Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Mains=large: bass redirection for stereo material?

On a typical AV receiver, setting mains=large, sub=on, and crossover=80Hz will (for Dolby 5.1 material) send ONLY the LFE track to the sub, whereas the mains get full range material. IOW there's no bass redirection from mains to sub -- the crossover is typically not used (for mains->sub redirection).

Likewise setting mains=small, sub=on will send LFE + redirected bass below crossover to the sub. Again this assumes discrete 5.1 material, say Dolby Digital 5.1.

But what about stereo material? If mains=large, sub=on, will any bass redirection happen from mains to sub?

Various receivers have different settings for this. Look for a R/L+LFE setting or similar.

Joe, no redirection of the bass from the mains to the sub occurs in general in that situation. Most receivers have a setting(LFE+Mains, Both, Double Bass, etc.) which applies only when the mains are set "Large" and which would duplicate the lowest bass from the mains to the sub so that both the mains and the sub would be reproducing it(not a good idea in my view).

Oh, so that's what Double Bass is. I didn't know what the setting meant, so I turned it off.

(1) It depends on the bass management of the AV receiver. There are others besides Outlaw (H/K for one) that let you operate in stereo with the subwoofer and the mains set to Large or Small (the double bass thing) with a selectable crossover setting.

As to setting mains to Large with the subwoofer and DD 5.1, there are users who simply want tons and tons of bass, so-called "bass-heads." I know plenty of them.

I'd agree that with other receivers that don't permit the above, then it would indeed leave the subwoofer silent.

(2) It could, but for bass-heads, it isn't a "problem."

(3) I've tried to explain this previously but other articles may omit it because it's technically complicated and the number of AV receivers and preamp/processors that enable this is in the minority. (And I might have omitted mention of it in some of my pieces because it's tricky to understand. . .)

Incidentally, lots of naive listeners equate bloated, fat bass with "warmth" in a loudspeaker's tonal balance. And it sells in retail outlets' speaker demos.

Regards,

Alan, thanks.

My problem is this is typically poorly documented in the user's manual for various receivers. Many times I've read the section in various manuals on bass management, and thought "what does THAT mean?".

Sometimes the only solution is simply doing tests in various modes with various material and writing down what the subwoofer apparently does for each configuration.

However I think the generally "safest" receiver configuration for a 2.1 or 5.1 speaker system is all speakers=small, subwoofer=on, bass->sub only (not both mains+sub).

But when you're listening to stereo, there is no sub channel. Therefore, the sub would be doing nothing.

This isn't as straightforward today as it was a couple of days ago...