If I'm listening to a 2-channel CD or iPod (via cassette player) or XM radio, is my subwoofer being used? I certainly don't notice it as much with non Dolby Digital/DTS 5.1 sources.

Thanks,

Dennis

 

I think it is, yeah. One easy way to tell if you hit the right knob a couple of times until the subwoofer shows up and increase it. If it's being used, you'll notice more bass.

Joe

 

Definitely, I mean there has to be a crossover that sends the low frequencies to the subwoofer right!!

 

Yup. There is a crossover that ports a L/R summed and reduced level low frequency signal to the sub for 2 channel material.

I addition I also think that some L/R summed and reduced level mid/high freq content is directed to the center channel as well.

It seems to be well implemented since nothing seems off balance

 

It seems that the subwoofer effect is not as pronounced with 2-channel music. I have to turn the bass to max and subwoofer to max to really feel it.

Maybe when that iPod is connected with the OEM control module it will be all digital and sound as good as those DVD-As.

Thanks for the replies.

Dennis

 

Geez, Bass= -2 and Sub= +2 is more than enough for me. Perhaps Bass = -1 but anything more clouds up the mid range response way too much. You going to need a separate sub to be happy.

WRT the iPod and it being "digital". Don't buy the marketing crap. Digital does not mean "better". In many cases "digital" is better but in many cases it is far worse. It will all depend on the quality you use in encoding the songs for your iPod. For years local cable companies have been pushing "digital cable" (don't confuse with "digital television") "Digital cable" lets them push more channels to you but the quality pretty much sucks compared to a clean analog signal. If you look closely there is lots of macro-blocking and artifacts. Clearly a case where digital is not better in terms of quality. Perhaps better in terms of quantity, but not quality. Much the same with mp3. Better in "quantity" not "quality"

At best expect your iPod to sound like a CD. Which in many cases is just fine.

 

I shall try bass=-2 and sub= +2 and see/hear what I get. Thanks.

For the iPod, I usually rip at 256kps variable to get decent quality unless it's kids music (where 128kps is just fine).

I notice that if I use my home analog CD player with my receiver (connected with the analog red/white connectors), I get good CD sound but when I stream MP3s (in my case via Airport Express) to my home receiver through the digital (optical) cable, the receiver seems to be able to do more with the music and I can make it "sound better" via selecting different modes; for example, these modes seem to be able to bring out more bass, etc. These same modes are not available with an analog input. Regarding the TL sound system, I was speculating that the phenomenon where people have expressed that DVD-As ripped from the same CD via .wav files sound better than the same CD is due to the fact that the DVD-A is sending the signal to a different "processor" (whatever it may be) which knows how to make the music sound better. On the same line of thought, I'm thinking that the iPod connection would be digital and thus send the music to the same "processor" mentioned above and thus make things sound better than through the tape player.

I hear you on the digital vs. analog and quantity vs. quality. MP3s are great because they are small and can be searched -- making my music much more available on demand for me. Perhaps if the drives on the iPods get big enough, I'll just rip everything as "Apple Lossless" yielding huge files and then I'll get as good as CD sound. Today, the iPod sound is pretty darn good and most people (including me) cannot tell the difference except when using noise cancelling headphones and really knowning the song and listening closely -- I have identified distortion flaws in the high notes on certain songs (now on my list of "songs needing to be re-ripped at higher bit rate, etc.)

Dennis