Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions question for the pro's on M80's or M22's

Ok
my current setup is all small in my reciever with LFE+Mains. It is cut off at 80 hz
Now, if I set it to large as I have the M80's and the rest small as they are VP150 and qs8's, I still get base below 80hz actually all of it to the mains still because LFE+MAins.
But, the M80's are good to 35hz, so they will play 35hz and try to do the rest say 25 hz if it is load then they will distort....basically. So, therefore I don't want that so I go back and set all speakers to small ( which I have read numerous articles on ) and then that gives me LFE and all LF below 80 hz goes to the sub. Correct ?

Why then did I buy the Mt80's if I will not use the full speaker ,why should we not settle for Mt22 at a 1/3rd of the cost ?
not that I will change I love my 80's, but just curious

They don't distort, they just roll off. Simple physics--6 1/2" drivers can't go that low and produce much output.

When set to 80hz, it does not "cut off", as Ken mentioned there is a slope or pass-off to the sub. 80 hz is very low, most music never touches 80hz. Below 80hz, the sound starts to become non-directional and the sub is best suited to move more air.

The 80's actually do very well down into the lower frequencies if your receiver allows you to set a seperate crossover for them, try 60hz for music.

What works great for me is setting the cut-off to 80 for movies and 40 for music. I have mine set to LFE.

You bought the M80s because they are more sensitive, can play more than 4 times as loud, look more impressive and have better imaging .

Hi axiom_man,

As others have explained in this thread, when you set the M80s to "Small" and use a crossover frequency of 80 Hz or 60 Hz, it's a very gradual transition from the lower bass octaves to the subwoofer.

If you go up to the M80s when they are set to Small and play music with bass content, lightly touch the M80s woofers and you'll find that they are still producing bass output. But they don't have to "work" nearly as hard--the back-and-forth excursion of the woofer cones is much less--as the subwoofer takes up the slack and does all the bass heavy lifting, so to speak.

Set to Small, I find that the M80s used with a sub still have more lower bass "authority" than do the M22s used with a sub. I have both on a comparator in my living room and use 80 Hz as the crossover frequency when I make the comparisons.

Regards,

Just want to be clear--the M80s don't distort below 35Hz. That's the rolloff I was talking about. The output just drops (gradually). The rolloff other people are talking about, from the crossover, also occurs.

So, which is the perferred settings ... MT80's set to small or large and what is the recievers crossover set at ?
maybe I should have a poll

Set the M80s to small and use a cross-over of 80 Hz for movies and 40 Hz for music. Start with that and fiddle from there if you have to.

I just have mine set to 40 Hz for video, large for music, with a 40 Hz cross there as well for the sub. Of course, I have an H/K, so I get to set different crosses for different channels.

Mine are set to 60Hz on my ICBM, no setting for large or small.

I pretty much leave everything to small, with 80hz crossover for music and movies. For me, that is the best compromise. I don't want to change my receiver every time I change sources anyway.

Your mileage may vary.

Been a long time since I posted anything here, but I keep up with most of what is going on. Anyway, I have a couple questions about crossovers. I have the epic 60 500 system, and even though I have had it for a year I still find myself just begining to learn how things work. Right now I have a Yamaha 5960 reciever. I plan on upgrading to one of the new 1.3 onkyo recievers that I see are coming down the pipe because of the hdmi 1.3 connection and it being able to decode the lossless tracks. Anyway, back to my questions, With my setup now I cannot adjust the crossover for each speaker, but with the new reciever I will be able to do so. With these speakers what should I set the crossover for on each of them. Everything is set to small except the M60's. They are at the large setting.

JH, my suggestion is that even now the M60s should be set "small". Although they do a pretty good job in the lowest bass, your EP500 does even better there and should be given the responsibility, while relieving the M60s of some of the load(which should allow them to play a little cleaner on the higher frequencies). Even with the new Onkyo, which will have more flexible settings available, I'd still suggest setting everything small with an 80Hz crossover.

Alan's input is quite valuable in explaining the subtle point of slope in the low pass filter at the amp/receiver. If I understand correctly, when the cross over is set to 80Hz and the slope is 24dB/octave then the M80s will produce 40Hz but at a level that is 24dB less and 20Hz at a level that is 48dB less. Higher the listening level, the more prounced the work by M80 at this low frequency. If the slope is less steep (12dB/octave or 6dB/octave) or if the cross-over is set lower, bass duty for the M80 would be proportionally higher. This is the basis for setting physically large speakers like the M80 to "small" in order to unburden them of low frequency work at high listening levels. While there is no "brick-wall" on the receiver side regarding the low-pass cross-over, Alan's recent article on subwoofer calibration indicates that the cross-over point in DSP-driven EP subwoofers actually resemble a brick-wall (i.e, no slope). He recommends setting the cross-over at the EP subs to same cross-over as in the receiver. I think many of us would like some more explanation on this before cascading the cross-overs.
John

John,

I already started a thread on Alan's recent article in the newsletter.

Randy

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/showfla...;gonew=1#UNREAD