Would adding a sub make a big difference with my setup

Morning, I have a current setup of a kenwood kd-650 tt a pair of kef q300s and an old school sansui au555a amp. I enjoy the sound but wonder if im missing out by not having a sub? Any suggestions would be appreciated from an audio quality perspective.

Thanks,

Justin20180315_205038.jpg
 
I expect a decent sub would make a big difference when running bookshelf-style speakers. But, it may depend to some degree on your musical preference. If you don't listen to much stuff with solid/weighty low end maybe not as much. But, if you do, a sub would add around another octave of extension.
 
Night and day. Do it. Suggest a small "musical" sub with dual 10" drivers (around $150 local pickup). Stick it in the corner and plunk a plant on top—they love the vibrations and will grow like bamboo!
 
Surprised the turntable needle doesn't jump all over the place since it's right next to the speakers.
Maybe you don't turn it up real loud.
As mentioned, a sub might make a difference.
 
I don't listen to it real loud or real bass heavy music however I thought maybe it would round out the sound better in the room with a musical sub.
 
I agree with the others - with your current setup, a sub should make a substantial difference in providing the bass frequencies you are currently missing. And as Awillia6 pointed out, a "musical" sub with two 10" speakers should be a real eye-opener for you, since the ten-inchers will typically allow you to experiment with crossover frequencies a little higher than usual.

But any quality sub is going to make a real impact on your system. The key for integration is to pay close attention to the crossover frequency, and this is determined through experimentation. If possible, it is best to use some sort of hi-pass network with your mains so that frequencies being produced by the sub(s) are not replicated by the mains. There are several ways to accomplish this, depending on the features of your preamp and/or subwoofer. If this is not possible with your gear, try to bring the sub into play at the point that your KEFs begin to roll off in bass response. Again, experimentation.

Be sure, as well, to avoid a mistake commonly made by new subwoofer users: playing the sub so loud that it begins to stand out and to draw attention to itself. Good subwoofer integration will result in a "blend" of frequencies so that the sub sounds as if it is an integral part of the main speaker system.

Good luck. Keep us informed of your progress.

GeeDeeEmm
 
I don't listen to it real loud or real bass heavy music however I thought maybe it would round out the sound better in the room with a musical sub.
What is a "musical sub"?

If the volume is never high and the program material is such that not much signal will go to the sub, then it's probably not worth it.

Proper deployment of your current system should probably be the first priority.
 
What is a "musical sub"?

It's not a real mystery. Sub manufacturers know what kind of audience they are building particular gear for, and so optimize the performance (frequency response curve) accordingly. A "musical" sub is one that is geared toward people who use them primarily for sound reinforcement of the lower frequencies rather than as a sound effects in a musical circus.

YouTube is awash in videos graphically illustrating the difference between the two. And we are all unwillingly exposed to the latter every time we stop at a stop light or gas station with "auto-files" determined to impose their lack of taste on every other motorist unfortunate enough to share the highway with them.


GeeDeeEmm
 
i dont think you would gain all that much. i run my Ls50s with and without a sub and dont notice much difference and dont feel they need one. i think the Q300's should have similar bass output and they are front ported so they are fine on your shelves but i would pull them forward all the way, they would most likely sound sound better on stands at ear level or on the top shelve so i would consider that as well.
 
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It's not a real mystery. Sub manufacturers know what kind of audience they are building particular gear for, and so optimize the performance (frequency response curve) accordingly. A "musical" sub is one that is geared toward people who use them primarily for sound reinforcement of the lower frequencies rather than as a sound effects in a musical circus.

YouTube is awash in videos graphically illustrating the difference between the two. And we are all unwillingly exposed to the latter every time we stop at a stop light or gas station with "auto-files" determined to impose their lack of taste on every other motorist unfortunate enough to share the highway with them.


GeeDeeEmm
Thanks for the good hearty laugh GeeDeeEmm. :thumbsup:
 
Sub can make a difference. Do yourself a favor and stay away from gamer subs. This is a Velodyne SC-600D and Mirage 12 inch passive that I am goofing around with. I know, positioning is not ideal but there is good resolution and harmonics to compliment my modest speakers.

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only way to know is try it .
on another note if your kefs are as good as these tannoys you might not be asking the question .
 
Yes, it will make a difference. How big, how much of an improvement, only you can determine. Some find it the opposite of improvement, feeling integration with the main speaker unnatural. I find I like the extension with bookshelf (and even with many very large) speaker systems. I like a sealed-box SVS for music, and as a good price/performance purchase, and find them to blend in just fine with judicious settings.
 
Properly set up, adding a sub can clean up the midbass, add dynamic range to the system, increase resolution and detail, and fill in the bottom octave(s).
Improperly set up, it will just make things muddy.
 
Based on advice I got here on AK, I just added two additional matched subs to my combo music/HT setup.

On the music side, I have a set of minitower speakers getting a full-range signal. Each one of them daisy-chains the full-range signal into its own sub. The towers roll off low pretty quickly around the mid-40s (2-1/2-ways with 5-1/4 drivers). The subs open their eyes in the low 30's, really start pumping by the high 30s, and are set to hand over to the towers completely in the low 100s. Sub level is set (same on both) to bring the minitower/sub combo together so they act as one integrated speaker with near-perfect coverage from mid 30s on up. I intend to integrate a dedicated LFE sub (bass-managed via electronics) with dual 10" drivers into the mix to fill in the missing grunt from mid-20s to the mid-30s. Once I have all that in place, I'll run Audyssey speaker/room correction, set the mains (mintower/sub combos) to "Small," indicate I have a sub for LFE and set its cutoff at around 40Hz. Speaker/sub combos will get 40 on up, dedicated sub will get 40 on down.

I have separate in-wall/in-ceiling speakers with their own dedicated single 12" driver sub for HT duty. No elements other than the room are common to both systems (even the electronics use separate Audyssey setups for music/HT).

Works, after a fashion.
 
HT-2Channel Multi-Sub Setup.jpg

Hah! Nailed it. Got my standalone dual 10" sub fully integrated into the minitower/stereo sub combo I mentioned above.

Trick was to unplug the minitowers and then to carefully trim the standalone sub such that it played nice with the two stereo subs. Once all the subs were integrated on the low end, I plugged the minitowers back in and it sounded decent, a bit thin but decent. I then ran Audyssey speaker/room correction software on the main combos and dedicated sub. Once that was done, I checked its detected settings and it had everything just perfect: distances to mains, distance to standalone, fronts detected as "Small" with crossover to dedicated sub detected and set at 40Hz. Just as designed. I overrode the default Audyssey modes in favor of Audyssey Flat only then "spun" a few discs (digital data files) of various types of music and all was good, very good indeed. Saved the config.dat file to disk for recall whenever the two-channel mood strikes. But right now, time to load in the 7.1 channel HT configuration file so we can watch Homeland and Walking Dead. See ya!
 
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