Please advise, large speaker setting for low frequency?

[Salvador]

Should I set my receiver to distribute low frequency to my RF52s and RC62 or should I only let my sub handle that? In order to do that, I would have to set my front speakers as large on my receiver. Does anyone know the pros and cons of this? How do most of you have it set up? Also if I do change it to large I have the option of setting it so that both my action speakers and sub will reproduce the bass. Any advice would help. I have a lower end Yamaha sub and polk PSW111. I just want to make sure that I am getting the best out of my system. Thank you all .

[Hutch1814]

I recommend setting your speakers to "small". Let the sub handle the lower freq. by doing this you're taking stress off your speakers and AVR and letting the sub do the job it's meant to do. Also, the "large" and "small" settings have nothing to do with the overall size of speaker. Always confused me. I seen a thread on this somewhere on here but I'm unable to find it now. I'm sure somebody can chime in with it

[Salvador]

Thats what I always thought. Let the sub do what its suppose to do and your speakers can take care of mids and highs. Its just a couple of people have told me how incredible the bass of Klipsch is. Thats why Im kind of questioning the whole idea.

[Hutch1814]

I can't speak for all klipsch considering I'm a newbie to the forum/klipsch family. I've always pieced stuff together until I finally bit the bullet and bought a complete icon series but my KF-28's are not bad but I wouldn't say they're great. The have decent bass but I prefer my SW-112 to pick up the bass and let my towers and the rest of the system to work their magic []

[willland]

http://hometheaterreview.com/klipsch-rf-52-floorstanding-loudspeakers-reviewed/

I would set all my speakers to small and set the crossovers to 80Hz to start and then adjust if needed. While the RF-52's do produce tight and fast bass, they roll off pretty quickly(spec'd at 34Hz -3dB, independent test at 42Hz -6dB). Not a ton of volume in the lower registers so better to set to small, IMO.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.audio.de%2Ftestbericht%2Fklipsch-rf-52-329150.html

Do alot of trial and error and stick with the best results to your ears.

Bill

[garyrc]

Should I set my receiver to distribute low frequency to my RF52s and RC62 or should I only let my sub handle that? In order to do that, I would have to set my front speakers as large on my receiver. Does anyone know the pros and cons of this?

It depends. Helpful, right? But more helpful than my preamp/processor manual, the worst I've read in decades of being an audiophile.

Audyssey strongly recommends all speakers (including big front speakers with good bass) be set to SMALL. They also recommend using the 80Hz crossover point between front speakers and sub, in most cases. I had my system set up that way for quite a while, and it was O.K.

The trouble was that my Klipschorns were capable of providing much cleaner, more impactive bass attack (in MUSIC -- one of the most important elements of movies, IMO) than the Klipsch RSW15 sub. So I set the Kipschorns to LARGE.
What I got was good tight sounding bass, but with rather weak low frequency special effects .... still not right.

Then, with the Khorns still set for LARGE, I set the subwoofer mode to "LFE + Main," a setting NOT recommended by Audyssey. Now, the LFE was being sent
to the sub only, while the bass below 80 Hz in the music was being sent
to BOTH the Khorns and the sub. I think I read that different receiver
manufacturers make different choices as to whether to do this just this way, so it may be different with your receiver. This
arrangement is known as "double bass" in some receiver manuals, but
you may not get double bass if you have significant phase problems. In
my room, it worked out fine, and I'm still not sure exactly how. The
bass in the musical scores was fuller than with either of the above
ways, and a Room EQ WIzard sweep detected more bass amplitude between
about 80 and 125 Hz than in the other methods, with no appreciable effect on the rest of the bass curve.

I ran sections of Mr. and Mrs. Smith with and without the subwoofer to see if some of the LFE was being sent to my Khorns, and the answer was "not much." The explosive bass sounds in the movie hardly got into the Khorns, even when set to LARGE, but all of the bass music did. This fits the contention that most Blu-rays & DVDs in 5.1 or greater are mixed so that virtually all of the bass sound effects come out of the subwoofer output only
(when using 5.1 or >). With the sub back on the bass effects were
explosive, creating a breeze in the room that tagged me on the shoulders
@ 17 feet, shook the floor, and had peaks of about 110
dB on the Radio Shack Meter, "C wt.," "Fast." The tonal balance is
better than with any of the other methods I tried.

Your system may be different.

[derrickdj1]

The small setting will work best for your speakers Salvador as others have stated. Bass management better controls phase and standing wave issues. Any speaker with a woofer smaller than 8 in. should be set as small in a HT setup. I run my RF 7's along with the rest of my speaker as small. The RF 7's cannot produce the bass that my 12 and 15 in subs can together or one sub alone . Even if they could, it would still be better setting all speakers to small.

[Salvador]

Agghhh!! This is what I did last night before i read the 2 replys before this. Ok, I ended up setting my RF52s and RC62 as large. Then I changed the setting on my receiver to what is called extra bass. This is so that both the sub and all 3 front speakers produce some bass. Lastly I lowered the overal bass setting on my speakers to about 4. I did this so that my front speakers wouldent produce to much bass and my subs wil still do what they can. I was pretty satisfied with this setting. Now, I am being advised to go with small setting, I will probobly go back to that after I listen to the setting I have now so that I can compare more.

[dtel]

I had told him try large first because this is his sub.(in another thread) Polk PSW 111

He has the RF 52's which go down to 36Hz, so what good does a sub that goes to 38 add by setting his mains to small ? [:|] I did tell him to try both ways and go with whatever sounds best but it may not be best to automatically think of the standard ways of thinking or THX ways when the sub is not really capable.

This is the spec's

• 
  
• Loud & Low Specs (CEA2010)
  
  • 
    
  • Low: 115.5 db
    
    
  • Ultra: 75.4 db
  
  
• Dynamic Power: 300 watts
  
• Continuous Power: 150 watts
  
• Overall Frequency Response: 38Hz-250Hz
  
• Lower -3dB Limit: 42 Hz dB
  
• Crossover: 80Hz-200Hz
  
• Inputs: Speaker level spring terminals, Line level L&R, LFE line
  level (unfiltered)
  
• Outputs: Speaker level spring terminals
  
• Enclosure Type: Vented, Downward Firing Port

[derrickdj1]

6

Hi Salvador, small towers or large bookself speaker with one 8 in. or two 6 in. woofers should go no lower than 60 Hz for a XO, as general recommendation.

Bass management redirect bass from the satellite or bass limited speakers to the subwoofer/s. A lot of forum members have variable xo or variable xo for all speaker where each speaker can be set individually. This is not necessarily better, and requires some expertise to get it right.

Double Bass: Mains + LFE- with this option the mains are bass managed, but that is not necessarily good. Both the mains and sub/s are reproducing the bass in the system, this produces overlap for a portion of the frequecy band and the bass becomes bloated or boomy. The most importnat factor for good bass is location, location and location. The sub can be moved around for this, it is hard to move the other speakers around the room.

Large VS Small: If you own a capable sub, the answer is set the speakers to small. Here are the 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. Standing waves under 70 Hz and problems with room modes cannot be

   effectively handlel even with EQ due to the length of the sound waves.

THX recommends a XO of 80 Hz for a good reason. The .1 or LFE channel carries 120 Hz sound and lower. Less than 5% is in the band from 80 Hz to 120 I think of the subwoofers as playback devices directed by the systems bass management A lot of people have trouble dealing with the Small setting. There speaker look large and they paid good money for them. The bass managemet software was a good bit of what you paid for the avr or pre-pro set, it makes sense to use it.

[dtel]

. Any speaker with a woofer smaller than 8 in. should be set as small in a HT setup.

Sometimes

But sometimes depending on design it can go just the opposite. [] This sub only has a 170 WPC plate amp.

Since you said HT I use 6.1

The 6 speakers have 15" bass......set to small.......and a sub that has 2- 8" drivers []

The sub can out play the 6 15" drivers, it sounds best with the speakers set to small.

Same sub for 2 CH

2 channel is 4 15" drivers in 4 MWM cabinets and the same sub can play fine with them into levels where you would not want to be in the room.

It's all in the design

[dtel]

Hi Salvador, small towers or large bookself speaker with one 8 in. or two 6 in. woofers should you no lower than 60 Hz for a XO, as general recommendation.

Bass management redirect bass from the satellite or bass limited speakers to the subwoofer/s. A lot of forum members have variable xo or variable xo for all speaker where each speaker can be set individually. This is not necessarily better, and requires some expertise to get it right.

Double Bass: Mains + LFE- with this option the mains are bass managed, but that is not necessarily good. Both the mains and sub/s are reproducing the bass in the system, this produces overlap for a portion of the frequecy band and the bass becomes bloated or boomy. The most importnat factor for good bass is location, location and location. The sub can be moved around for this, it is hard to move the other speakers around the room.

But what do you do when your sub does not go as low as your mains like in Salvador's setup ? Should you still set the mains to small ?

[derrickdj1]

det

But what do you do when your sub does not go as low as your mains like in Salvador's setup ? Should you still set the mains to small ?

My statements are general and stated if you have a capable sub. For a HT, a capable sub is a must. But we all have to do the best that we can and grow the system with time. Thanks dtel for the extra info on the op's sub. If I read correctly his mains are at 40 Hz which is to low.

[garyrc]

Agghhh!! This is what I did last night before i read the 2 replys before this. Ok, I ended up setting my RF52s and RC62 as large. Then I changed the setting on my receiver to what is called extra bass. This is so that both the sub and all 3 front speakers produce some bass. Lastly I lowered the overal bass setting on my speakers to about 4. I did this so that my front speakers wouldent produce to much bass and my subs wil still do what they can. I was pretty satisfied with this setting. Now, I am being advised to go with small setting, I will probobly go back to that after I listen to the setting I have now so that I can compare more.

Try everything, let your ears be your guide. Listen for good
(thrilling) dynamics, as well as detailed texture and accurate tonality.

I
was surprised that LARGE worked best for me, since not only did
Audyssey advise against it, but magazine reviews gently ridiculed (some)
receiver manufacturers' recommending LARGE. They all just about had me
believing it. Then I thought I would try LARGE with a cross section of
my Blu-rays and changed my mind.

It is important to try a variety
of Blu-rays (or multichannel SACDs, or whatever). So far, in my room,
the majority of those I tried sounded better with LARGE (LotRs: Fellowship of the Ring, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.), but Taxi Driver and 'Round Midnight sounded
better with SMALL. I suspect that with my speakers (Klipschorns with
Belle Klipsch center and Heresy II surrounds) in my room (16 x 25, with a
ceiling sloping from 8.5 feet up to 11 feet 10") big orchestral forces
(found on many movie soundtracks) sound best on LARGE, but jazz-like
scores tend to sound best with SMALL. Yet a lineal descendent of Taxi Driver, Bringing Out the Dead
(also by Scorsese and Schrader, with a score featuring pre-existing
jazz and jazzy pop) seemed better with LARGE. If there were a set of
Best Practices consistently used by both filmmakers and those who
transfer film to disk, it might be possible to choose just one setting
of everything -- EQ, Volume, Audyssey Flat, Audyssey rolled off,
Audyssey bypassed (and the same with other processing software), LARGE,
SMALL, crossovers at 80, 60, 40 Hz etc. But there is so much variation
in how films are prepared for the home, this can't be done at this time,
IMO. For instance, one of the goals of Audyssey is to use their 8
microphone placements and software to allow the user to set the volume
at 0* and get the same reference SPL that the sound people and
filmmakers heard when mixing the film, reflecting the intentions of the
filmmakers -- for those who want to do that. But, in practice, this
can't be true, or else many films are strangely loud, weirdly soft, or
whatever. Apparently, not all mixers have their control rooms set up
with the band limited pink noise standard SPL level. I fully realize
that the above adjustments are meant to optimize the setting of the
sound equipment in a given room once and for all, but good luck with
that. I end up using my now standard settings (LARGE, Sub coming in at
80 Hz, Khorns staying on all the way down) for movies that are new to
me, but end up changing the settings, or fine tuning the EQ, for about
-- what? -- 20% of them before showing them to guests. This is a
bother, but anything less would be "Dry-labing."

* Khorns are too efficient for the automatic 0 level set up
during calibration because the Audyssey settings go all the way down to - 12
dB, which indicates that Audyssey won't be applying compensation. So,
with highly efficient speakers one temporarily installs 12 dB
attenuators, runs Audyssey, then removes the attenuators, and uses a
volume setting of -12, rather than 0 ... then often adjusts it to taste
with different BDs.

[dtel]

I have to say I originally had the front 3 set to large until one day a thread like this came up.

DrWho here on the forum convinced me to try small and see how it sounded, at first I didn't think it was better but after trying it back and forth I did hear a difference. I liked it better set to small, the sub was able to keep up without a problem.

To me the large setting had more bass but it was cleaner and sounded more accurate set to small, Maby with a better bass management setup I could have worked ? The only thing I think was causing a problem was the three extra 15" speakers trying to reproduce the bass from different parts of the room plus the sub was just mudding up the bass. Lately I have tried large just on the mains just to give another listen ?

Like Garyrc said try everything and decide for yourself, info from this form can help a lot but you should try different things because only you have that room and the room can make as much difference as anything.

Good luck and have fun, your definitely on the right track. [Y]

[garyrc]

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. Standing waves under 70 Hz and problems with room modes cannot be
   effectively handlel even with EQ due to the length of the sound waves.

THX recommends a XO of 80 Hz for a good reason. The .1 or LFE channel carries 120 Hz sound and lower. Less than 5% is in the band from 80 Hz to 120 I think of the subwoofers as playback devices directed by the systems bass management A lot of people have trouble dealing with the Small setting. There speaker look large and they paid good money for them. The bass managemet software was a good bit of what you paid for the avr or pre-pro set, it makes sense to use it.

Hi derrickdj1,





I thoroughly agree that your statements above are exactly in line with what we read in many audio publications, and are in line with audio theory. But, in practice, with certain rooms, speaker positions, listening positions, and sources, LARGE may sound subjectively better. The only way to know for sure is to try it. As I said, I was quite surprised that LARGE sounded better in my situation, because I had thoroughly bought into the prevailing position that you hold.

LARGE
doesn't always result in bloated bass, and either doesn't always result
in significant phase cancellation, or some kind of trade-off is pleasing to my ears in my particular system.

How a large speaker handles its low frequency attenuation makes a difference. My Khorns do it fairly cleanly, especially since only bass music, not the true LFE
gets into them, as long as I'm set for 5.1 or more channels. If I were
to use them as a two channel system by selecting 2 channel (often
called Dolby Surround, rather than 5.1, whether it be Dolby, DTS, or whatever) on a disk menu, the LFE would go into the Khorns and probably sound terrible, possibly endangering them, since those maniacs disk producers are now putting LFE as low as 5 Hz on BDs. For music, in my set-up, the Khorns don't sound distorted at the bottom of their range (crossing the 0 line at 34 Hz, and extending to 22.9 Hz, according to tests with Room EQ Wizard), but the 15" Klipsch RSW15 sub does distort a bit toward the bottom of its range, which is only a bit below that of my Khorns, although the sub is much less attenuated down there.

" Less than 5% is in the band from 80 Hz to 120." Yes, but it is mighty important mid bass. As far as I can tell, if a big bass drum makes a "Ba-oom" sound, the "Ba" -- the primary impact -- the smack of beater against the un-damped drum head, is between 80 and 120 -- or even higher, and the "oom" is below 80. The same with timpani. If you turn off all speakers except a sub crossing over at 80 Hz, and play heavy bass drum or timpani beats, you will hear "oom," "oom," "oom" -- lots of deep bass, but little impact. Turn the other speakers back on and you will hear the wonderful, smaking, impact. I understand you should get this with the mains set to SMALL or LARGE, and it may be interferred with by phase problems in LARGE, but, on the other hand, it may be reinforced. The latter happens on my system, confirmed by REW, mic in sweet spot; the curve above 80 Hz, where the sub is declining, up to 125 Hzis elevated, and I hear it as increased bass impact and richness. On other systems the opposite might be true. Maybe I just lucked out.

[Salvador]

Thank you all!!

[dtel]

Thank you all!!

Yes everyone, Thanks, this is exactly how everyone get's the most out of what they have, I was back in the Pro-logic days when I started reading here and was dragged along to a much better sound.

Have fun Salvador, your off to a great start.

[derrickdj1]

The K- horns are a special exception compared to most tower speakers thanks to PWK. A truly remarkable speaker. Experimentation is part of the fun of this hobby and by all means it 's just a small investment of time.