viciousknid

I know this question has been beat to death and then some but I'm not having much luck.

I've searched thru the forums using "phase" "phase redirect" and "bass redirect" but not getting this figured out. If i did read the right forum I got confused.

I have an Audigy 2 5.1 sound card. Altec lansing 5100 enhanced surround system. Here is what the back of the sub looks like for reference. http://www.3dnews.ru/documents/5393/5100_conn.jpg.
The only satellite speaker i'm still using is the center. I now have four 6" in the rear with built in tweaters, and for the fronts I used an adapter to run between 2 pairs of speakers. the first set is running directly off the sub consists of four 8"s with tweaters, and the other set is two 15"s with tweaters but its feeding off a 2 channel amp. Everything sounds great and has for a long time, but since adding the 15"s i've been trying to redirect some Bass to the fronts.
If its something i have to do in KX can someone just save the files i need to change and send them to me? It's the lazy way but I don't get to mess around on this thing much anymore other than to watch movies or listen to music.

Hope that's enough info, cuz I'm exhausted.

p.s. kinda sucks that you can't embed pics on this forum.

Maddogg6

wow - you adding alot of stuff to a system not designed for it... impedance mis-matching is likely from what I read - which can lead to damaging your amplifier at worse case - and is at least affecting freq response/phase problems.

You can set Surrounder in kX DSP to 'redirect' bass freq's to the sub-woofer output of the sound card - or not - but - now the sub woofer needs new connections to continue to send LFE to the sub woofer output of the card. Which - is not exactly a 'plug-and-play' situation (depends on what exactly you *do* do with kX/PC. But - kX isnt really 'plug and play' anyway... so, 'lazyness' would likely equal dissatisfaction either way .

So unless I knew more about what you do... it would be a waste of my time to post anything more than I have already. Movies and music only?? never play a video game?
Is the audio player you use up-converting stereo to 5.1? - or was kX doing this for you?

etc.. etc...

viciousknid

No time for games anymore. Impedence is still 8 ohms on each speaker, so no missmatch there. The sub is only designed to push out 100 watts total so i know i'm low on wattage, the 2 channel is 240 watts, but i only use it for the 15"s the other speakers seem to be doing good, no sound distortion. Aside from the 15"s i've been running this setup for a good 3 years.
I've messed with the bass redirect in the surrounder but there's only a tone change in the sub, it doesn't seem to affect the other speakers bass wise.

Sounds like it's most likely going to be a hardware issue. Perhaps the sub (being the primary power source) is cutting off certain frequencies to the other speakers. This makes sense seeing as how its made for satellite speakers.

Sound about right? If so I know ways to get around this problem, but I was hoping KX might have had a feature that made this easier. If I have to I can feed my 2 channel directly off the back of the sub speaker. Which would make the 15"s subs and I can just disable the tweaters in they have.
Currently the 15"s are full range tower speakers.

I'm not too concerned about the 5100 sub failing. If this happens it just gives me a reason to go buy an actual receiver designed to do this.

Edit: As far as converting stereo to 5.1, i'm not sure which is converting it. The 5100 system can manually change between stereo, 4.1 gaming, and 5.1. I use KX because the sound quality is better and I can better adjust the volume on each speaker.

Maddogg6

But you said this... (its not just about speakers - even Line signals impedance mismatch can cause freq response issues)
And depending on how you 'adapted' this other amp...??

yes... but I imagine several ways of connecting all this stuff up too.... most of which are *not* 'recommended' when talking 'audio quality'.

viciousknid

The adapters on the back of the sub just split from single to double rca. this is so i can run a set to the 2 fronts that are 8"s and another set to the amp, where i have to use an rca to TRS adapter.

I just need to know if you think KX can do what I want to do or if I should just wait until I get a receiver.
I cranked it up full blast today and had 0 distortion, so i'm not worried about how I have it set up since I usually don't go more than 1/2 way.
It's not a splice n wire setup. I'm using the same size and types of rca's for each speaker. The 5100 surround system its self was purchased back in 2003 and always had distortion with those satellite speakers. so for that 1 year of running it's out of the box setup it had distortion, and 3 years of this setup I've had no distortion. Most of the speakers I'm running are designed for low powered systems. The 4 8"s are from an old ass record player my grandpa gave me. The 6"s in the back are from a 50 watt stereo. and the 15"s are from a larger old style stereo. 130 watts each, which is why i use the 2 channel on them. I've had new PC speakers that wouldn't last as long as this set up has.

I can imagen there's going to be a frequency miss match in there some where since i'm running different types of speakers between the front and back, but I'm comfortable with it.

From the sounds of it I should just wait till i get an actual receiver that will allow me to control treble and bass on the fronts and rears.

Maddogg6

Well - if *any* soundcard/driver can do it - kX can. kx is VERY flexible.

DSP config will depend on more detail on how things are physically connected - which is still not exactly clear..

For instance - is the Y adapter at the subs input or output?

Is there 3 stereo pairs between the sound card and sub?

A 'ascii' drawing could help.. like..(use code tags to make it easier to read for the Y adapter)

This may make it easier to visualize your physical connections

viciousknid

Yes, 3 stereo pairs between SC and Sub.
You had it right in the first one. My Y is on the out put
It's like basically having two Front Left and Front Right outputs off the back of the sub. One set going directly to speakers, the other set running into a 2 channel amp and then to speakers.
Hope that helps.

Russ

My guess is that there is a crossover in the speaker system filtering the lower frequencies from being sent to the other speakers (as the original satellites probably could not handle them). If that is the case, kX cannot do anything about it. One option might be to use a Y adapter from the front output of the sound card (instead of after the sub) so you can skip the sub/crossover for one set of speakers.

i.e.

viciousknid

That's what i thought I might have to do. But i wanted to check with someone that knows KX better than i do. Thats a little harder to do. I'd have to get a Y for headphone jack (which is the plugin on the SC). Then get a headphone to rca adapter. Blah
Bad enough when I purchased the amp I thought It had rca jacks but had TRS jacks (studio amp) so i had to use another adapter there to go rca to trs. lol
If i end up going that route, the bass redirect in KX should work properly now right?
As it is now I hear no frequency change in the fronts, only the sub.

I appreciate the help

Russ

It seems to me that you would not want to use kX's bass redirection anyway, as you want the full frequency range sent to your 15's, and the 5100 seems to be doing the bass redirection on it's own for the rest of the speakers.

In any case, as Maddogg6 stated, kX is very flexible/configurable and should be able to do what you want.

viciousknid

Sounds good. I'll play with some variations and find something I like for now. Can't ever push my self into buying a receiver. So i'm trying to make do until that day.

Thanks for the help. that should be all i needed to clarify.