Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Pining for a Klipsch RC62 again...

Ghost, the center channel is primarily for dialog (voices) during movies, not explosions. Setting your mains to large, which they should not be, will not help what I think your describing as "fullness".

I tried posting pics in the gallery but ill have to do it from my PC upstairs later. My 150 sits about 18" off the ground under my screen. The 60s are at ear level. I did the Yamaha auto calibration and it was almost spot on to my own tweaking. In regards to the dB level they're sitting at I have no idea. Should I lower the crossover to 60 and see how that sounds ?

Joel, even if you don't have room for the center speaker to be permanently positioned vertically, as an experiment you could set the VP150 up on end vertically(even if it partially blocked the screen)to see if that would improve the effect. This would indicate if wider horizontal dispersion was really what was needed in your case.

Johnk has a very good suggestion, but from the sentance above, it sounds like you want a wider soundstage, not improved dialog. If John's suggestion does not help, try playing with the toe in and positioning of your mains.

Explain why 'they should not be'. While I don't know if setting them to large will bring the 'fullness' he feels is lacking, wouldn't setting your mains to either large or small be a personal preference thing, and not a 'right or wrong' thing? While I understand the motive behind setting a main speaker to small perfectly well (send all the bass information to the subwoofer), I still believe there is room for difference of opinion in the matter.

In one of the subwoofer threads (probably my own) I talked about my preference towards smaller subwoofer speakers, like 8 - 10 inchers because of the 'tight, fast bass' they produced. The 13, 15 and 18 inch subs hit much lower, but they were much slower, not nearly as detailed, and all around just more vague. It is for this very reason that I leave my M80's set to large. This way I get all the frequencies down to 35 or so hz played through the tight, fast 6 1/2 inch speakers instead of the slower 12 inchers of the EP800. Not that the EP800 is sloppy by any stretch of the imagination... its just that compared to the M80's it is.

So anyway that's my own preference. I feel the M80's handle 35 - 80 hz better than the EP800 does, and I don't feel leaving them set to large takes anything away from the EP800's performance. I wouldn't go as far as to say mains 'should' be set to large, I just don't think it's a black and white situation. Try both set-ups and go with your favorite.

Micah, bigger bass drivers aren't inherently "slower" and smaller ones aren't inherently "tighter". It's a question of proper design with all factors, primarily magnet size, being adequate to control the larger cone as well or better than a smaller one.

Welcome back Joel. Another experiment you can try is to sit in the sweet spot and use a “phantom center” by telling the receiver you have no center. Though not exact it will simulate having another M60 as a center. If the phantom center sounds good then for sure it’s the VP150 giving you the issues as you said it didn’t happen with the Klipsch.

I found that the VP150 couldn’t keep up with the quality of sound coming from my mains (M80s). Compared to the M80s the VP150 just sounded less dynamic and a little hollow. At first I switched to using a phantom center which worked great for just me in the sweet spot but not for other seats. I tried all the suggestions and tweaks except adding a second VP150 (one above and one below) and still found the SQ came up short compared to the M80s as one should expect. I followed Jakewash’s solution of using either a M22 or now an M80 center both of which work exceptionally well. Not sure if they would fit but fredk is, I believe, using dual M2 speakers above and below his screen with his M80 mains to good effect. If you could manage to fit one you might consider an M2 center.

Micah - I agree with you that my M80s also sound better in the 35Hz-80Hz range than the EP500 and I listen to lots of psytrance and other music with rapid tight bass. In my apartment the room was 19x19x8 and found that having multiple bass sources really helped even out the bass so I ran them large or small with a low crossover. Plus I only sat 6’ from them so I could feel the lower frequencies coming at me from them which was great for onscreen action.

Since I got my Onkyo 3007 and Audyssey seems to be working properly (didn’t seem to on my Denon) I have stayed with what the auto setup found, L/R M80s set to small and 40Hz center M80 set to small and 50Hz. So my M80s are still producing most of the 35Hz-80Hz range and everything sounds fantastic. From what I’ve read Audyssey applies better EQ to the LFE channel than any of the others. So for someone who’s mains are near walls they might benefit more from a higher crossover to get the better filter but for someone like me with room to get my M80s away from the walls I can’t even imagine using an 80Hz crossover. But like you say it’s all about personal taste and I look at the various configuration recommendations out there as great for people who don’t want to tweak but only a starting point for those who have the time and desire to get the most out of their systems.

Cheers,
Dean

You seem to be missing my point entirely. I don't feel I have the right to say one sounds any better than the other any more than you do. The right I do have however is to say that I myself prefer it, and so might he. Experiment, find what you like, and if you don't like them set to large then to hell with what I say, set them to small. And by the same token, if you do like them set to large, you don't have to feel as if you're doing something wrong, because (sonic) beauty is all in the ears of the beholder.

But certainly you are right in what you say John, it is all in the design, very good point. The well crafted EP800's 12 inch woofer for instance I feel does play much tighter than a normal 6 1/2 inch speaker can. However the 6 1/2 inch drivers they have in the M80's are incredible over achievers in my opinion. Never have I heard such bass coming from such a small driver. It's a testiment to what a fine speaker the M80 is! And I get such a kick out of how well it handles every frequency it is capable of playing, I just can't set the damn thing to small. For me, it would be like disconnecting two of the four cyclinders on my motorcycle and running it as a twin!


LOL

Thanks again for everyones input. I've spent the better part of a few hours playing around and got great results. I do feel like an idiot as I should have known better, and should have done this months ago.

I started by setting the M60s and VP150 to small and setting my crossover to 60hz. As you can see in the pictures the main 3 speakers are in a bit of an alcove. I pulled my towers forward so that they were at the opening of the alcove,and toed them in a bit to help disperse the sound into the room instead of straight out.
Then I increased the output to the QS8s.

All of these things seemed to have helped open up the sound field immensely. The volume level is down to between -32/-26 now and the sound field does seem much much wider and full. All without the ear fatigue that I had experienced with the Klipsch.
I'm going to play around a little bit more, but as it stands, I feel like my speakers just got 10x better. As much as I liked the convenience of the Yamaha speaker set up, it seemed to really limit what the settings should have been set to.
Thanks again for everybodies help and input.

Nice setup, thanks for the pics. Glad to hear you’re working things out. Keep us posted on anything else that helps out as you never know when someone else might be in a similar situation and be helped by your experience.