Subwoofer causing a tornado in the room

[jacobyte]

I set up our 5.1 system last week, and sat back to watch Dark Knight with the sound cranked up.

Not far into the film, there was a huge gust of wind, so I ran out of the room to close the front door. But it was already closed. I went back into the TV room and sat down, only to be hit by another gust and a slight burning smell.

I then realised it was coming from the subwoofer. I checked round the back of it, and it was pumping out loads of air - Hey presto, interactive TV!

Is that normal? (It's a Monitor Audio BRW10 if that makes any difference)

The burning smell must have been the flux burning off the connectors as it's brand new.

[jacobyte]

Thanks - I didn't know you had to "run it in". I shall err on the side of caution and knock it down a touch (it's currently at about 60% volume).

Watched Dark City last night - same windy effect, but no smell. Great film

[jacobyte]

Thanks for the helpful information.

scott.s said:

Have you set your sub x-over to direct? if not do so. and make sure your main speakers are set to small, even if they are floor standers.

I'll have to check the x-over as I can't remember off the top of my head (what difference does it make?). The speakers are definitely set to small; I remember doing that.

Fortunately I have no adjacent neighbours, but I will politely ask over the road in case they've noticed any "tremors".

[jacobyte]

Umm, no crossover in mine, or at least nothing that looks like it. It has the following:

Power: Off/Auto/On (set to Auto)
Phase: 0/180 degrees (set to 0 degrees)
Frequency: variable from 40-120 (set to about 70)
Volume: variable (now set to about 40%)

What's "Phase"? The manual said to set it to 0, so that's what I did (although when setting up the amp [Yamaha dspx763] I temporarily set it to 180).

[jacobyte]

Oh dear, this is kind of fun. I feel I'm going to have another expensive interest very shortly (a better HiFi is next on the list, for another room).

Is the sub OK like this...? I can't rotate the speakers as it's only Word Drawing, but the arrows show the direction of how the speakers are toed in slightly.