guys i need some clarification....

[Scrappydue]

ok as all of you can see in my sig i have a pretty nice setup upstairs, that i have been debating already wether or not to move to the rf-7ii's. well if you look at the bottom, i picked up a pair of rf-42ii's a while back. they will be for my living room when i move to colorado in november. i went ahead and bought the rest of that package on tuesday, and am now the proud owner of an rc-42ii, and two rs-41ii's and the bic pl-200. first off let me say that these little guys are just down right amazing for their size. my little predicament i have found myself in is that when i set them up yesterday........(this will probably fire bill up) they sounded better to me that my upstairs setup did. now i know everybody says placement, placement, placement. i will tell you that i had them 18 inches from the side wall and 2ft from the back wall. which from everywhere i read very important for imaging and rear ported speakers. the other thing is that the rc-42ii on my entertainment center is EXACTLY the same height as the towers. so all tweeters are right there on the same plane. and the bic sub, well it aint a svs ultra, but its damn good for what i payed for it. it has uber amounts of bass for the 42ii theater. ok going on, i only hooked these up to hear them and then box them right back up, because my son will destroy them. but then after wondering all night and today at work, i bring the 63/64 down for a test run. setup audyssey same as i did for the 42ii ht and then watched the same clips as yesterday at the same volume. so starting off towers are 6 inches away from the side wall and 8-10 inches away from rear wall. center is perfectly ear height on the entertainment center down there but about a foot below the tweeters on the 63's. dont get me wrong these speakers are louder, more dynamic, and any other thing you can think of for a 1000$ speaker over a 300$ speaker would be. but i just didnt feel they had the cohesion that the 42ii theater had at all. my living room is bigger than my upstairs room. i want to say 12X20, and i moved my couch back to about 12 feet with ten feet in between the towers. so i guess what i am wondering if the tweeters are making that much of a difference being perfectly level? or is my problem still needing a bigger room to let these things breathe? any suggestions would be helpful. i can't stop wondering if i would be better off with some speaker package that has an L/C/R that i can have the same height....for the perfect front soundstage

[Heritage_Head]

Sound is like food. Cost means very little to what tastes

good. In theory your rf-63 set up should destroy the much cheaper speakers but

to you that might not be the case.

Keep in mind they are different line speaker. Possible the

new line sound is more to your liking?

[Scrappydue]

It's not so much the sound as the cohesion of the speakers together. I'm just wondering if the main reason is because of the tweeters being exact same height

[willland]

........(this will probably fire bill up) they sounded better to me that my upstairs setup did.

I'll be okay.[]

Here is what may be going on. You have a 1 inch tweeter(treble) crossing over to 2--4.5 woofers(midrange/midbass) crossing over to a 12 inch woofer(bass). You have a virtual 3-way speaker. A 4.5 inch driver(due to physics) is probably going to have a smoother midrange than a 6.5 inch driver which in turn will have a smoother midrange than an 8 inch driver. The fact that all tweeters are at the same height will have a more cohesive front soundstage, no doubt. Demo both systems in a 16W x 25L x 10H room and IMO, it will not even be close.

Believe it or not, I sometimes enjoy certain movies in my RVX-42(4 inch woofers) bedroom system more than my RF-63 main system.

Bill

[Scrappydue]

So bill if I wanted the cohesion of it and more oomph, would be better off going for a three way system? I have been looking into jtr triple 8's. Do you know anyone with these or ever heard them? Maybe I should just shoot for a set of palladiums lol p 37 comparable to the 63's?

[Beechnut]

Scrappy, could you be experience "imaging" in the downstairs system that you may not in the other? Toeing speakers in, speaker height, room acoustics and many other variables can achieve this.

[derrickdj1]

Scrappydue, you are experiecing synergy of the system. Having pieces that work well together and with the room can beat out higher price and quality equipment. I did not say it was better, but works better to deliver the finish product, sound at the sweet spot or spots. That was one of the first things I noticed with the RC 64 in my HT. I liked the DDPLIIz due to the midrange sound over the RF 7's in stereo with certain music. The midrange performance that Bill talked about is so true. A larger room for the 63's will let them shine.There are advantages to not using all the same size drivers in a setup.

[willland]

So bill if I wanted the cohesion of it and more oomph, would be better off going for a three way system?

Not really. I might get flamed by Heritage diehards[:#] but a well designed and integrated 2-way system can sound just as good or better than the same with a 3-way system. If the subwoofer is set up as seamlessly as possible with the other speakers in the system, voila' you will have a 3-way system.

What was mentioned before, the synergy and imaging may be better with your RF-42II system in that particular room.

Bill

[Scrappydue]

So i just need to hurry up and move and find my permanent home and see if my setup is what I have always wanted or need something different. Bill I found another set of rf-63 at a local store that are black and I am probably gonna snag for a 2 channel

Setup. I haven't heard anything I liked more with music than my 63's paired with the erc-2 and xpa-2. I am thinking the usp-1 will take it over the top. Hope I get a big enough house that wife will let me have a theater and a 2 channel room.

[Youthman]

Here is a USP-1 locally to me (maybe 20 min) Link

If you are interested and buyer isn't willing to ship, let me know and I can arrange to check it out for you and ship it to you.

Michael

[dtel]

Not really. I might get flamed by Heritage diehards but a well designed and integrated 2-way system can sound just as good or better than the same with a 3-way system.

Now where is my flamethrower ? []

Just kidding, your right, the less "ways" the better, the crossover points are some of the easiest places to have a problem, for lack of a technical way of explaining it.

[neo33]

I take that back if I were you, Bill!

a well designed and integrated 2-way system can sound just as good or better than the same with a 3-way system.

[willland]

I take that back if I were you, Bill!

Why would I do that?[*-)]

"a well designed and integrated 2-way system CAN sound just as good or better than the same with a 3-way system"

I said can, not does.[]

Bill

[tmassey]

Are your fronts and centers set to different crossovers? If there is a frequency chunk that is being played on your RF-63's, but the center is defeating it and sending it to your sub? I can see how 80-100hz signals would sound different on RF-63's compared to a pair of ultras. Also, the sound your ears are expecting to come from the center would be coming from further left than your left speaker. You could be confusing your ears.

[Scrappydue]

i just went all 80 for everything when the 42's were hooked up and then i set it the same as when i had it upstairs that i like. rf63-60 hz rc-64-70 hz and rb-61-70hz sub at 80hz

[derrickdj1]

If you use those xo for movies, som of the LFE is missing. That is a dedicated channel that send 120 Hz and lower to the sub. With well integrated subs and all the speakers set to small, you will not missing anything with your system.

Should I Set My Speakers to Large or Small?
People always ask
this question. The answer is very simple. If you own a subwoofer that outputs
good bass sound, you should set all your speakers to SMALL. In general, if you
own a subwoofer, it may be wise to set all your speakers to small for several
reasons:

1. When there is an overlap of bass sound from the front speakers and the
   subwoofer, you will get bloated and boomy bass.
   
2. A subwoofer can play low frequencies all the way down to 20Hz or lower. Even
   relatively large front speakers cannot go that low.
   
3. The placement of a sub in a room is the primary factor in receiving good
   bass sound. You cannot adjust the position of the front speakers and move them
   to the side or back.
   
4. If the subwoofer and the front speakers play the same bass frequencies,
   there will be a possibility of phase cancellation of certain bass frequencies.
   
5. Redirecting the bass to the subwoofer relieves the receiver/amplifier from
   having to work on reproducing the low frequencies and this greatly improves the
   headroom.
   
6. If you are using the Audyssey MultEQ calibration, you will get much better
   bass performance because the MultEQ subwoofer filters have 8x higher resolution
   than the filters for the other speakers.

LARGE = The speakers are not Bass Managed.
SMALL = The speakers are Bass
Managed.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=95817

[Scrappydue]

Yeah I rad that was a dedicated 120-0 LFE channel. I hate they way it sounds if it's that high. 100 max for me. I refuse to set any of speakers that high. I just can't justify the money spent on big speakers to cut em off that high. If I am reading right do you cross over al your speakers at 120??

[derrickdj1]

No, the speakers are not xo at 120, the xo on the sub is all the way up at 120-140 . This way there are no audio holes from the sub xo at 80 for HT. You will loose all the infor between 120 and 80. XO all the speakers at 80 and set them to small. My RF 7's can't handle bass as well as my epik legend or 15in sub. You have some great subs so getting all their performace should make your HT experience significantly better. Setting the speakers to small has nothing to do with their size. It avoid standing wave problem, phase canellation issues and mulitple overlap of bass at different frequencies with multiple xo. End result, more cohesive system and better bass. Using bass management like this takes advantage of Audyssey Multi EQ with 8x the filter on the sub compared to the other speakers for ultra refine bass management. Using the filter is just if not more important that sub EQ IMO. I tried my 7's as full range since I paid good money for them but, I have overall better bass running everything as small.With the speaker set to small, The avr will automatically set the LPF to 120. The bass management feature of Audyssey Multi EQ is what make it so popular.

[Scrappydue]

All my speakers are set to small. I just run the crossovers a little lower so they don't sound like sub sat combo. I think once all my stuff is in a room where it can beathe it will sound MUCH better

[derrickdj1]

Great Scrappudue, I miss understood your post. You said your subs was xo at 80 so I thought your were running the speakers as large. Turn the xo on the sub all the way up to avoid an audio hole for HT.