Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Setting Crossover for New Receiver

I finally got my yamaha 6080B setup yesterday. What job to disconnect all the wires, move the furniture, then put it all back only to find the receiver DOA. Arrhhh!!!

So off the the store to get a replacement and move the furniture, disconnect everything, connect everything and finally move the furniture back. Reciever works

Now to my question. I ran the Auto Setup and found that the front speakers where set to Large and all the others to small. Also found that the bass crossover for the small speakers where set to 120Hz. See my signature for my equipment.

I have two questions. I played around with setting my M60's to Large and Small with my sub. I found that I actually prefer the overall sound from my system with the mains's set to Large. Is there any reason to set them to small if I like the sound I'm getting? It seems to make the sound a little bit richer/fuller.

Also with my vp150 and qs4's, what do you think I should set the crossover to? I thought I read somewhere people setting them to 40Hz but I can't be sure.

All advice is welcome. BTW the new receiver made quite a bit of diff in watching dvd's and listening to movies. Definitely sounds better.

Hello DanielB and welcome,

The auto setup modes on most AV receivers tend to be hit and miss. They are often fairly accurate in setting the relative levels of each speaker but may make gross errors in crossover settings and especially auto-equalization. Generally speaking, use the auto-setup for level setting and turn off any auto-EQ functions.

That said, the best default crossover setting for your QS4s and VP150 is "Small" and 80 Hz. This is also the recommended setting of THX as well as Dolby Labs.

As to your front M60 mains, you may prefer the added bass "authority" (often heard as sounding "richer") that comes with setting them to Large. And these guidelines are not cast in stone, so experiment. Individual rooms and personal taste vary a lot. In my room, setting my M80s to Large and running the sub simply results in too much bass, but it isn't a big room (2,200 cu. ft.).

Several of my Axiom colleagues prefer their M80s on Large and the sub running.

If your Yamaha allows it, you might even experiment with setting the VP150 to Large if you prefer the sound of male dialog with the Large setting.

Regards,

Thanks for the advice Alan!

One other question. I noticed that the VP150 is 6ohm. My Yamaha receiver has a setting for 6ohm (for speakers 6ohm and higher) and 8 ohm (8ohm and higher). Right now I have my receiver set to 6ohm since all speakers are either 6 or 8 ohm. Should I leave it like this or should I change it to 8ohm? I'm not sure which would be better.

You want to leave your receiver on 8ohm, even if you have a mixture of 4, 6, or 8ohm speakers.

My Denon also puts my 80's and vp150 on large, but I change this to small for all speakers and 80hz crossover on the receiver to manage, sub crossover on bypass.

Keep in mind that with your 60's set to large, they will be receiving the signal from your other speakers below the crossover, unless your using LFE+Main mode, then your sub and mains will receive this.

Generally, it is better to let your sub do the job it was intended as it can move more air easily and efficiently. With a setting of small and a crossover of 80hz, your 60's are still receiving signals below 80hz as there is a slope/blend (handoff) to the sub, it does not just cut off.

THis may seem a silly question but I just noticed that as I turn up the volume the meter on the volume knob gets lower. Is this correct? So at 80db the volume goes to mute and as I crank up the vulume the meter shows 25db as very loud. I would think it would be the other way around, no?

I was just watching Underworld Evolution and WOW I can't believe what a difference this new receiver makes. The sound is incredible and I'm even hearing more of the surrounds. I really feel like I'm immersed into the movie. Even the sub sounds better.

For now I've decided to set the lfe to sub and main, set the mains to large and all other speakers to small. Then set the crossover of the smalls to 80hz. It just sounds better to me. I even listened to some music and was quite happy with it as well.

Daniel, although you should eventually wind up with the settings that you really prefer, since it's your money, keep in mind that "richer/fuller" isn't necessarily good from an objective standpoint and may be a result of overemphasis in the bass area. Since YPAO and other auto-setup programs set speaker sizes and crossovers according to a certain set of standards which may give results that are acceptable, but not necessarily the best for a particular situation, it's suggested that you set your 6080 to "skip" for the size and crossover parameters. Then manually set them to "small" with a crossover of 80 or 90Hz and allow YPAO to set speaker levels and distances. As to the room equalization part of YPAO, you can experiment with it later when you have more time; some report an improvement from using it and others say that it was worse, but it's there for you to at least try.

I think the theory is that at 0dB the amplifier is running at full power without clipping on typical material. In practice, I assume manufacturers started fudging the numbers within a week so they are probably meaningless now, but the idea is that 0dB is "full throttle" and more negative numbers indicate how much below WFO the amplifier is running.

John(and I assume that by "meter" Daniel was referring to the receiver volume reading and not a separate RS SPL meter), I believe that on most(all?)receivers that use the - to 0 to + volume scale(one of mine goes 1 to 79)that the 0 point is the "unity gain" point where the input voltage has been reduced so that the gain of the pre-amplifier section(e.g. 12dB)plus the amplifier section (e.g. 29dB)which together would create a 41dB voltage gain with the volume control at maximum, is reduced to the 29dB gain figure as if only the amplifier gain was in effect.