RC42 II Set to Small or Large?

[Gatorbait2009]

I am in the process of building a home theater, I watch movies around 50% of the time and listen to music th rest. I recently purchased 2 RF52ii and an RC42ii. Mainly went the RC42ii because of space constraint. Having gotten the RF52ii i wish i had gone the 62 but that is another story. I also have a Denon 3313ci. My surround speakers are leftover from my Quintet system and I plan on upgrading those shortly.

In the mean time, my question is should I set my center channel to small or large? I'm not sure what the difference really is, I'm also wondering if upgrading the center channel prior to the surrounds would be worth while. I have klipsch 10" sub but i can't remember the model number right now. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Room size is approximately 20' x 18'. I would also ask that in the future should I upgrade my fronts prior to surrounds. The little satellites from my quintets seem to produce the ambient sound that the movie soundtracks are going for, so im wondering if money would be better spent on upgrading my front 3. I figured that the 3313ci should last me a while.

Also, for the surrounds, would it be worth looking at older models or used? I feel like i'm catching the bug of constantly wanting to upgrade now. I am all about learning more and more so if anyone can direct me to some good articles or pages to learn more about cross over frequency setting or system set up I would appreciate that as well. Thanks!!!

[Mongo171]

Your RC-42 II should be set to Small. It simply can't handle the lower freqs. You should set the AVR's crossover to about 100Hz. You experiment from there as to what sounds good to you. The main difference between Large and Small is where is the lower freqs being sent. Smaller speakers can't handle the lower freqs, so they are steered to the sub. Even your 52 II's should be set to small. If I were you, I would upgrade the sub first. A 10" sub won't and can't go very far in HT.

Used or older models of surrounds can be used. All depends on how big you are going to go with your main speakers. Right now, any RS Series speaker should work for you. You don't have to go overboard with the surrounds. Something like an RS-42 will work fine. This is a hobby where the upgrade bug is ALWAYS hitting us. Welcome to the club!

[Heritage_Head]

Normally i would say set it to small but with only a small klipsch 10" sub i would try both. Set everything as large and see how it sounds then try them as small at 80hz and see how it sounds. As you move up the reference line it gets better and better but i agree with mongo upgrade your sub first.

[Scrappydue]

Well I am the exact opposite opinion. I personably would rather match my bass requirements to the rest of my system. You always buy what you want from the get go so you ain't wasting too much money upgrading. So maybe go with 62's or even 82's for mains. I would do that first. The sell your 42ii and get an rc-62ii then maybe just move the 52ii's to surround duty? Why i disagree with the sub approach is if you think eh ill just buy this svs pb-12nsd cause it matches my current requirements then you upgrade all your stuff, you'll want a sub with some more oomph for sure. Unless you just go ahead and future proof and say I want a pb-12plus or pb-13 ultra then you could do a sub first. And to be told that a 10 inch sub CAN NOT pull home theater duty is BS. Maybe he has never owned a fantastic 10 inch sub before. Is it gonna give you the monster spl and crazy depth below 25hz? No but it doesn't mean a 10 inch sub jl that you ALREADY OWN wont get you buy for a while. But when ou do look look into brands like svs, hsu, rythmik. These Internet direct companies give you so much bang for your buck now. Unless you are super handy with wood then DIY hands down will be your best money spent. So many kits out there already just have to have the tools to assemble and space to do it in as well. Good luck!

[derrickdj1]

I am also in the camp of setting everything to small. This will improve your dynamic range and not put LF signal in speaker that can't or will not reproduce them correctly. Locate a single sub between or close to the mains and it should blend well with the other speakers. You can try a xo of 80 but 100 Hz in not bad either. With a smaller sub, let it play mid bass. I have used a xo of 80 or 100 Hz and both work pretty well. The closer the sub is to the mains, allows a higher xo to be used. Subs near the LP favor a lower xo setting to prevent the sub form being localized.

Here is an example of power demands by LF:

For example,
to sound as loud as a 1 kHz tone at 70 dB SPL, a 40 Hz tone must be
at 90 dB. That extra 20 dB is 100 times the power! So if your
speakers only need 1 W to produce that 70 dB, 1 kHz tone, then a 40
Hz tone requires 100 W to sound as loud Your speaker have only
so much displacement and dynamic range, and the same goes for the
amplifiers in your AVR (or whatever). If you are sending 100 W out to
create that 40 Hz tone, that your speakers might not even reproduce
well, then that is essentially wasting headroom (dynamic range) in
the amplifier and speakers. Your AVR could be happily putting out a
few Watts with the sub handling the low stuff, or the AVR could be
stressing out trying to put 100+ W to reproduce the low frequencies
plus all the rest. Most "large"
speakers have very high distortion when trying to produce loud LF
sounds -- like 10% to 50% ! You are using all their excursion and
thus getting very nonlinear (distorted).
It is even worse when the main speakers cannot reproduce the low
frequencies; it simply causes large excursions that are not heard, or
the power is converted into heat in the voice coil. Neither is a good
way to spend your power budget.. Wow!

By Don H on the AVS forum.

This is what people mean by increasing the headroom in the avr/system running speakers as small and using the avr's built in bass management.

[Heritage_Head]

i agree logic says setting them to small would make more sense. However its not always what sounds best. My dad as example has small reference speakers (RSX-5 fronts, and RVX-42 for a center). He uses a small 10" polk sub (cost around $100 new). When he runs everything as small his sub is more localized in the room and strained a bit from the extra mid bass from the bass management. When he runs all the speakers as large the sub blends better in the room and plays smother receiving just the lfe channel. Over all the speakers sound really nice set small or large but as a whole the system sounds better set to large. Try both and be your own judge.

[Scrappydue]

Try both and be your own judge.

+1

[derrickdj1]

Quiet Hollow posted a nice piece on lowering the xo on the sub to around 50 Hz to better blend with the mains due to the filter slopes of the avr and subs pluse the roll off of the speakers. I am currently trying this and it dose seem like it get's rid of the mid bass bump. He can explain this much better than me. In the past I alway suggested turning the xo all the way up or disable it. Being on this forum, I am alway learning something new. This may work if the subs can be localized using a small setting.

[Mongo171]

Quiet Hollow posted a nice piece on lowering the xo on the sub to around 50 Hz to better blend with the mains due to the filter slopes of the avr and subs pluse the roll off of the speakers. I am currently trying this and it dose seem like it get's rid of the mid bass bump. He can explain this much better than me. In the past I alway suggested turning the xo all the way up or disable it. Being on this forum, I am alway learning something new. This may work if the subs can be localized using a small setting.

Right now, I'm running my system xo at 80 and the sub xo at 40. It has really "opened up" the bass. I don't have measurement equipment, so I really don't know how the it is effecting the the dip between 40 and 80. All I know right now is that it just sounds better.

[derrickdj1]

Right now, I'm running my system xo at 80 and the sub xo at 40. It has really "opened up" the bass.

Yes, we were both interested in the info Qiet Hollow posted. So far I like this technique and don't detect any gaps using the different xo's.