Sub settings

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Sliced Bread

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michael_walkden: But there is nothing about a setting for small or large speakers.
Some amps have a small / large speaker option. All this means is that the bass below a set frequency (usually 80hz) is sent to the sub instead of the speakers.

Your Onkyo does do this but it's a little more refined than just small / large. In the menus you change the cross over fot the individual speakers (front, centre, rear) by setting a crossover frequency. With your speakers I'm guessing that it will be around 80hz...ish, but not sure.
 

Pistol Pete1

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Just checked 'G'.........

I did have all at 60Hz....not sure why, as your correct in the freq. range quotes of my speakers. (Although my centre only goes down to 75Hz, rather than 68Hz for rears and 48Hz for fronts.)

Alway, I have set rears and centre to 80Hz and fronts to 60Hz still. 100hz for centre sounds too 'weedy' with male voices, and as my front s can reach 48Hz, I thought 60Hz would be ok (sounds good and clear to me!!).

I have the sub cross over at 120Hz....is that ok, or would 80Hz be better?

And if i use 'Pure' for anything, are these settings bypassed? I use 'Pure' for cd, blu ray and X box use......

Anyway, good spy, 'G', thanks again........
 

Gerrardasnails

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Pistol Pete1:
Just checked 'G'.........

I did have all at 60Hz....not sure why, as your correct in the freq. range quotes of my speakers. (Although my centre only goes down to 75Hz, rather than 68Hz for rears and 48Hz for fronts.)

Alway, I have set rears and centre to 80Hz and fronts to 60Hz still. 100hz for centre sounds too 'weedy' with male voices, and as my front s can reach 48Hz, I thought 60Hz would be ok (sounds good and clear to me!!).

I have the sub cross over at 120Hz....is that ok, or would 80Hz be better?

And if i use 'Pure' for anything, are these settings bypassed? I use 'Pure' for cd, blu ray and X box use......

Anyway, good spy, 'G', thanks again........

If your receiver is working the subwoofer, the crossover settings on the sub would become void.

As per your findings, it might be because your sub isn't overly powerful. Mine is a monster and I want to hear it as soon as possible!

I would have a play though, my fronts go down to 38Hz and my sub digs to 23Hz I think, but the sub gives me 500 watts at the low level whilst my speaker gives 120 watts. Maybe you need to increase the levels on your receiver for each channel, including the subwoofer.
 

Pistol Pete1

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All my crossovers are managed by the receiver. 120Hz crossover for the sub sounds better than 80Hz. Again, male voices sound a little 'fuller'.......

I realise my sub is a little one compared with some...
emotion-10.gif
, but with a medium sized room (modern house, so partition walls everywhere!!), and being attached to another house, I only need a small one.....
emotion-4.gif


As for increasing levels on receiver, they are already all just over 0db, after calibration and my personal adjustment to all levels. Any higher, and distortion could become an issue, as I think I'm correct in thinking you don't want all levels to be +10dB and above?
 
A

Anonymous

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Not wishing to teach anyone how to suck eggs, but for those not in the know, a speaker setting of small has no reflection on the size of your speakers. Its a very misleading description. I have physically large speakers but all my speakers are set to small on my amp. I am sure there are various web sites which explain it better but it refers to how much of the LFE (bass to us mortals) signal you want your speakers to handle. As a subwoofer is a specialist speaker for handling the LFE signal it makes sense to let it.
 

v1c

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This is from your amp manual.

Changing the Speaker Settings Manually
In rare situations, proper measurements taken may not
be obtainable by the by the automatic speaker setup. For
example, there may be too much noise in the room. If
running the speaker setup a second time is still unsuccessful
you will have to set the speaker settings manually.
(see pages 95-102).
Notes:
For THX-certified speakers, the 80 Hz (THX) crossover
frequency is recommended. If you use the automatic
speaker setup, you'll need to manually select
80 Hz (THX) for each THX-certified speaker (see
page 95).
Because of the complexities of low-frequency sounds
and the way they interact with a room, THX recommends
setting the subwoofer level and distance manually

so try setting your speaker configuration to

Subwoofer yes

Front 80hz

Center 80hz

Surround 80hz

It shouldn't really matter that your speakers aren't THX certified they are a good make and shold be up to the job.

Try it and see you can always change the frequency's in steps to see what response you get.

if you have Full band showing on your speaker config you will be getting low frequency's to these speakers as well as your sub (i think if i understand correctly)

I think if you use the THX option in auydssey it will set the frequency's for you to take into account that you only want low frequency to go to the sub.

Hope this is right and helpful.
 

Gerrardasnails

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barnsleydave:Not wishing to teach anyone how to suck eggs, but for those not in the know, a speaker setting of small has no reflection on the size of your speakers. Its a very misleading description. I have physically large speakers but all my speakers are set to small on my amp. I am sure there are various web sites which explain it better but it refers to how much of the LFE (bass to us mortals) signal you want your speakers to handle. As a subwoofer is a specialist speaker for handling the LFE signal it makes sense to let it.

Dave, I thought you need to set your speakers as small to allow your receiver to take care of the subwoofer.
 
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Anonymous

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I thought that's what I said. Perhaps I didn't phrase it very well.

Tbh it has nothing to do with the OP's predicament. I think thats something as simple as turning the volume down on the sub.

But it is an interesting topic.

I can't give a link here to another site but to quote from a very informative article I found.......

"Avoid setting your speakers, even if they are towers, to the "large" setting in your receiver's setup menus.

Receivers
and preamp/processors typically have two settings for your speakers:
"small" and "large." You need to get past what these words actually
mean in English, as they are a very poor choice for this feature of a
processor. This setting actually has nothing to do with the size of the
speakers, and everything to do with the range of the speakers. This
setting determines when low frequencies are diverted from your front
speakers and into your subwoofer (the crossover frequency). In other words, it has a tremendous effect on the bass you'll hear in movie soundtracks.

Very
few speakers should actually use the "large" setting. Even most of the
big, powered towers should not be used with the "large" setting because
they can't produce these low frequencies (or they produce them without
power and depth). What you should be thinking is that "large" means you
have a truly full-range speaker; use "small" for everything else. If
your speaker can't put out more than 100dB at 20 Hz, set it to "small."

There are three main reasons for avoiding the "large" setting.
The first is that crossovers aren't brick walls; they have slopes in
both directions. The rule of thumb is that with typical bass management
crossovers, your speaker should be flat to 1 octave below the crossover
point. So, with an 80-Hz crossover point, your speaker should be flat
to 40 Hz. Lots of speakers can do this. Only a few speakers are flat to
30 Hz (even though manufacturers' specs will try to tell you otherwise,
there really are only a few, at least within a reasonable price range),
and even fewer speakers are flat to 20 Hz (and below) at the levels a
home theater will be asking for. The large setting on a receiver
doesn't filter any low frequencies from a speaker to the sub. If the
speaker isn't capable of the really low frequencies, they simply will
be lost. Set to "small," however, these low frequencies will be
filtered out and passed to the subwoofer, which is capable of
reproducing them.

The second reason for using the "small"
setting is that when you relieve a speaker of low bass duties, that
speaker becomes a much easier load for your amp, and the midrange
quality of the speaker often improves. The third reason for using the
"small" setting is that bass frequencies have the greatest interaction
problems with a room. Multiple sources of low bass in non-optimal
places cause all sorts of sound wave problems. The best place for your
main speakers is almost never the best place from which to produce low
bass. Being able to produce all the bass from one spot in the room
gives you the best chance of optimizing your room's bass response.

A
final thing to note is you have to be wary of processors that allow you
to set different crossover points for different speakers. With the
exception of some very high-end processors, you should not use this
feature. The vast majority of processors with this "feature" high-pass
each speaker's signal at the frequency you specify, and send it to the
speaker. This is good. However, to feed the sub, the processor will sum
the full-range signals from all the full-range channels and the LFE
channel, and then low-pass this signal at the lowest crossover point
you set. So, if you have your surround crossover set to 100 Hz and your
main crossover set to 40 Hz, there will be a 60-Hz hole in your
surround channels' responses. This is not good. THX chose 80 Hz as its
bass management crossover point for a reason; trust their research and
experimentation. "
 

biggus_1961

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So you would only set your front L and front R to large if you DO NOT have a sub woofer so that all bass would be sent to front l/r (centre and rears still set to 'small' )
 

wireman

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biggus_1961:So you would only set your front L and front R to large if you DO NOT have a sub woofer so that all bass would be sent to front l/r (centre and rears still set to 'small' )

You can read an interesting blog by Chris Kyriakakis, Chief Technology Officer for Audyssey on their web site called "Large vs Small". The first line of his blog reads "Do you have a subwoofer in your system? Great. Then your speakers are small."

There's also very interesting information on their site explaining how to set-up Audyssey Room Correction properly.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Michael - Did you resolve your problem?

RE Small v large - yes simply put if you have a sub all your speakers should be set to small. If you don't have a sub then at least your fronts and possibly all your speakers (depending on their capability) should be set to large.
 

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