# Whats the best way to set this up for the most bass?



## kipland (May 2, 2008)

Ok so in my room, I have kind of a home theater set up with my projector

So i have a 20'x10' room and the projector screen is against the wall as shown below 
[ ]
[ ]
[ chair bed ]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
[ screen______________________________]
and the chair and bed are basically my viewing/ listening areas

so now that i got the video all set up im trying to figure out what audio configuration I should do with my equipment

(I really would perfer not to buy anything else)
i have a 
AIWA cxna-92 ( 2x 145 watt speakers with stereo reciever pretty loud ok quality)

and 

RCA RT2360 (5.1 surround sound reciever)
and 3 included speakers (really poor quality)

also i have a 
bose acoustamass 3 series 2.1 speakers (no reciever)


I want to use this system for watching tv/movies/ps2 40%

and 60% for music of various genres

So the RCA reciever also came with a subwoofer and the bose 2.1 system has one too

I want to get the best sound and most bass possible

What do you guys think?

Also the AIWA system (which i have my components plugged into) has a line out and a subwoofer out
What is the best way to bridge these systems to get the most bass? 

also(sorry) the rca system has a subwoofer pre out...?
idk what that is but could i run the sub out from the aiwa to the left in and the pre out back to the right in and plug my subs in there?
idk all advice is welcome 
let me know if anything is unclear
-Kip


----------



## tenzip (May 4, 2007)

In case nobody else has said it, welcome to the Shack.

IMO, first step is to sell the Bose system on ebay, to fund your addiction/hobby.

I'm not positive I know where your furniture is with respect to your screen, but I think I have it. Correct me if I'm wrong. When you sit in your chair, you're looking south, (down in your diagram) and the screen is to your right slightly? The bed is to your left, and to the left of the screen, there's a door. So how did I do?


```
_____________________________________
|                                                          |
|                                                          |
|            chair                               bed    |
|                                                          |
|                                                          |
|                                                          |
|screen__________door_________________|
```
Pictures would help a whole bunch.

Is the screen flat on the wall, or angled in the corner?

Now that we've gotten past that, and assuming I'm picturing it correctly, I think your layout is, ahem, sub-optimal for surround sound.

Can you rearrange the room?

I haven't looked at the specs on your equipment, but it's likely you can use the stereo speakers as your L and R mains with the RCA surround receiver, and use the others as surrounds. You can try the 3rd speaker as a center, but you're probably better off (if it's as bad as you say) to use phantom center, which is just letting your L and R mains do the job.

When somebody buys your Bose system, you can decide at that point what you need to do with the cash.

Hope that helps a bit.


----------



## tenzip (May 4, 2007)

BTW, I looked up the manuals for your equipment. Here are links to the manuals for the Aiwa and RCA systems.

You can hook up the speakers from the Aiwa system to the RCA receiver, but be a bit cautious, as they are 6 Ohm speakers, and the RCA system is designed for 8 Ohm speakers. You could damage the receiver if you run it too loud and long.


----------



## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

Can you post a picture of your room??? ... it will help a lot :yes:



kipland said:


> (I really would perfer not to buy anything else) ...


My suggestion is to upgrade what you have little by little ... :yes:



> I want to use this system for watching tv/movies/ps2 40%
> 
> and 60% for music of various genres


According to the manual your AIWA came with surround speakers ... Do you have them???



> ...So the RCA reciever also came with a subwoofer and the bose 2.1 system has one too


RCA sub is passive, and according to manual you can add an active sub to the receiver ... I'm not sure about the Bose sub (most of the time Bose uses a single cable to hook everything up :yes ... Can you post pictures of the back of the Bose sub to see the connection options??? 



> ... Also the AIWA system (which i have my components plugged into) has a line out and a subwoofer out What is the best way to bridge these systems to get the most bass?


To get the most bass you need a "powered sub" at least 150W ... what you have right now won't give you what you want :yes:



> ...the rca system has a subwoofer pre out...?
> idk what that is but could i run the sub out from the aiwa to the left in and the pre out back to the right in and plug my subs in there?


Which sub are you planning to connect this way??? ... if I read everything correctly, you don't have a powered sub :huh: ... the subwoofer pre-out on the IAWA and RCA are used for that kind of sub only.

Also, I don't think is possible to do what you're suggesting :dontknow:


----------



## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

The bridging of the AIWA and RCA is not worth it (in my opinion) :yes:

I suggest you to keep the AIWA and find the surrounds that came with the system (per manual) ... and sell everything else to get a better system (around $500 for a decent one).

Or, you can get a used powered sub to get more bass and use either RCA or AIWA to run the speakers ...and to tell you the truth, I think you need a pair of new speakers for the front too, what you have doesn't have a good frequency response (receivers (40/50Hz-20KHz) and speakers(maybe from 120Hz to 20KHz)). :surrender:

Like I said before ... try to upgrade little by little :hide:


----------



## kipland (May 2, 2008)

Hey thanks for the quick response and help already everyone this forum seems really good

alright so i took some pictures (see below) of the set up and equipment(sorry about the zip file the pictures were too large to be uploaded by themselves

I do think that it would be more ideal to have my screen against the west wall (left side of diagram)
but that would involve mounting the projector on the ceiling and doing a lot of wiring id rather not do right now (it may happen eventually but i doubt it considering this is my bedroom somewhat combined with a theater room rather than just dedicated to a theater(this also explains why spending a lot of money on it is not ideal))

I would like to continue to use the aiwa stereo to power the speakers because they are 145W each and the RCA only does 50/ch(this also eliminates any compatibility issues)

The issue is the speakers are too large to mount next to the screen What about putting them in the closet? the rest of our house is behind that wall and the sound penetrates that wall relatively easily already...also acoustical issues are sure to happen there (or maybe not you tell me)

what if i hooked up the sub and the Bose system to the RCA and plugged that into the line out on the AIWA?

BTW the "surround speakers" included in the AIWA are 30W speakers built into the back of the large speakers


----------



## tenzip (May 4, 2007)

David, the manual was for two different models, I believe he has the model with no surround speakers, just L+R, at least the model # he gave matched the picture with just 2 speakers.

Without buying anything else, I think you need to hook everything up to the RCA, and see what you think of the sound. Be careful about turning the volume up too far, you can cook your receiver using those speakers that were not designed to be used with it. Put you hand over the top of the receiver after a while and see how hot it is. If you get worried, turn it off to cool down.

The bass module or subwoofer that came with the RCA will not give you a lot of thunderous bass, but it's better than nothing. Selling the Bose system will give you a start on a fund for a powered sub like David said.

I'd be on the lookout in the newspaper, on craigslist, pawn and thrift shops, etc. for equipment that's better than what you have. You can find some really good deals occasionally.


----------



## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

We can make it work ...it won't be the best system in the world, but enough for you to enjoy it :bigsmile:

The best option (in my opinion) is to connect everything to RCA receiver (even if it only has 50WPC) :yikes: ...Why??? ... I think you have the best options to hook everything, and also, it has the DD and DTS decoder that I think your AIWA doesn't have, Right???

You can use the Bose speakers as fronts and the other three as surrounds (if you don't like how the center sound, just use a pair in the front and a pair for surrounds), because you don't have a powered sub you can't use the pre-outs; so, connect the RCA sub to sub out on AVR and the Bose sub to L + R speaker terminals (you'll see "from amp" printed on the back of the sub) ... then connect the Bose speakers to the back of the sub ... Does it make sense or I make you :dizzy:????

Then you can use your AIWA just for music ... :yes:

Any plans to get a powered sub??? ... that will help you with the bass too, if you can, change your AVR too because the specifications shows that it can handle 40Hz-20KHz, and most newere AVR's handle 10HZ-50KHz ... so, you'll be missing some action :yes:

You can use speaker stands or wall mounted to save some $$$$$$$$$


----------



## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

tenzip said:


> David, the manual was for two different models, I believe he has the model with no surround speakers, just L+R, at least the model # he gave matched the picture with just 2 speakers....


Don't you love manuals??? :bigsmile: ... I read both models and connections; and aaparently both have surrounds (he just confirmed that); I think the difference is that his model have two speakers in one and the 94 have separate speakers for surrounds :yes:



> Without buying anything else, I think you need to hook everything up to the RCA, and see what you think of the sound....


We're thinking the same way ... I think he'll be okay with Bose and RCA to start ... but he will need to upgrade little by little :bigsmile:


----------



## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

Are you using a DVD player??? ... How are you currently sending the audio signal to your AIWA??? ... Analog or Optical??? ... What about the video to projector??? :yes:


----------



## kipland (May 2, 2008)

My audio signals go through my radio shack splitter then to my AIWA through stereo rcas currently
the signal comes from my computer/mp3 player or my dish reciever or ps2
the only one with optical output is the ps2 which i should probably invest in an optical cable.

This weekend i will rewire the whole system through the rca i just dont have time right now


for now what i am trying is just use the aiwa and run the line out from that into the cd in on the rca and plug the bose 2.1 and the rca sub into the rca reciever 

im no expert but it seems to work for me until i can upgrade my system
Do you guys think its really worth it to ditch my current set up to run it all through the rca reciever?
am i losing quality by doing it this way? 
I think the way i have it is louder but maybe i should just go with the all out of the rca plan....


----------



## kipland (May 2, 2008)

BTW the video is just a yellow video cable except from my computer which is vga


----------



## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

kipland said:


> ... Do you guys think its really worth it to ditch my current set up to run it all through the rca reciever?
> am i losing quality by doing it this way? I think the way i have it is louder but maybe i should just go with the all out of the rca plan....


My suggestion ... try both set up and see which one you like better :yes:

Please keep us posted :bigsmile:


----------



## kipland (May 2, 2008)

sorry ive been really busy lately and havent gotten a chance to post

anyway-- I tried my idea with running the audio through the AIWA and using the line out to goto the RCA reciever 
that proved to be loud but the sound quality was not really there and any sort of surround aspect forget about it


So then i went for the idea that someone proposed here which was to run all my speakers through the RCA reciever 
this is what i have hooked up now and its the right thing. thanks for your help guys.

also i decided to mount the bose speakers next to the screen(see pics)

I know this isnt the best set up 

but it gets the job done

in the future i think my upgrading would go like this
1. get a decent center speaker
2. get a better reciever (all of my speakers can handle 100 watts/ ch and the rca only puts out 50)


----------



## tenzip (May 4, 2007)

Glad we could help. Also glad you have a setup that works for you, at least until you scratch the upgrade itch.

You're the one who has to like it, not us, so as long as you're satisfied, that's what matters.


----------



## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

kipland said:


> I know this isnt the best set up but it gets the job done in the future i think my upgrading would go like this:
> 
> 1. get a decent center speaker
> 2. get a better reciever (all of my speakers can handle 100 watts/ ch and the rca only puts out 50)


I agree with Chris ... we're here to help each other, we make suggestions based in our experiences but you decide what is best for you :yes:

About your future upgrades: my suggestion is to get a pair of good speakers for the front (L+R) ...I know that maybe you like Bose but believe me you're missing a lot with those speakers; then get a decent subwoofer, what you have is okay but you'll see what I mean when you get a better sub, also get a receiver with all newest features (specially if you'll be watching BluRay).

Forget about getting a center channel right now, you can phantom that with your front speakers, this upgrades will depend on your budget ...probably I'll go receiver first, then front speakers, then sub, then surrounds and finally center speaker.... you can use what you have until you upgrade everything.

You can check ebay, audiogon, videogon, craigtlist, etc. for good deals on used speakers too :yes:

Have fun ...:T


----------



## kipland (May 2, 2008)

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/ele/925700416.html

does that look like a good reciever for my system?

i also look to invest in some better front channel speakers


----------



## kipland (May 2, 2008)

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/ele/926224692.html

do these look worse than what i have now?


----------



## tenzip (May 4, 2007)

I would save some more money. In my opinion, neither of those are much of a step up from what you have, just go on using what you have until you have a bit more cash built up.

The receiver is very similar to what you have now, but with perhaps a bit more power. You would likely not notice the difference. Same for the speakers, I think they're probably about the same as what you have now, maybe mildly better.

Waiting is hard, I know. But worth it in the end. Craigslist can be a great place to find bargains.

You might also look at shoponkyo.com, the TXSR505 would be a great deal, refurb for $149.


----------

