thinkin bout a sub for my bx5's

[shackrock]

I've been real happy with my BX5's (maudio). But, of course, they lack the low low end.

Recently I've been doing a ton of recording with hip hop/gangsta rap groups. They always say - so THIS is how it's gonna sound in the club? I say, kinda. In the club, there will be a hell of a lot more bass. These speakers are small and bassless. So I always have to take it to my car for them to be satisfied..HA!

Anyway, anyone got any ideas for a sub that would work nicely with my bx5's? And, how would I go about hooking this sub up with my monitors...through my Delta 44??

HOLLA

[geet73]

I know that M-audio makes a sub for the bx speakers. It's called the bxs. It's also $400.

I don't how nice it sounds.. I hear it's pretty nice.

To hook it up... plug your outputs into the inputs on the sub.. then take the outputs on the sub up to the monitors. It has a crossover in there so only low frequencies come out of the sub and the rest goes up to the monitors.

[shackrock]

whoa, 400 is a bit out of budget..actually prbaobly 2 to 4 times more than I was wanting to spend. haha.

[Sonic Misfit]

I recently purchased a decent RCA sub from Radio Shack for $99. It has a built in amp and connects to your source through RCA jacks. I was going to use it with the home stereo, but found out that it was good for some mixing.

The model is RCA cat# 40-5030, 120 watt powered subwoofer, Model # PRO-SW120P. It has frequency filters at 50 - 200Hz and also a phase switch.

I don't know if I got the good deal because it was discontinued, but it is a decent unit.

[lpdeluxe]

I have the same model RCA (Radio Shack) sub too, and if your speaker system can accommodate the funky I/O, it works fine...as long as you set the crossover/volume with a test CD and an SPL meter. I just demoted my passive monitors w/RCA sub to playback duties and it took much of the day to get the bass level DOWN to where it needed to be! The old all-purpose advice, "turn it up till you hear it, then back off 3.72 degrees" doesn't work. It's REALLY easy to fool yourself with bass. However, I had it in my main monitor setup and even bass players liked it...it sounded terrific on the low notes of an Alesis Q with 88 keys. Maybe you can find an RS store that still has one on hand. I bought the smaller model for my youngest son nearly a year after they were discontinued just by asking around.

[Massive Master]

Cheap and effective -

Get a Behringer (602? You know, about the size of a nice ham sammich) mixer...

Plug your sound card outputs into a stereo line channel of the mixer.

CR outs to the BX's

Plug a powered sub (Sony makes a nice one for about $100 at Best Buy) into the AUX OUT of the mixer and power it up, but turn it all the way down...

Set the CR & main mix outs to unity. Set the AUX on the line channel to unity.

Get some tunes crankin through the speakers - Manually turn up the sub until it sounds right.

Now, you can control your level using the channel knob and you can adjust the sub using the AUX knob. You can also ditch the sub (aux knob) OR ditch the speakers so you can hear if the sub sounds clean by itself (distorted bass sucks) by turning the CR out down.

Everyone's happy, less than $200 for the whole setup including cables.

I may have hooked a few of these up in a few friends' places...

John Scrip - www.massivemastering.com

[Middleman]

Shackrock, just do it.

Richie Monroe was raving about adding a sub to his SP5Bs (the prior version to your BX5s) so I went out cruising today to look for one. I ran across a used SP-8S which was the orginal sub M-audio made for these speakers and it was only $200.

I hooked it up this evening and wow. I knew the SP5Bs were bass light and I had been compensating for this; it's just not the same as actually hearing the low end and knowing when its mushy from distinct.

You do have to watch your levels though and make sure you run a few test CDs to get the sub balanced with the speakers. Once you do you will hear a whole new world below 100Hz which is key even on basic music tracks and not just Hip Hop.

Other subs I looked at were the Samsons which Sam Ash sells. They are new around $219 here in the states and they guys in the store said they were sligthly fuller sounding than the one I bought. I went with the M-Audio though just to create a matched set which I could sell later.

The way they connect is as follow:

Soundcard to Sub, Sub to Speakers. Set the crossovers, phase and levels and you're good to go.

MM