Some advice for crossover settings please

[lastcoyote]

Just got my first sub for my home cinema system (i know...just never got round to adding one), I got a BK Electronics XLS200 DF MKII.
Only got it yesterday so just briefly set it up last night. Well impressed but I just need a little advice on the best settings for my system:

Front speakers B&W CDM1SE (Frequency response 58Hz - 20kHz)
Centre speaker B&W LCR6 S2 (Frequency response 58Hz - 20kHz)
Surrounds Q Acoustics 2010's (Frequency response 68Hz - 22kHz)

My AV amp is the Yamaha DSP-AX863SE

I've run the auto setup on the amp with microphone for a starting point.

What I mainly want to know is whether I should set all my front, centre, surround speakers to 'small'? The cross over is set to 80Hz.

Any suggestions for me please? Cheers []

 

[Gerrardasnails]

lastcoyote:
Just got my first sub for my home cinema system (i know...just never got round to adding one), I got a BK Electronics XLS200 DF MKII.
Only got it yesterday so just briefly set it up last night. Well impressed but I just need a little advice on the best settings for my system:

Front speakers B&W CDM1SE (Frequency response 58Hz - 20kHz)
Centre speaker B&W LCR6 S2 (Frequency response 58Hz - 20kHz)
Surrounds Q Acoustics 2010's (Frequency response 68Hz - 22kHz)

My AV amp is the Yamaha DSP-AX863SE

I've run the auto setup on the amp with microphone for a starting point.

What I mainly want to know is whether I should set all my front, centre, surround speakers to 'small'? The cross over is set to 80Hz.

Any suggestions for me please? Cheers

Set all to small and crossover to 80 and it should sound great.

 

[Ronald Archiebald]

lastcoyote:
What I mainly want to know is whether I should set all my front, centre, surround speakers to 'small'? The cross over is set to 80Hz.

Yes. These are the THX recommended settings, which I use myself. Alternatively, you can also try Dolby Digital's recommended settings of 100hz.

 

[lastcoyote]

thanks guys. thought that may be the answer.
just seems strange setting my b&w's to small but I guess it's just so that all the deep bass gets pushed to the sub.

just a side note, my xls200 rear controls are:

Low Level Gain: set to half way position.
Low Level Filter: set to Out LFE
Frequency: set to Max 120Hz
Phase: set to 0 degrees.

think this is right yeah?
the sub is very near front speakers so pretty sure the Phase on 0 is correct.

correct me if somethings not right.

having these settings then would it still be worth me getting a RS SPL Meter for fine tuning?

 

[Anonymous]

as Gerrard said small speakers and 80hz

 

[Ronald Archiebald]

lastcoyote:

just a side note, my xls200 rear controls are:

Low Level Gain: set to half way position.
Low Level Filter: set to Out LFE
Frequency: set to Max 120Hz
Phase: set to 0 degrees.

That's fine.

 

[lastcoyote]

brilliant. thanks again guys. now to check out alien on blu-ray

 

[lastcoyote]

as is always the way i had to go and play around with the settings again last night after getting the above advice...
i basically just wanted to re check the speaker levels and distance using the yamahas audyssey and microphone auto setup. what was strange was that after i run the setup it had changed my crossover to be 160hz ? it's strange as when i first run the setup when i attached the sub wednesday night it set the crossover to 80hz. which is what i've come to undertand to be the recommended setting.

the only thing different this time in running the auto setup with microphone was that before i run it all the speakers were set to small whereas the first time i run it they were all set to large (i'd set all to large as i had no sub beforehand).

also this time not only did it set crossover to 160hz but it set my front speakers to small. centre to large and surrounds to large too.
is the auto setup a bit hit and miss?

i see also that there is a setting to send LFE to sub alone or sub and fronts. is it best to just send only to sub?

sorry for more questions, but just wanna get it properly configured so i can then just forget about it.

 

[Ronald Archiebald]

LastCoyote,

The Audyssey calibration system always defaults to large speaker settings regardless of your actual speaker size. I've had this with all of my amps, and I've had quite a few.

Let Audyssey do it's work. Go in after that and manually tweak the crossover settings as previously advised.

I would send the LFE to the sub - that's what it's there for!

Ronald

 

[Anonymous]

Not wanting to hijack the thread, but is the advice to set the front speakers to small regardless of size - even my floorstanders?

 

[lastcoyote]

thanks ronald.

so after running the calibration go in and change crossover to 80hz. then set all speakers to small yeah?

yeah the LFE will definitely be going to the sub of course but just wondered whether it should also go to the fronts as well as there is an option to send to both the sub and fronts together. probably i'll just stick with sub only.

 

[The_Lhc]

MartSmith:Not wanting to hijack the thread, but is the advice to set the front speakers to small regardless of size - even my floorstanders?

The answer to that question depends on who you ask. Your best option is to try both and decide for yourself what you think sounds best.

 

[Ronald Archiebald]

MartSmith:Not wanting to hijack the thread, but is the advice to set the front speakers to small regardless of size - even my floorstanders?

No.

 

[Ronald Archiebald]

lastcoyote:

so after running the calibration go in and change crossover to 80hz. then set all speakers to small yeah?

Yup!