Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners I have more bass punch WITHOUT a sub

Of course there would be. In small and LFE mode, the subs are only getting LFE, not main sub frequencies.

SRoode,

when the mains are set to small I think any low frequencies below the crossover point get sent to the sub regardless of what the the sub setting is (LFE or LFE+main).

according to the denon manual: When front is set to small, subwoofer is automatically set to "yes"

it also says:

For front speakers set to small, sound below the crossover frequency is cut from the sound output. The cut bass sound is output from the subwoofer or front speakers.

Here is what I have found from testing my own AVR-3806:

Large, LFE – Subs do not get Main low frequencies. They may get LFE (not sure)
Large, LFE+Main - Subs do not get Main low frequencies (this is the anomaly – but it is probably programmed this way because Large overrides anything else). The subs may get LFE (not sure)
Small, LFE – Subs get LFE, but not main low frequencies – The main low frequencies go to the mains. LFE is crossed over at AVR LFE Crossover point.
Small, LFE+Main Subs get LFE and Main low frequencies – Crossover is at AVR Main Speaker Crossover point.

Whether or not the manual states otherwise, several sources have confirmed that when set to Large, the subs do not get the main low frequencies. Granted, this is on older Denon AVRs (06 and before). The 08 series may have fixed this.

I forgot to mention one VERY IMPORTANT thing I have discovered in the past. Again, this is how it responds on my AVR-3806, the newer models may have corrected this.

Audessey overrides some of your manual settings, and one of them is large/small. Example - If Audessey determines your fronts are "large", when in Audessey mode, they will be large, even if you set them to small. This also applies to flat and front, once Audessey has analyzed the room.

The M80s of course always come in as "large" when Audessey examines the room. My workaround was to copy the EQ curve to the manual EQ curve. When you are in the manual EQ curve, your "small" main choice will work.

David, lots of discussion on this since last night, but you discovered the reason for the change in bass that you heard when switching from "LFE" to "+" with speakers set small(which generally is meaningless, as I pointed out before): the cause was that you were in direct mode, which doesn't allow any processing to send low bass from the mains to the sub, and since there's no LFE on CDS, of course, the sub gets nothing and the M80s were handling all the bass alone. So obviously don't use direct mode, but continue to use the basic small and LFE settings.

Although a couple of the posts stated this backwards, with large and "+" set, it's the frequencies below(not above)the crossover frequency set which are doubled in the M80s and sub.

As to why the Denon even allows the small and "+" settings which are inconsistent with each other to be shown together, is unclear. Some other Denon models, e.g. the 1905 that JonHan mentions, don't permit the setting.

No. The Denon has a separate setting for stereo/direct to allow the AVR processing to affect these modes.

Pure is a different story.

Steve, if that's the case(I haven't looked at the 3808 manual on that point), it's possible then that David was actually referring to the "pure" rather than the "direct" mode which was causing the confusing result originally. The basic point is to not use a mode which doesn't allow redirecting the low bass from the mains to the sub. Then the basic "Small" and "LFE" settings allow the sub to handle the redirected low bass from the mains and other speakers, as well as any LFE that may be present on other than CD sources.

Very possible



Yep, I agree!



Okay, then what does "small" and "LFE+Main" do?

As I stated before, apparently nothing; the two settings are inconsistent. Only the basic small and LFE setting is necessary for bass management.

It is a redundant setting once the mains are set to small. The LFE+Main setting is only active for main speakers when set to large. Once they get set to small the LFE channel is still processed in the same manner as LFE+main w/spk large, all frequencies below the crossover and LFE is sent to the subwoofer and not to the mains.
I guess because it still works in the same manner for either speaker size Denon didn't think it needed to be removed as a possibility.