I hope that i am not breaking any audiophile laws here and if i am who cares. the sound difference is astounding
If it sounds good to you to hell what anyone else thinks.
I set the M80's to 40hz and the VP 150 to 80 hz and the QS8 to 120 Hz and it all came together for my little CD collection. of course this doesn't sound as good for the movies, (80Hz for everything seems to be the magic numbers for Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD MA)on my AVR.
I usually had my AVR set to LFE+MAINS with a 60 or 40 crossover for the mains and center and an 80 crossover for the surrounds and backs. Many people don’t like LFE+MAINS because it gives them to much bass but for my square room it smoothed things out. Sitting only 6-8 feet away from the front speakers with LFE+MAINS lets me feel the shock of explosions and things hitting me from their onscreen direction the way they feel in real life. Use to have my subwoofer front and center but kept whacking my toes on it so moved it directly behind (EP500 beats little toe every time). I didn’t notice any difference in movies with the surround and back crossovers anywhere from 80-100 but did notice a small timber change when certain music panned around. However, there was a big timber change with game sound effects panning around when the mains are at 40 and the surrounds are at 100 so I stuck with 80 for the surrounds.
I also refuse to listen to music in stereo. the 5.1 experience is so engulfing that 2.0 seems antiquated
For me there’s no one size fits all solution with DSP. Concerts, jazz clubs and ambient music to name a few sound better with PLIIx or some other DSP applied. However, most studio recordings (read the well mastered ones) almost always sound better to me in 2.0. Especially SACD studio recordings like “Going Down to Liverpool” on the Bangles SACD. The high notes just float around me in 2.0 and fall flat if I engage PLII or PLIIx. I imagine if I had M80s all around this might not happen so when I move I will at least try out my M22s as surrounds for music to see if they sound better for studio recordings. Poorly mastered studio recordings almost invariably sound better with some form of DSP.
Also don’t limit yourself to using PLII or PLIIx. Some of the other DSP modes sound pretty good to me depending on the source and with headphones they can really help out.
Cheers,
Dean
