I recently purchased a Bravus 10D to connect to my Yamaha RX-V569 receiver. I have an exclusively aperion setup with 532 bookshelves, 533-vac and the new 4bp bipole surrounds. The problem that I'm running into is that my sub is not behaving well with the system. When I first set it up it took over an hour to coax it to play anything from the receiver. The second time I went to run it I had to go through the receiver to play with it again. Just today I turned it on to use it and I am not getting any output.

I checked that the rca cable is connected to the LFE input of the sub and the LFE output of the receiver. I had a few succesful and fun runs with the subwoofer but if it does not seem to hold state (as in: if I turn it back on it will not output). I do not change the receiver settings in-between usage.

Findings:

- If the sub is set to "auto" the receiver/sub will not output anything even if an LFE signal is present in the audio stream

- If the sub is set to "on" the receiver/sub may output a signal, but that takes some fiddling with settings in the receiver to get the sub to be recognized

- Coaxing the receiver means: Turning speakers A and B on/off, switching the lfe output to sub/fronts/sub+fronts and back to sub, sneezing...

I'm not really sure if this is a receiver issue or if it is the sub acting up. When I increase the volume on the sub I hear the impulse pressure. However I have increased the volume on the sub a few times and heard nothing. Any thoughts, comments? I'd like to know if anyone has the same receiver setup to the most recent aperion subs. Either way, I'm a little frustrated and considering a return.

Gad

How quality is the signal cable?  Have you tried using a different one?

I'm using an rca cable from Aperion. It's a 5 meter cable.

I tried playing with it some more today. I got it working after cycling the presence speakers setting from off to on and back to off. I don't have presence speakers but I can hear something switching in the receiver when I turn them on. Later I set the sub's setting to mute and when I cylced it to ON there was no audio playing through the speaker....later yet, I cycled it from ON to MUTE to AUTO and back to ON. Voila! It worked again.

I'm a really technical guy and this has me stumped.

May still be a wonky cable.  I'd try another to see if anything changes.  Can't hurt.

 

As for specifics of any defect that the sub may have, the Aperion guys don't check this over the weekend, so it will probably be Monday before you hear back from anyone "official."

 

Best of luck!!

Hello Gad,

Sounds like it may be an input sensitivity issue where the sub is clicking into the auto "sleep" mode when it isn't getting enough signal in order for it to function normally.

What channel level do you have for the sub and all of your other speakers currently?

Also if you'd like to give us a call at 888-880-8992 or log into webchat these troubleshooting type scenarios typically go quicker with some real time interaction.

Thanks!
 

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Jason Hicks
Aperion Audio Guru

Jason,

Thanks for responding. I'll have to give a call later this week. My receiver doesn't give a value for the levels. The sub is on dead-center as suggested in the aperion manuals. The surround speakers are closer to the + 3/4 level, and I chose those positions with the SPL meter @ 65dB.

Gad

Hi Gad, usually with the newer Yamaha receivers I recommend setting that sub level at least as high as the other speakers--at 3/4 level or higher since it's important the overall signal going to the sub is greater than or equal to the other speakers. Use the subwoofer's internal volume control to compensate, and all should be right as rain.

Best Regards,

- Oliver

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Oliver Amnuayphol
Home Theater/Audio Guru
Aperion Audio

I set it a few nights ago to the same level as the front speakers. It didn't help initially. Last night I caught Beowulf on Showtime and decided to turn on the sub. It immediately started playing, which surprised me. This morning I went to test it out again. I flipped on the sub, waited...waited...waited, nothing. This week has been very full so I haven't been home early enough to call, but I will try to phone in next week. I have high hopes for the sub as it sounds great. I just want it to be more consistent with my receiver.

While it may be inconvenient, you could consider just turning the sub to "on" (as opposed to auto) when you use it, and "off" when you are done. I do that, and pull the plug on it as well.

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Scottiemon

Ok, so I gave a call to aperion and chatted with Oliver tonight. He suggested that I push the level for the sub on my Yamaha all the way to 100%. After that I was able to get the test signal from the receiver to output from the sub. One problem that I used to have was that if the sub worked for a movie or program and I switched from AUTO to ON, the sub would stop outputting audio. With this new change it seems to work well.

I plan to test the sub out for the week, but I did notice one thing. In the yamaha level test program if I lower the volume to -31dB the sub stops rendering the test signal. This is my usual listening level. When I increase the volume to -21dB the signal starts rendering again. Of course right now it's on AUTO and the receiver's volume is set to -37.5dB and it is working with TV shows. I'll comment on this after a few days.

For the past week the subwoofer & yamaha receiver are working quite well together. The quick verdict is that after setting the yamaha's subwoofer output level to 100% the aperion would render audio consistently.

Since then, I watched Beowulf, The Soloist, a bunch of TV, The Incredibles and played a heck of a lot of Splosion Man and Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. THIS SUB IS AWESOME! :) I definitely feel what I was missing without it and it does a great job of kicking in at the right points on AUTO mode. The sub rocks the house and I intend to keep it past the trial period. It found its home ;)