Mojo is exactly correct regarding the space based antenna sims. Great work if you can get it but most investors have come to their senses and realized that $10k/pound launch costs are a bit prohibitive of building LEO telecom networks. But it was definitely fun while it lasted.
This being my first system with more than two channels and the first with all sorts of DSP processing I had no idea what I was doing when I set it up. I did have a vague notion that I needed to inform the system about speaker sizes and distances and managed to stumble through the menus sufficiently to accomplish that particular task. Naturally I'd not bothered to read the manual and had no idea what, precisely, these settings were going to do so I reasoned that Bose Lifestyle centers and surrounds were "small" so QS8s and a VP 150 must therefore be "large".
That actually worked rather well at low to moderate volume levels (I later found out that the small/large setting determines whether the whole range signal will be sent to a particular speaker or whether the internal low frequency crossover will roll the bass portion off), particularly with the QS8s. However at higher volume levels the low frequencies being sent to the surrounds occasionally overwhelmed them resulting in the sort of resonance I'm hearing from the VP 150 presently. Not quite identical but they sometimes had that same "vibrating box" rather than "clean and clear" tone.
Once I discovered what the speaker size setting was doing I set the QS8s and VP 150 to "small" and the sub crossover to 60 Hz (the Yamaha goes up from 40 Hz in 20 Hz increments to, IIRC, 140 Hz). That was still a bit low for the QS8s at very high volumes so I moved it on up to 80 Hz which seems perfect for the surrounds, I'm still playing with the EQ on the VP 150 though. Polyfill is a great idea Mojo, given what I'm hearing I think that might well do the trick for the center. I'll pick some up and report back here after I've tried it. No room for an M80 center but if I had the room I'd be sorely tempted to run M80s all the way around (not kidding).
JohnK - That's approximately how my QS8s sound. The rear sound field isn't distinctly audible during 2-channel playback matrixed into the surrounds and is only audible during movies when effects are routed only to them. I think my preference for pure 2-channel music is more a matter of personal taste than any shortcomings of the QS8s. To me 2-channel music matrixed into surrounds sounds a lot like a detune effect that one might apply to an electric guitar; the sound becomes a bit shimmery and smoother but loses the bright lines the M80s reproduce in a straight 2-channel mode. When one is a hack musician like myself hiding errors in tuning, intonation, and sloppy playing behind that sort of effect is like a gift from God but when I'm listening to the folks who get paid to do this sort of thing I really want to hear it warts and all.
Ian - No sub in the system yet. Two things prevented my purchasing one with the rest of the system: a) a couple of reviews of the M80s have noted that the bass response is good enough that a sub really isn't a necessity; and b) one review noted that the EP 600 (what I'd buy if I were buying a sub) can't be placed within a few feet of the M80s without experiencing a feedback loop when no signal is being fed through the system. My room's a bit small and the only good spots for a sub are 3' or so from each of the M80s, I didn't want to send a 100#+ sub back if I couldn't use it so I skipped it for the time being. Upon further review I think I'd like to have a sub but it may have to wait until I have a bit more space so that I'll have a good spot for it.
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