Hi Micah,

Just a slight elaboration on my recommendation for you to avoid running the Denon LFE output at levels higher than +3 dB. That was simply my erring on the side of caution. We don't have a Denon at the Axiom plant, I don't use one, and I have no idea whether the Denon LFE output produces distortion when you run it at higher levels. This was speculation by Tom, our chief electronics engineer, on what could possibly be wrong in your setup. We have never experienced the DSP of any of our subs, including the EP800, being overloaded and as I mentioned in a previous post, we ran the Sherwood Newcastle to +12 dB with no negative effects in our test of the EP800 we sent you.

The "unbreakable" comment is referring to the limiter in the DSP and amp section, in that with any of our DSP subs, you can keep turning up the volume of the sub itself to maximum and the DSP/limiter will prevent damage to the driver or the amplifier because the DSP is programmed with the limits that can be endured by the driver and the amplifier. It is not related to the theoretical situation of sending a distorted signal to the input of the subwoofer. While I have not encountered an AV receiver that goes into distortion when the LFE output is raised too high, an informed former colleague at Sound&Vision magazine did find that bench testing of some AVRs revealed the LFE output would go into distortion if raised too high.

Look, at Axiom we've being going nuts trying to figure out what the f*** is wrong in your system, so we've been grasping at the most extreme scenarios. I'm sorry you are so far away, relatively, because my technical curiosity is such that it's bugging me no end as to what is at fault in this seeming weird incompatibility of the EP800 and your Denon. If I believed in such things, I'd say the odd behavior is the result of a poltergeist caused by a teen-ager with overactive hormones in the area.

It may be that we have to write this one off as one of those weird flukes that occasionally occur.

Regards,
Alan


Alan Lofft,
Axiom Resident Expert (Retired)