Pair or Kin Subs with Hawks and a Supernait

The Hawks are great slim towers with good deep bass, and like most things Totem, highly musical. My two immediate thoughts on your post:

1) why the notion to start with two subs? I'd be inclined to demo a single sub, see how it works, and go from there,

2) have you considered bass traps as an alternative? Bass traps can clean up the bass overhang/modes in the room while providing more overall cohesion and timing to the music, possibly at less cost and ease of implementation than a single (and particularly) a couple of subs.

3) add to all that the Kin sub is rated to 29 Hz while the Hawks are rated to 32 Hz, so effectively little gain in deep bass from the Kin. If you're bent on a sub, there are better choices than the Kin.

If the Hawks can manage 32Hz, they should presumably have good bass extension. If you’re not hearing it, then in addition to trying room treatments, maybe they need a better power amp. The obvious place to start would be a 250DR. Given that you also have a Hicap, swapping the Supernait for a 282 could then make sense. 

I would not add a sub - this is likely to make things even worse.
Decent speakers will handle all the bass there is.

Muddled bass would point to two issues: room acoustics or badly produced recording (happens too often)>

AV IN BC.   Have you looked further up the Totem range ?  The Forest seems like it would offer more of what you like and want. Must be some used ones available somewhere at a good price nowadays.

Or the new Sky Towers.

ChrisSU posted:

If the Hawks can manage 32Hz, they should presumably have good bass extension. If you’re not hearing it, then in addition to trying room treatments, maybe they need a better power amp. The obvious place to start would be a 250DR. Given that you also have a Hicap, swapping the Supernait for a 282 could then make sense. 

At least one review criticised the bass extension and found little response below 50Hz. I suspect the manufacturer's quoted response is under perfect room conditions 

it's not like i'm not hearing bass or that it's not good, it's very good and i can hear it.
treating the room would be difficult and upgrading to a 282 and 250DR is just not possible,
i can't barely afford the 1300$ the Kins never mind 7 or 8K!!!
i have been looking for Forests and i'd get a pair as well as a few others on my list but no luck so far and after a long listening session at a local
dealer i'm not sure i want to spend 3 months pay on speakers that are just different especially when buying 

i'm really only wanting to use the subs to make a 3-way system so as to diminish the load on the Hawks and the supernait not
to "get more bass". in theory it makes sense but of course adding another crossover to the mix as well as different amps can
create new problems and unfortunately i can't borrow 2 subs to demo, i can get one and i probably will but i won't really know
till i get a pair and crossover the Hawks at a higher frequency to allow them to "breath" a bit more i guess, not work them so hard.

the reason i need two subs is to run them hi-level and i don't have room for 1 larger sub and running all the cabling to one side
of the room to the sub and back to the speakers again is also not possible.

Right.....

And where exactly did you get all this theory from? 

It does indeed seem an odd idea, unless either the speakers or the amp are overloading. 

No harm in having a demo and seeing if you prefer the sound with the sub, but otherwise the description suggests that saving the 1300$ and doing nothing may be as good a choice as any.

Adding the subs could be a solution. A few more watts overall and fewer Hz for the Hawks to push seems like a possible theory. Now if there are some issues with adding another crossover or maybe extra wiring or other factors  I don't know that's why I'm here.

what I want to hear is what my speakers and amp will do when they don't have to work the bottom octave. What will happen after I add those subs? Will it sound worse? Will it not be much better and a waste of money?

Does the description mean you plan to add a passive crossover between the supernait and Hawks, high pass to the Hawks and low pass to the sub(s)? As previously intimated, if the amp and speaker are not presently being overloaded when playing at the loudest you like, then the concept of giving the speaker and amp less work to do won't make any difference, though If you cut off a fair bit higher than the Hawks' current bottom limit, e.g say, 80Hz, then the Hawks' bass driver would potentially have less intermodulation distortion, and IF the other driver(s) is/are capable of handling it, possibly music could be played louder before speaker overload. Against that the crossover might possibly adversely affect the Hawk's performance.

However, the sub may well bring an extension of bass below the current cutoff, giving a fuller sound. But to integrate well it is likely that care will have to be taken with positioning, especially if there is no facility to adjust phase. 

Thanks IB. That's exactly what I want to do. The kins have a built in crossover with a sweep up to 200 hz and phase control so I wouldn't need to add anything I don't think. 

av in bc posted:

Thanks IB. That's exactly what I want to do. The kins have a built in crossover with a sweep up to 200 hz and phase control so I wouldn't need to add anything I don't think. 

I think what IB is saying is that the Hawks are still receiving a full range signal, so are still working just as hard, and there will still be overlap where they are reproducing the same frequencies as the sub. 

Innocent Bystander  Against that the crossover might possibly adversely affect the Hawk's performane

This is the part I am most worried about. It is still a totem product so I expect similar quality and all that but everything the Hawks will hear is coming from that hipass filter in the kin.

I was able to pick up the sub for a try out over the weekend today and had a good look at the back of it which I didn't see before. it actually has stereo ins and stereo outs so I can check out the crossover with the Hawks

ok, so it doesn't work. it is not crossing over the output as i had hoped.
the frequency dial is a lowpass for the sub only.

maybe that's how all subs work, too bad, it seems that it should cut off the speaker output frequency
at the same time so it can be integrated into the system like another driver or maybe i'm insane.

after listening to it i wouldn't get the Kin anyway at least not in this system.

thanks a whole bunch for all the comments and help. back to looking for forests (through the trees)
       

I believe that the only way to achieve what you are trying to do would be to put a crossover unit between the pre-out and poweramp input of the SN.

But I'll not discuss this further as that will involve to power supply to the preamp and that violates the forum AUP.

(However, provided the Hawks aren't actually the source of the problem (i.e. too much bass extension for the room they're in) there is an alternative solution available, leaving the signal to the Hawks undisturbed and using a more sophisticated connecting the sub from the pre-out connections of the SN.  With the right types of main speakers, using that solution that will actually give you a better result than messing about with the signal to the main speakers.)