Crossover Settings ?????????

[CnoEvil]

I've tried various settings on my system and have always come back to selecting all large speakers, as the fronts are happy down to about 70Hz and tail off gradually. For the bass management setting I select to add the front signal to the LFE channel, so any stereo signals get the benefit of the sub, and the really low stuff in the front of a 5.1 mix gets heard as well.

The only problem I get is with SACD surround coming in via external analogue on my Denon it bypasses the bass management, but as I have large speakers selected all is not lost.

The bass management means that I can listen to most stuff without the sub, and switch it on when really wanted. The tough part was aligning the sub. It's set at about 50Hz, any higher and there's a build up of bass as a horrible boom. The level was then backed off after the initial "oooh wow" couple of days. It now works on classical music, rock music and movies all very nicely which is a difficult range to reproduce consistently well.

Your B&W DM603s look similar and must give decent low end, so I'd keep them on large. I can't see any point in getting decent speakers then strangling them by filtering out the bass just to give them an easier time on the loud bits.

If I remember correctly the bandwidth of Dolby and DTS LFE channel is 20-120Hz which is fine for LFE only, however bass management changes this and the sub then needs to be dovetailed into the rest of the speakers carefully. A spectrum analyser helps to get close, however after 35 years of setting up recording studio monitors, it certainly isn't the complete answer as then careful listening is the only way to get it right.

Good to know that I'm not alone with speakers set to large. (Welcome to the forum, by the way)

Cno

 

[Dermondo]

Had a bit of fiddle around with the crossover settings and ive found setting the LPF to 120hz and the crossover to 90hz sounds best to me.

Reason, I found the setting it to 60hz as B&W suggested made the sound a little more muddied with a tad too much boom and also I used the AVIA DVD sweep calibration to find dips in the crossover settings and 90hz prove the best with the least dips resulting in an overall cleaner sound with nice dynamics and depth.

I'm pleased now, but I guess somewhere down the line a tinker or two will occur, damn you hifi bug

 

[Dermondo]

Had a bit of fiddle around with the crossover settings and ive found setting the LPF to 120hz and the crossover to 90hz sounds best to me.

Reason, I found the setting it to 60hz as B&W suggested made the sound a little more muddied with a tad too much boom and also I used the AVIA DVD sweep calibration to find dips in the crossover settings and 90hz prove the best with the least dips resulting in an overall cleaner sound with nice dynamics and depth.

I'm pleased now, but I guess somewhere down the line a tinker or two will occur, damn you hifi bug

 

[Sliced Bread]

I've tried various settings on my system and have always come back to selecting all large speakers, as the fronts are happy down to about 70Hz and tail off gradually. For the bass management setting I select to add the front signal to the LFE channel, so any stereo signals get the benefit of the sub, and the really low stuff in the front of a 5.1 mix gets heard as well.

The only problem I get is with SACD surround coming in via external analogue on my Denon it bypasses the bass management, but as I have large speakers selected all is not lost.

The bass management means that I can listen to most stuff without the sub, and switch it on when really wanted. The tough part was aligning the sub. It's set at about 50Hz, any higher and there's a build up of bass as a horrible boom. The level was then backed off after the initial "oooh wow" couple of days. It now works on classical music, rock music and movies all very nicely which is a difficult range to reproduce consistently well.

Your B&W DM603s look similar and must give decent low end, so I'd keep them on large. I can't see any point in getting decent speakers then strangling them by filtering out the bass just to give them an easier time on the loud bits.

If I remember correctly the bandwidth of Dolby and DTS LFE channel is 20-120Hz which is fine for LFE only, however bass management changes this and the sub then needs to be dovetailed into the rest of the speakers carefully. A spectrum analyser helps to get close, however after 35 years of setting up recording studio monitors, it certainly isn't the complete answer as then careful listening is the only way to get it right.

Good to know that I'm not alone with speakers set to large. (Welcome to the forum, by the way) Cno

While I wouldn't go so far as to set them to large, I definitely prefer lower cross over settings. I find it more natural and clearer, which is the opposite of the OP. I guess alot of it comes down to the qualtiy of the sub, speakers and amp and of course the volume you play it at. Different systems are going to have different strong / week points.