[TJHUB]

Without going into what I'm doing too deeply.  I am currently feeding my subwoofer (low-passed at 80Hz) from only one channel from my 2-channel preamp.  I've read before that most think bass is not in stereo, but am I missing anything by doing this?  From what I've listened to thus far, I cannot detect any difference in sound from feeding the sub just one channel. 

Thoughts?

[flintstone]

It depends on where the sub is located at that x-over freq (80hz). If the sub is located between the speakers you are usually fine......at least to my ear 

You can pick up a Paradigm X-30 outboard crossover for around $100........I would do that. Feed the L+R ouputs from your preamp into the crossover.....and the the sub output to the sub.


Dave

[TJHUB]

Thanks Dave, but my setup is a bit more complicated than that. 

I currently run a Velodyne SMS-1 because it can accept a pair of stereo inputs (unbalanced), and a single mono input (balanced).  Until just recently, I was running my 2-channel preamp outs to the stereo inputs, and my receiver's LFE out to the mono input.  That's right, my setup is double-duty, home theater and 2-channel.

The stereo inputs work fine with the SMS-1, but the balanced, mono input causes thumps whenever my receiver switches audio modes.  The real problem is that my DVR suffers from many audio dropouts and of course the receiver switches modes for ever commercial, channel change, whatever.  It's really annoying. 

So I decided to try running the left stereo input connected to my 2-channel preamp and the right stereo input connected to my receiver.  PROBLEM SOLVED!  No more thumps. 

For the record, my sub resides just to the inside of my left speaker.  It sounds just perfect there and I can't localize it for music at all.  I was just wondering if stereo music means stereo bass, where stereo bass may cause me to lose some music information.  Like I said, my listening today makes me think I'm not missing anything...

[dvenardos]

Your LFE channel from the receiver would be fine, but just taking one channel from your two-channel preamp is going to depend on how the particular recording was mastered.

[TJHUB]

I ran across a similar question on another forum.  One of the posters posted this device:

http://www.audioplex.com/BUFFY.htm

And this was posted as well:

http://www.dspeaker.com/en/support/using-stereo-pre-out-with-8033.shtml

Maybe this is my solution?  It would seem so.

[poseidonsvoice]

I ran across a similar question on another forum.  One of the posters posted this device:

http://www.audioplex.com/BUFFY.htm

And this was posted as well:

http://www.dspeaker.com/en/support/using-stereo-pre-out-with-8033.shtml

Maybe this is my solution?  It would seem so.

Or just an acceptance that the great majority of recordings you have, that bass is recorded in mono (I'm talking about less than 200 Hz). Now, I don't know about most of the modern recordings coming from small niche audiophile pressings, like Chesky, etc...you should e-mail them and ask that question. It would be very eye opening to find out, although I still don't have proof that bass recorded in 'stereo' is still appreciated by the human ear in 'stereo' since our hearing sensitivity is very different in that range. Directivity doesn't matter much at frequencies less than 500 Hz.

Anand.

[TJHUB]

Or just an acceptance that the great majority of recordings you have, that bass is recorded in mono (I'm talking about less than 200 Hz). Now, I don't know about most of the modern recordings coming from small niche audiophile pressings, like Chesky, etc...you should e-mail them and ask that question. It would be very eye opening to find out, although I still don't have proof that bass recorded in 'stereo' is still appreciated by the human ear in 'stereo' since our hearing sensitivity is very different in that range. Directivity doesn't matter much at frequencies less than 500 Hz.

Anand.

I have carefully listened to as much material as I've had time for, and I have yet to notice anything that sounds off.  Things are working and sounding great, so I've basically decided to leave well enough alone for the time being. 

It would be interesting to find out if there are any recordings not mono in the bass region.  I have a particular track that has a bass tone that moves left and right across the sound stage that I've listen to many, many times.  It sounds exactly the same with my sub wired to one channel. 

Thanks.

[Letitroll98]

Or just an acceptance that the great majority of recordings you have, that bass is recorded in mono (I'm talking about less than 200 Hz). Now, I don't know about most of the modern recordings coming from small niche audiophile pressings, like Chesky, etc...you should e-mail them and ask that question. It would be very eye opening to find out, although I still don't have proof that bass recorded in 'stereo' is still appreciated by the human ear in 'stereo' since our hearing sensitivity is very different in that range. Directivity doesn't matter much at frequencies less than 500 Hz.

Anand.

I don't know if I'm disagreeing with that statement or expanding upon it, but I have many recordings, albeit a majority may be classified as specialist labels, that definitely have stereo bass to at least the lower string bass notes around 40 hz.  These would be Classical, Jazz, specialty file artists, with a small mix of pop releases.  And I have many pop music recordings where the low bass is quite clearly summed, as well as movie tracks in my HT setup.  I would be very upset at having only mono bass lines, but your opinion certainly depends on your library.