Finally ordered a sub! Thanks all.

Z

Zenshi

Gawd
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Jul 7, 2007
Messages
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Finally decided to order a sub since my PC had no bass to speak of. Criteria, it needed to be tiny (8" drivers preferred), within about $300-$400, active, and quality in bass over quantity (since I will mostly use it for music). Finally chose this

http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/stf-1.html

I know this is bass ackwards from what is the usual route (speakers first, sub later) but I wanted bass and to be honest my cheapo Yamaha YST M7s sound pretty nice albeit no bass.

After lurking here for quite awhile, I have learned quite a bit (though still a noob). Thanks! Can't wait to get the sub and for once I will have one item worthy to show in the "show your speaker and headphone setup" thread. :D
 
Nice!

Slightly OT but has anyone noticed Costco suddenly started selling the Energy ES-8? ('least the one closest to me has) Kind of odd given most of their other audio-stuff is comprised of HTiB setups and iPod docks...
 
Thanks all! Can't wait for the sub to arrive. Will post pics once it does. :D
 
The sub finally arrived last week! :D:D:D FedEx did a nice job shipping it. No dings.

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Nicely packed inside. Had a note on how to take out sub without hurting your back. :)

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Oooh the nice heart of the sub.

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Back of the sub. Aside from the standard input, there is a sub-in jack for LFE connection. Also the vol control, crossover control, phase switch, etc.

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Don't have any fancy speaker cables. Do have a bunch of video cables. So I just used one of those and connected a mini plug adaptor to one of the RCA plugs. Yeah it looks real silly but for now, its fine for me. :p

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Put the sub under my desk. I know its not a great place to put a sub but it was where I had space. May move the bookcase later and place it outside the desk. However, with the power from the sub and my tiny room, it is more than enough, even in this inefficient position. The sub looks huge compared to my workstation. :rolleyes:

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And here is my tiny Yamaha PC speakers. HAHAHAHA! They really do look pathetic compared with the sub. But they sound pretty good for PC speakers. Besides they are like 15 years old and I have grown attached to these speakers. Yeah I used video cables to hook up the Yammies as well. :p

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Originally had the sub connected to the sub out jack of the Striker. However, I realized later that the Striker only can be set to 2.0, 4.0, 5.1 or 7.1. No 2.1 option. This was too bad. Tried 5.1 but it sounded too weird (voices fading and coming in when characters moved around in movies). So I had to switch to the sub out port on the Yamahas and set the Striker to 2.0. Had to fiddle with settings a bit but it now sounds very nice.

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Well this resulted in my workstation looking like this.

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LOL those tiny Yamahas do look very sad compared to the Hsu. Had to adjust the Hsu quite a bit to blend in with those tiny desktop speakers but now its blending in very well. Also waiting for the sub to break in (the first 5 minutes I thought the sub sounded god awful). Still, even early in the break in period, the sub sounds AMAZING! I knew the sub was reviewed to extend quite low for a tiny sub but I was surprised how well it extended into the mids, which was important for me due to the small desktop speakers' inability to go down to far (as I said, nice sound but absolutely no bass). It really does blend in well though looking at the desktops its hard to believe. Also, I now understand why Hsu subs are often described as "musical". The sub not only gives strong bass but it is also extremely smooth. I did have to lower the 30Hz level in the Striker's EQ since the room is so small. However, it now sounds as smooth as good wine. Even with bass heavy rock music, my ears do not tire from the sound.

I am really enjoying music once more (something I have not enjoyed for a LONG time). Also something like the demo for 3DMark03 (remember the dogfight scene) sounds amazing. The guns and explosions are so vivid yet the highs from the Yamaha are strong enough that I can hear the empty shells ejecting from the fighters as they shoot.

Will post a listening review later. I will buy nice bookshelf monitors in about a year, once I save up for them. I can then be blown away again by the sound improvement. :D I know this is not a great setup or even acceptable for many of you. But for this audio noob, I am very happy. Many thanks everyone for your posts on the numerous threads. I have learned a lot about PC audio though there is so much I still need to learn.
 
I am just happy you actually did some research and helped yourself instead of being expected to be spoon fed like most of the posters.
 
Thanks Alai. It is very enjoyable reading up on things here. So much useful info. However, I think one person said it right that reading posts here makes one realize how inadequate their audio setup is and sucks one into a new world of spending. I think the saying goes "be afraid...be very afraid". :p

Thanks Empty Quarter. Actually I was envying everything on your setup, from the Klipsch monitors, receiver, big LCD and even that desk. Your workstation rocks. LOL. That "Show your speaker setup" thread is a dangerous place to lurk.
 
Zenshi said:
Thanks Alai. It is very enjoyable reading up on things here. So much useful info. However, I think one person said it right that reading posts here makes one realize how inadequate their audio setup is and sucks one into a new world of spending. I think the saying goes "be afraid...be very afraid". :p
Click to expand...

Look at it this way though, you're also far less likely to squander your money on something that isn't worth it because you were fooled by marketing/hype/brand... That's gotta count for something! :D
 
Oh don't get me wrong Impulse, I am not complaining at all. In fact my PC and my ears are very thankful for the information regarding improving computer audio.

It reminds me of when I started to build PCs in the first place. It started all because upgrading the RAM on my daughter's Emachines many years back went bad as I got incompatible RAM. It was not really the choice of the RAM but that E's proprietary motherboard only accepted PC 2100 RAM and even PC 3200 RAM was incompatible. At that point, I threw down the towel (figuratively) and started to build my first PC (which is the one I connected my sub to) just to avoid future issues. I did not want to waste money on crappy PC products again. Since then, we have not had any problems with PCs in the family (knock wood). But it also led me down, the PC cooling road to H*ll, the PC silencing road to H*ll, the case modding road to H*ll, and the overclocking road to H*ll. Not really extreme in any of those subjects but now I seem to have 6 PCs in the family (one for each person, the beater wagon family surfer PC and one old Mac G4). This does not include any laptops. How did this happen? LOL.

I think it just naturally happens and I just got to accept that I have opened yet another road. :rolleyes:
 
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