Vandy 2WQ bottoms out with movies

So anyone take note, who was involved in the former post recently entitled, "anyone with high end home theater sans the subwoofer"!!!
In this, several people posted that you could indeed have a high end home theater, running your high end speakers(passive no less) full range, and forgo the subwoofer... Yeah, I think not!(talking stricktly of passiver towers)
There are easily some subwoofers, like above mentioned out there that can't even handle the most demanding bass info, let alone an inefficient set of full range speakers, running passively, full range!!
I've been hearing full range speakers bottom out on dd/dts material for years this way. So when someone say's their active powered subs are bottoming out on heavy bass tracks, I laugh to my self thinking about those that swear their full range audiophile speakers are just fine for doing a high end ht system on their own. Huh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sound like you need a more ample sub(s)???

Flrnlamb, I dont disagree with your opinion at all. I am just very surprised becuase if you know anything about the Vandy subs (2WQs or the V2W) they are quite highly touted. The V2W (meant for HT) handles things just fine.

What I found out though (and it doesnt make any sense to me) is that EVEN WITH my Bryston processor set to have a LFE sub, with my main speakers set to "large" due to using the 2WQs with the main speakers, and all others to "small" the sub level control on the Bryston controls the level of bass going to the large speakers!

That just doesnt seem right to me! I know that the sub level control is intended to control the LFE channel and redirect the "small" speaker info to it..but...?

I wish someone with a Bryston processor could tell me whether theirs does the same thing.

Swampwalker, my thought was that setting any of the speakers to "large" will send full range signals to them but NOT LFE and the bass below the cut off frequency of all of the "small" speakers.

My 1st HT was in 1993 with a Vandy 2W. IT DID NOT BOTTOM OUT. I am in my 2nd home theater now and have seperated HT from my 2 channel and the Vandy is with the 2 channel system I own. I have a Velodyne 10" sub in my ht and it works fine. For me boom is boom, and the Vandy is over qualified in HT.

Red- I was answering the ? based on the symptoms; you were basing your actions on logic. Your position was logically correct, but inconsistent with the facts! The 2w series is an awesome sub, but just not made for those subsonic effects that directors put into their soundtracks!

Well guys I am not crazy after all (not that anyone said I was...I was just starting to wonder myself as this problem didn't make sense).

After much playing around, I contacted James Tanner of Bryston and ultimately one of his "experts" Mike Picket. Well they were gracious enough to research into the problem at the factory.

After trying to replicate the problem Mike called me back saying "I can't believe that it took this long to find that there was a problem!" Apparantly no one else had ever complained of this. Bottom line is that it isnt my sub's problem at all. It is a software issue with the Bryston SP1.7 which they are going to fix.

You see when the SP1.7 has the main speakers set to "Large" and the surround set to "Small" the bass below the crossover point for the surround speakers is redirected to the main speakers. Here is the problem, the level control for the LFE sub also incorrectly controlled the level of bass that is redirected from the surrounds to the front speakers.

I had the sub level set at 6.5 (for the LFE sub). This was all fine and good until it incorrectly cranked up the redirected bass to the main speakers sub...boosting the level too high!

My temporary fix is of course is simply to reduce the SP1.7 LFE sub level to 0 and crank up my level control on the LFE sub to the appropriate level.

And, as I speak...guess what...my SP2 has arrived!

Thanks for all of your insight.