Just picked up M Audio AV40s - they sound better than home threatre! Anyone feel the

H

Hanif

Limp Gawd
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Oct 20, 2007
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Anyone feel the same way? I am blown away by these

I came from a Onkyo SR-604, HSU STF1 subwoofer (great bass from it) and Polk RM10s...to these....I know home threatre to PC. It was a surprising yet pleasent sound pumping out of these studio-grade speakers - I mean wow for music and movies - haven't tested any games yet
 
I have never had a home theater system so I can't comment on the difference, but I am thoroughly impressed by my pair of AV40s. Compared to my previous computer/multi-media speakers (Klipsch Promedia 2.1) these are so much better (more detail, much stronger mids and highs). Obviously the bass was stronger/louder on the promedias since they had a sub, but the bass on the AV40s is decent and it's good enough for me.
 
Hanif, do you just have them plugged into the analog port on your sound card? Are you using a DAC?
 
When Terminator: Salvation hits Blu-ray you may miss your HSU. ;)

Regardless, glad to hear you are happy with your new purchase.
 
no I am using a macbook at the moment
how do I connect the sub? do I need a receiver
 
Yeah, I love my AV 40s too, they sound awesome.

That said, I am curious: I keep hearing the claim dropped time and time again, but nobody ever backs it up: just HOW EASY is it to connect a sub to a pair of studio monitors, and HOW do you do it?
 
Hanif said:
Anyone feel the same way? I am blown away by these

I came from a Onkyo SR-604, HSU STF1 subwoofer (great bass from it) and Polk RM10s...to these....I know home threatre to PC. It was a surprising yet pleasent sound pumping out of these studio-grade speakers - I mean wow for music and movies - haven't tested any games yet
Click to expand...

The RM10 set isn't exactly great..
 
Hanif said:
no I am using a macbook at the moment
how do I connect the sub? do I need a receiver
Click to expand...

defaultluser said:
Yeah, I love my AV 40s too, they sound awesome.

That said, I am curious: I keep hearing the claim dropped time and time again, but nobody ever backs it up: just HOW EASY is it to connect a sub to a pair of studio monitors, and HOW do you do it?
Click to expand...

To quote myself from Hanif's original thread:

seemlessthunder said:
well hold off on selling the woofer until you've really gotten used to the speakers. i have the swans m200mkii, which are comparable or maybe a little better in terms of bass and decided to buy a sub anyway for the really low end (sub 56 hz). I don't notice the sub so much as I don't notice the lack of the sub. I really liked the sound out by themselves, but taking the low-end down to 30hz or so is much nicer. One important thing is to keep your sub dialed down enough so it isn't overpowering your speakers. That's the most common mistake a lot of people make.

Your sub looks like you should be able to connect it with your speakers as a 2.1 setup to your comp etc...

What you need are the following cables:

(1) 3.5mm to RCA cable: http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...d=10218&cs_id=1021804&p_id=666&seq=1&format=2
(3) RCA Y-splitters: http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...d=10218&cs_id=1021803&p_id=663&seq=1&format=2
(2) RCA cables

diypowered21.jpg


Instructions are as follows:
1. Connect the 3.5mm to RCA cable to your soundcard's main speaker out.

2. Connect one RCA Y-splitter to each end of the cable from step 1.

3. RCA cable. Plug both white plugs step 2 into this. Plug the other end into your AV-40's.

4. RCA cable. Plus both red plugs from step 2 into this. Proceed to step 5.

5. RCA y-splitter. Use the last RCA y-splitter to connect the rca cable from step 4 to your subwoofer. This step is necessary because you don't have L/R rca inputs on your sub. The single end goes into the subwoofer.

And voila, you now have a 2.1 setup from your pc, sans massive receiver
Click to expand...

The other option that you can do if you have a good enough soundcard is to put it in 5.1 mode, but disable the center and surround channels so you're just getting the fronts and the sub.
 
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There's several other ways to do it, but it depends entirely on the sub and the monitors... Some 2.0 monitors actually have an output for a sub, some subs will take a stereo input and they'll have outputs to pass it thru after it's picked up the low freqs, etc. I think those instructions above could be a lil' clearer too, took me a couple reads to understand what he was doing, maybe I just need some sleep... :p
 
It's written from an "as-you're-doing-it" perspective. The thing that makes it seem complicated is that need to hook it up so that the l/r are going to both the sub and speakers. Sub doesn't absolutely need to be on both channels, but if you just split it the "simpler" way, you end up with the sub on one channel and the speakers on the other so you only get L or R but not but. This way you get both.

There's easier ways to do it as well as you said if your speakers have sub out or sub has speaker out, but I was refering to these speakers and Hanif's sub, neither of which have that.
 
Right, I got that, about splitting each channel individually to feed each one to the sub and monitors both... But you mention a receiver towards the end on step 5, then you say that you aren't using a receiver at the very end (probably just a bad choice of words on step 5); and the way I read it at first it seemed to indicate to connect two left channel outs into the L/R RCA inputs on the AV-40s, but that's just because I was thinking of the colors rather than the fact that each splitter is splitting a single channel... Threw me for a loop.

Anyway, I drew a picture in case anyone was having trouble visualizing it. (you'll have to forgive the crude Paint skills, I'm on my netbook atm)

subwiring.png


Depending on the input/outputs of other monitors/subs (besides those of the OP), you could go from sound card to sub and pass thru the signal from the sub to the monitors or vice versa, and you might or might not need the last splitter in the picture above (which feeds both channels to the sub as one).
 
You know, looking at it... I think it'd be simpler to use a 3.5mm Y-splitter and two 3.5mm-to-RCA cables instead no? (plus a single RCA Y splitter) Just split at the source with the 3.5mm Y-splitter, then connect the 3.5mm ends of both 3.5mm-to-RCA cables to the splitter and run one RCA end to the sub, the other to the monitors (using the RCA Y-splitter to hook up to the sub), and you're done. Two splitters and two cables rather than three splitters and three cables. Anything wrong w/this thinking? Edit: Here's what I mean...

subwiring.png


Btw, the downside to all this splitting (however it's done) is that you end up replicating the sub's bass signals on the speakers, so you're not 'freeing' them up to produce only mids and highs... They're still producing the full range and the sub is just adding more bass on top of it. Right? :p

That and the fact that you'll be forced to control overall volume at the source (in Windows in this case) rather than the speakers/sub (which some prefer), unless you constantly wanna deal with two volume knobs in two different places.
 
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Yeah, it would be better to get a receiver so you can use the dedicated LFE channel for best results
 
Well a receiver won't work w/powered monitors like the AV40s... And he already had a receiver which he discarded for whatever reason (needed the space? just guessing).
 
Impulse, I'm not sure on that without trying it. My inclination is that it probably doesn't work, but it might depend on how smart the sound card is. In that past when I've split a signal with standard 3.5" cable to two sources, they each just ended up getting a single channel instead of both. If you want to be safe, the top diagram is more of a sure bet.

Oh and thanks for the correction.... that was a pretty bad typo on my part.
 
Well, people have used a simple 3.5mm splitter on the sound card in the past so they can have headphones and speakers hooked up simultaneously... So I figured it's the same thing really. Actually you'd see even less signal loss in this case (vs headphones) since both the monitors and sub are powered. Other people just plug in a 3.5mm extension cord and they switch the speakers/headphones manually on it, claiming the splitter would degrade SQ (though I dunno how much more a splitter could harm the signal than a 3'-5' extension could). :confused:
 
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I've ordered a few spare cables and splitters to try this out myself, mostly because I have my Swans in 5.1 mode with my sub and want to see if there's any difference. I'll try it both ways and post back if there's any difference. In the meantime, I've updated my original post and added a more intuitive diagram.
 
3.5mm cables come in both stereo and mono varieties (one or two notches on the jack), I'm sure you know this, but it's the same for splitters... It's possible you might've picked up a mono splitter or something when trying to split a 3.5mm source in the past. I really dunno how a sound card would 'see' a splitter and somehow send a single channel to one (or either) of the two outputs on the splitter (or why the speakers/sub would only pick up one channel). Or if the scenario involved headphones maybe you were just getting a weak signal and that's why a channel disappeared. I'd try this out but the only sub here is in the living room and I'm not moving that thing right now. :p Edit: Nice diagram, should help people see what's going on better.
 
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Yeah, that's entirely possible. It's been a long time since I've tried it, so it may well have been a crappy cable. The one thing I do try to do though is keep things RCA as much as possible since nice thick RCA cable is easier to get cheap and is usable by more devices than 3.5" cable. Monoprice said something like 5-7 days shipping on my cables/splitters so it probably won't be until next week that I can try it out, but I'll definitely post back noting any differences I find between the two splitting methods.
 
seemlessthunder said:
why don't you just keep the sub. it's fairly easy to hook up a sub and pair of studio monitors...
Click to expand...

not easy at all
I am having alot of difficulty ocnnecting the m audio av40s to my sub
they are going back to the store now

I bought a spitter to pair them up but its not working (my subwoofer has no rca outputs)
 
Hanif said:
not easy at all
I am having alot of difficulty ocnnecting the m audio av40s to my sub
they are going back to the store now

I bought a spitter to pair them up but its not working (my subwoofer has no rca outputs)
Click to expand...

It shouldn't be that hard..
 
Hanif said:
not easy at all
I am having alot of difficulty ocnnecting the m audio av40s to my sub
they are going back to the store now

I bought a spitter to pair them up but its not working (my subwoofer has no rca outputs)
Click to expand...

Did you follow either of the diagrams we posted here exactly as instructed? What happened? You shouldn't be connecting the AV40s to the sub in the literal sense, what you wanna do is split the signal from the source (sound card) to the AV40 and sub independently (see above diagrams and thorough explanations).
 
Once again why I tell people that are looking for bass for movies and games NOT to look at music oriented studio monitors. Their technical configuration makes it hard to correctly hook up a powered subwoofer. Not to mention not being able to correctly control the crossover frequency between the tweeters/mains and the sub.

You're better off getting a used receiver and a pair of bookshelf's if you want to add a powered sub later.

Me? I listen to music, movies and game on my M200MKII's and have yet feel the need for a sub.

If you are hard set on active studio monitors and want bass, buy ones with bigger drivers.
 
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