Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Crossover Frequency for M60s?

I have been doing alot of reading latley about when to X-over to the sub and I am just curious what you guys are using?

I'll have to double check when I get home but I am pretty sure I am at the standard 80. I know the speaker will go down further than this but "some people say" that by crossing it higher you take a load off the speaker and it will sound better?

Doesnt really make sense to me but I'm pretty new to all this and just trying to learn.

I have M60s and an HSU VTF-2. Everything is set to small.

I do it the same way you do with M60s and HSU STF-2. Everything set to small (except when listening to music through the M60s alone), and crossed over at 80 Hz.

Ditto what Ajax says...I'm still experimenting with my new Axioms and Denon 2805. So far leaving all the speakers set to Small and a receiver set crossover at 80hz seems to work wonderful. Make sure you turn your subs crossover knob to its max setting since your setting this on the receiver.

TT,
You can do as the previous posts mentioned, set your mains to small and turn up the sub croosover all the way removing it from the equation. The receiver then usually has a standard 80Hz crossover point which is used. Since the subwoofer has its own internal amplifier, the amp section in the receiver has less of a load as it is no longer driving the low end of your M60s. As long as you have a quality receiver and do not turn (or want) the volumes at really high levels, then removing load from the receiver is a moot point.
Some receivers also have a variable crossover that you can change and move it down or upwards typically between 40Hz and 120Hz.

Personally i leave my speakers (M60s) set to large in the receiver and i set the crossover on my subwoofer knob about the 50Hz mark. My wife and i prefer this blend for music and movies instead of the other method. We find the subwoofer too prominent for music when it is crossed higher.
It is a personal preference but either way will work. You have to tweak it and see what sounds best to you.

Hey chesseroo,
I've read a number of your posts regarding your settings, and I plan to play around with my settings also to see what sounds better overall for all situations. I'm curious have you tried small/60hz combination? My Dennon has LFE or LFE+main options when setting my mains to large, so what do you use in your environment?

thanks, Randy

sirquack,
Unfortunately my receiver only has the single 80Hz cross setting. It is not variable like some of the newer units.
But hey, the subwoofer crossover works just as good so the key was matching it to the dropoff of the M60s. I found this to be around the 50Hz mark on my EP350.
The sub gain is set for about 40%. This provides plenty of low end boom for movies but keeps the sub down low enough for all but the lowest end LFE for music (e.g. my wife's pipe organ material).
There is an old thread on some of my thoughts here.

Thanks guys,

I have a Dennon 2803 and it will allow a range of settings for X-over. Was just wondering what everyone else has tried.

I too have M60's with a VTF-2. I set the speakers to small, and crossover at 60hz for music, and 80hz for movies.

I was 80hz forever but I have to admit for the last week or so I have set everything to small and I'm down to 60hz. I would really like to try 50hz like chess but the next one for me is 40hz and I'm not sure if I want to go there.

The H/Ks are pretty sweet as you can seperate the crossover range per speaker set (i.e. - 100 Hz for center, 60 Hz for front, 80 Hz surrounds). I have my front speakers set at 60 Hz as I felt the M60s could handle the 60-80 Hz range. But if your receiver does set Hz ranges for all speakers only, 80 is usually the safe route as it's much harder for you center and surrounds to reproduce (a loud level) of 60-80 Hz.

As far as the small vs large...almost every manufacturer will tell you to set your speakers to small if you're using a subwoofer...and seeing as you have an HSU VTF-2, I'm sure it can handle whatever you throw at it...within reason of course
The strangest phenomenom is with my receiver the H/K 630 I need to set my speakers to small to send the low end signal from say, my surrounds, to the sub. But my friends Denon 3803 was sending (in DD and DTS) signals to the sub in both large and small speaker settings. Go figure. It seems to sort of break the rules, as it were. So really, every receiver appears to be different. But again. Industry standard = small.