Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater VP-180 opinion needed (HP upgrade)

Yes sir, the whole main floor of the house. I got the M100's in December, so they do have the newer style tweeters. Again, when I have the centre set as a small speaker via the P-965 pre amp, it performs very well. It only struggles when it is set as a large speaker, at high listening volumes as far as excursion is concerned. I do apologize to everyone for my original post; I should have included more details. I may have had a few beers in my when I wrote it

No worries -- high sound pressure levels and "a few beers" go together extremely well

Actually, I did at one time have all three fronts set to Large(my M80s still are set that way). Frankly, as we all do, in my ongoing experimentation, the only reason I changed the crossover setting on the VP180 to 60HZ was to funnel off some of the deeper bass to my two front subs(I have FOUR in total). It seemed to give a little better balanced sound up front for movies, otherwise, I found no difference in overall performance. As we all know, these crossover settings are a gradual roll off below the setting, not fixed, so at 60HZ and given the VP180 is spec'd down to 35-40HZ, there really isn't any noticeable audible difference. Incidentally I have a few SACD and DVD Audio discs and one SEAL DVD audio album in particular,I have has an extremely strong bass presence that I have played plenty loud without any speaker strain whatsoever.

In Brendan's case, I still find it unusual that the woofers do bottom out which would indicate to me anyway, that the music is being played at abnormally loud levels perhaps with some sort of bass boost involved here or going back to my original idea of an under powered amp. I also find the 100HZ crossover setting unusually high for speakers of this size and capability. Bass in most music normally doesn't go down much below 50-60hz anyway and certainly not to the deeper levels of some action movies, hence, my curiosity as to the overall set-up and why things are happening the way they are.

Hello again

I am currently not utilizing any bass boost option (not even sure if the Sherwood P-965 has that option). The 100hz cross-over is higher than normal, that I do agree. However, in my setup, I found that this higher setting sounded the best to me, transferring the lower end to the ep800 sub. The comment about abnormally high listening levels; yes, this is definitely the case during some, but not all of my listening.

Cheers, Brendan

Hello there;

In the end, your ears are the best of what is for you and this is good. The reason I was questioning your crossover setting is whether it is movies or music, with the subwoofer and speakers that you have to handle lower bass, the question is at that high a setting can you localize the deep bass to your subwoofer? If so, you have the setting too high. The lowest sounds should be spread throughout the room making it sound like it is coming from all speakers, not just only the sub. 80HZ is usually the optimum level, however, use what sounds best to you.

Hi casey,

I don't think the setting is too high. I am using a 12v trigger to turn the sub on, and it does not work sometimes. When it does not work, It may take a few songs for me to notice, or I may not notice at all depending what I am listening to. I do not notice any "localizing" towards the sub during any of my listening. Everything sounds very "spread out" as you mentioned. Tnanks again for all of your help, I very much appreciate it.

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to run something by some smart people: ie. not me. My curiosity has me thinking about clipping. I do not have access to an oscilloscope tonight, but can borrow one from work. I do have a Fluke 189 however. Just for shits, I hooked it up to one of my mains which were playing at my "above normal" listening levels. I did get a reading of 2.4 volts dc during playback (this is using the min/max function on the meter, measuring worst case). Is this reading acceptable? If I monitor the meter, average reading is well below 1 vdc during playback. Opinions please!

Measuring DC probably won't tell you much, but IIRC a Fluke 189 has a fast peak read mode, in which case you might be able to look for peak levels approaching the voltage rails in the amplifier. Hold on...

Edit: OK, here we go...

http://www.fluke.com/fluke/uses/comunida...d_Functions.htm

I kinda have a bad feeling about this. There was a line in Tom Clancy's "Without Remorse" where Clark is going through some rehabilitation exercise and the doc is advising that he's pushing too hard and his pulse is <some high number>.

Clark: What's the record ?

Doc: Zero

Can we get a second opinion on this ? There's a reasonable chance it would work but I'm not really sure it's a good idea even so. I just don't see anything good happening from wiring a fast peak DVM up to the amplifier outputs and suggesting you see how high it goes.

There's a "hey y'all, watch this" aspect that worries me...

Cool, meters.

Voltage at the speaker terminals is AC. Using a DC reading in a sine wave results in the average value of zero. Deviations form zero represent bias in program waveforms or dc offset at the terminals.

To do a meaningful test you need a frequency generator and an oscilloscope as you are thinking.

Just in case it makes a difference, the fast peak read mode on the Fluke is for AC, not DC. Just wasn't sure if you were talking about Brendan's measurement (which was DC) or my suggestion (which was AC).