Unimpressive sound from Tannoy B475 subwoofer?

There are 2 different ways to connect a sub. The first is that it is powered by your own amp from which it would have a barrier strip or some other speaker connection....., and the other, it gets a signal from your preamp/Receiver, and the signal goes to the sub's own amp which includes a crossover. The RCA's are probably the input to its own built in amp. It sounds like you got the connections confused. Recheck your connections. RCA female inputs need to come from the sub/out of your receiver.

Stringreen --- the RCA butchering was for the crown amp. It only takes speaker wire inputs (+ and -) rather than RCA connections or something along those lines.

The tannoy's use "speakon" connections.

Right now I have the subwoofer out from the pioneer receiver (an RCA connection) going to the crown amp (where I cut out the + and - wires from the RCA cable for the crown's input connections). The crown amp's outputs go to a speakon connector plugged into the tannoy.

The crossover is done at the pionner end (set to 80).

Or did I misunderstand what you meant?

What model crown 800 amp are you using? I am guessing it is an older model by your description of the input scenario. Doesn't the crown amp have a 1/4" jack input? This is what I typically see, or possibly an XLR input.

If it has the more standard 1/4" input, you can go to guitar center and get an RCA female to 1/4" male converter or just a cable that runs from male RCA to male 1/4".

Did you know these subs are not made for home use? These are like DJ speakers/subs. The purpose of these types of subs are very different than what we use subs for in the home setting (ie. they typically extend up much higher in the frequency range to 200+ hz in pro use). Also, these Tannoy Pro subs are intended to be used as part of a complete system designed for a professional type of application.

My primary concern is the connection system you seem to have rigged between the pre-out and the crown amp.

Where did you get the subs? I'd take them into Guitar center and ask them to hook them up in their sound room and play them with another pair of pro speakers to see how they sound.

Finally, listening to just the sub? I can't imagine that it sounds very good. I know once I had my Rels hooked up but my amp turned off (unknowingly) and got music just out of the Rels. It wasn't a pretty sound by themselves.

Looking at the brochure it appears Ckoffend is correct. The subs are really designed for pro use and are not powered. You could probably make them work and sound good with some work but it is much easier to integrate a Velodyne, REL etc. in your home. Velodyne and others have automatic room EQ and built in amps plus some have video outs which makes setup very easy.

http://www.tannoy.com/products/260/b475%20Brochure.pdf

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They may be pro audio but no reason they couldn't work in a home system.

I really don't understand how you have them connected so can't comment on that, but you can't really judge them by themselves. Just listening to below 80Hz is going to sound muffled and suck. How does it sound when playing the system full range?

My system if tri-amped and listening to just one band sucks but all together it sounds wonderful.

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