Log Simplified Sound

[Shahmatt]

I work from home now so I decided to purchase a second ultrawide display to compliment my existing ultrawide display.

Because my motherboard only had a free displayport, I spent a little extra to get the LG-29WN600.

This display has two inbuilt 7W speakers. I found them to be surprisingly good, especially with the audio processing turned off. They are fairly loud and very clear, but significantly lack any semblance of bass: I found that I could not hear anything below 125Hz.

And so I sold my nearly decade old and truly wonderful Creative T3 in order to explore new audio options. I would use these display speakers as a stop-gap measure while I searched.

While studying the various options it occurred to me that the deficiencies of the display speakers could be addressed with a subwoofer with good higher range of up to 200Hz.

The solution of hidden display speakers and under table subwoofer might provide a clutter-free, neat and simple sound solution for personal listening.

After researching in other forums I learned that it is possible to output to two sound devices either by using Windows "Stereo Mix" or using the free tools: Voice Meeter.

Testing Stereo Mix (with the display speakers and spare earphones) I found that there was an ever so slight lag between the two sound devices which created a poor experience.

But Voice Meeter did a perfect job, and furthermore this tool has the additional features of combining two sound devices to one volume control and also linking this volume control to the main Windows volume control.

Edit: Had even Voicemeeter not worked the tool EqualizerAPO could have also been used to minimize lag.

And so I invested in a Wharfedale WH-S8E subwoofer. This subwoofer has a low-pass filter and frequency cross over control which allows me to decide how high a frequency I want it to contribute- it's full range is between 30 and 200Hz.

The overall sound output is now significantly more rich with bass tones really shining out. I am unable to tell that some sounds come from below the table and some from above. The two sources meld beautifully and I am pleased with the result.

I am posting this here as record of my experience and for anyone who decides to give this method a try.

 

[Arboreal]

Nice write up, thanks.
Interesting to hear that not all built in speakers are totally useless.
The split bass is a brilliant solution!

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Very nice write up and very interesting informations. Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Interesting to hear that not all built in speakers are totally useless.

That's good to hear indeed. I've had a similar experience with my Samsung Serif 43" TV. It has 2.2 40W built-in speakers and it's very decent ... to the point that I didn't feel the need to add a sound bar.

 

[ignsvn]

But Voice Meeter did a perfect job, and furthermore this tool has the additional features of combining two sound devices to one volume control and also linking this volume control to the main Windows volume control.

If you have some time, please consider to share here on how to configure the VoiceMeeter to achieve that

And so I invested in a Wharfedale WH-S8E subwoofer.

Good choice, I didn't know Wharfedale make active (powered) speakers/subs

 

[Shahmatt]

If you have some time, please consider to share here on how to configure the VoiceMeeter to achieve that

Yes of course. VoiceMeeter comes in three flavors, the basic version, banana and potato. Each subsequent version is more feature rich compared to the basic version. But with banana and potato I could not unify the volume control of both devices. I did not spend much time looking for a fix and for now have returned back to the basic version.

Once advantage of banana and potato are that they come equipped with comprehensive equalizers. Basic voicemeeter just has the Bass, Mid and High controls.

This video in German shows the setup instructions:

English instructions can be read by enabling video subtitles.

The screenshot below shows the main interface:


The red circled A1 and A2 buttons are used to select the two output devices, in my case LG xxxx for the display and Realtek speakers for the subwoofer.

The red circled volume control is for combined control of both A1 and A2. The second control to the right of it does nothing.

This next screenshot shows the menu structure. I have enabled System Tray, Run on Windows startup, and most critically Hook Volume Keys. This last item is what links the volume control to Windows' general volume control.


VoiceMeeter can be a tad temperamental on initial setup. You may need to restart it to take effect, or restart the sound player (e.g. Youtube). But once it works then it remains working, even after restarting the PC, i.e. unless you fiddle with it again.