Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Attention all Harman Kardon 630 owners...!

Okay, so this post is more than for just the 630 owners, but I've posted stuff in the past that was dirrectly to these owners because that's what I have. But I have news!

I told all of you that I'd post my results on the small vs. large speaker phenomenom that I was experiencing. When I set my speakers to large, I get full range out of all my speakers, but only low end from my L+R and .1 channel. As is normal as I set my sub up for sub + L/R. The problem came when I switched my speakers to small (which this is the only way to activate the bass management for all channels). I was getting a filtering process. The voices (on the center channel) sounded like the bottom end of their voice was being cut off. Music through the L/R channels were quieted, as was the surrounds not as full. Now the subwoofer came to life like no tomorrow, but it wasn't worth the sacrifice of 7 channels all for the sake of a great sounding subwoofer. But since my subwoofer cost me a small fortune I wanted to get the most I could out of it. So I had searched low and high over forums. Called customer service at H/K 6 times, and called a number of other companies and service locations. NO ONE could figure out my problem. It seemed no one knew the product well enough. In set the frustration. I actually to a trip to the city with my receiver in my car ready to drop it off for service. I just had to know if it was broken or not. I went into the store first and listened to a H/K 430 (no 630 on the floor). It seemed to sound somewhat the same, but it was hard to tell as the speakers there were subpar and the subwoofer was just a noise maker...YUCK!
So...I hesitated. I brought my receiver back with me.
It wasn't until I talked to Outlaw the next day that I got reinspired to investigate what was wrong. I though, I'll sell my receiver and get an Outlaw combo. Well...come to find they use the exact same crossover technology! I had new hope and desperation to give my receiver a second chance.

First, I never thought to reset the receiver. The people at Outlaw thought perhaps the algorithms might be off. Anything was worth a try. Nope...that still wasn't it. Then I thought. Maybe if I set the crossover really low, it won't sound like it intereferes with the voices or any of the channels. I felt like I was doing something wrong, but I set the crossover all the way down to 40 Hz for the center channel. Still not quite right.

Okay...so all that to bring you to this. The whole journey was started off my one thing. The intro on Fellowship EE in DTS-ES. I just couldn't reproduce the bass for the ring drop (or other scenes) that I was getting in DD-EX. I didn't get it until I set the LFE channel to Center. The LFE setting is in the X-over screen in Speaker Settings in the OSD (On Screen Display) of your receiver. When I set it to center bass just came oozing out. But...all along...THIS WAS THE PROBLEM!!! Center is, now in my mind, EVIL! It distorts all the channels. All of them!

So...attention all H/K owners. Set you LFE channel to Left/Right. I did this the other night. I thought...I really haven't exploited this. I put it on Left/Right and TURNED UP MY SUBWOOFER. Suddenly my center channed sounded just as good as when set to large, my surrounds were full, my left and right channels were full with music again (all while the speakers were set on small) and my subwoofer was kicking again...only harder and deeper than ever! EVERYTHING sounded not only together for the first time, but everthing sounded better than it ever has! All of that madness over one little setting. A setting which is both under-explained and misunderstood.

So, to put it simply. Have your LFE on Left/Right and your speakers on small. And then set your crossovers accordingly. I have all mine crossed over at 80 Hz and my L/R channels at 60 Hz. I know they can go to 40 but it sounds blended better at 60 IMHO. So...weeks of strain, frustration and reseach have brought me results. Positive results! And if I can help just one more H/K owner out there...then I've done my job! Thanks for sticking this post out with me! Enjoy the good sounds. I know I'm doing better than ever

What a horribly frustrating journey. I respect you for sticking with it until you figured it out (not an easy thing to do), and for sharing the whole thing with us (thanks). Isn't it awful to know that the problem MUST be "pilot error," but you can't figure what the @&$# you're doing wrong? AAARRRGGGHHH!

Yes. Probably the most frustrating part was that no one else even mentioned that setting once to test. I guess no one knows what it really does? Oh well...the world knows now

Thanks Misfit,

I have my new set-up all going now. I was so excited while I was waiting for the shipment to arrive that I read the owner's manual twice.

I noticed that setting in the manual (LFE+L/R) and had decided on that one before my receiver had even arrived! I currently only have the centre set to small, but the mains are large and with the LFE+L/R setting the sub still gets the low tones from the mains as well. (The mains still get them also) I would have mentioned it to test, but since I have only had the receiver for week I wasn't sure what everything meant yet!

I have my surrounds set to large, but I play around with them and just love them during movies. (X-MEN 1.5 with DTS sounds really sweet).

I currently listen to music in the Logic 7 Music 5 channel mode, my ears seem to enjoy that one the most.

Let me implore to try setting all your speakers to small. At least the surrounds in addition to your center channel. You're surrounds only go to about 95 Hz (lower if pushed hard enough), but anything below that is pretty much lost. Trust me when I say that there are some movies that put some pretty low Hz information to some of those speakers, of which you'll never hear unless you have bass management send that info to your subwoofer.
Obviously you do what sounds best to you...that's the beauty of selectability

Enjoy!

Sure, I'll try that.

Any movies off the top of your head that I can use to test that out on?

The perfect movie to test it on is Fellowship Extended Edition. The DTS-ES track. The first chapter where there's the ring drop. If you play the ring drop scene on all large you'll get virtually no to little bass on DTS-ES or if you have your sub turned up you'll get bass, but it cuts off right before the helmet drops. But, if you play them in small (particularly your surrounds (channels 4&5) you'll hear the bass extend further right up to where the helmet drops. A fascinating discovery I thought.

Sweet, I don't have the extended version, is the original in DTS as well?

Unfortunately no. Only the Extended Editions of the trilogy are in 6.1 DTS-ES. The non extended versions have DD-EX (which is still cool), but the DTS track has slightly deeper and controlled bass IMHO through my studies. And if there's one thing I've tested over and over again, it's that first chapter in DTS.