proper location you shouldn't even know there is a sub in the room. The sub is going to compliment everything the speaker already does with an emphasis on the deep lows. It will enhance the mid-bass but that's it. That may or may not be enough for you. A good sub should make your speakers sound as if they have more "body" to them. Remember, you're listening to the speakers not the sub.

If the 30's still aren't kicking out enough mid-bass for you, you might want to check something like the JTR Growlers.

http://www.jtrspeakers.com/growler.html

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I set it around 100 hz crossed over. It sounds good now. I like the punch that the subwoofer gives. I set the KLF-30's to "small" and plugged the subwoofer into my Oppo 980h dvd player. Are the original capacitors in the crossover still good? I wonder if I can improve my speakers by replacing them to a audiophile quality one.

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