# Adding midbass for Ascend 340SE?



## ls1_sounds (Dec 14, 2010)

Hi, I'm hoping for a sanity check.  In our living room home theater, I currently have my Ascend 340SE monitors sitting on top of the pedestal stands that are sold with them. Pics of the stands are below, and I currently have them filled with ~50 pounds of sand. This setup produced plenty of midbass in our old room, but I have noticed them lacking some in our new house, which has a huge open floor plan. I tried raising the crossover point of the sub from 80 Hz, to 100 and 120 Hz, but this has a bad effect since my sub is near-field. At an 80 Hz crossover, the receiver's auto-EQ tries to boost the main's frequencies around 100-150 Hz, which make things distort at high volumes.

I have a 5.1 speaker setup, with a 7-channel Yamaha RX-V867 receiver that currently has two unused channels. I can re-configure them to bi-amp the front mains, but I was considering using them for another purpose instead: use each pedestal stand as an enclosure, and add drivers. Maybe a single 8" woofer in each stand, like the PE Dayton 8Ω Classic Woofer for $25? The pedestal stands are made of ½" MDF, and the dimensions are 7.5" W x 10.5" D x 24" H. Accounting for the MDF, base, and feet, I come up with in available internal volume of ~0.78 ft³.

Would this project be worth the effort? Would the rated 100 wpc be enough to power something this? I'm expecting much less to be delivered with all channels driven. The receiver should provide an 80 Hz HPF, but how would I go about creating a passive LPF for the other end? Should I expect problems in the overlapped frequency range between my Ascends and the added drivers?

I've also considered eventually replacing the pedestal stands completely, with a pair of subwoofers. This is a much more expensive solution though, and I won't have the money for this for quite some time. Something like a sealed, single 18" or dual-opposed 15" should be a good size for our room. I _should _be able to run a higher crossover frequency with these, and alleviate the problem this way.

Here's what they look like, thanks for your advice!


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## theJman (Mar 3, 2012)

ls1_sounds said:


> This setup produced plenty of midbass in our old room, but I have noticed them lacking some in our new house, which has a huge open floor plan.


It's quite possible you've answered your own question; perhaps the new "huge" room is simply too large for those speakers. They may be overwhelmed now.

One thing I've found in the past is if you move the speakers closer to the rear wall you can often pick up additional mid-bass. Not sure if that's practical in your case, or will even be sufficient, but it might be something to consider.


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## ls1_sounds (Dec 14, 2010)

Thanks Jman, I will give that a try. It would certainly be cheaper than adding drivers! I think the amp may be running out of juice at the lower frequencies, where it is also trying to boost. Maybe I'll get some extra wire and actually bi-amp the Ascends to see if that helps too.


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

If the room is large and open it is not uncommon to have some dips in response in the room. Changing the position can help. I would make some measurements of the response in the room and post the results.


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