I read the manual and that is all greek to me.

Couple questions about what it can do and can't.

Current setup is front m22, vp150, and qs8's and a custom built jl sub. room is 22x26 I have the crossover set to 80.

I'm looking to purchase either the m60 or m80. Does the receiver have the capability to select the crossover point for each speaker or is it all or nothing? With the m80's it seems a waste to have the cross over set at 80, am I right? What is a good crossover point for the m80's?

Next is it has 2 zones. I was thinking leaving the setup as is on zone 1 for home theater and then for the 2nd zone have it just be the m80's on it. Are the watts per channel the same on zone 1 as they are on zone 2?

Next option is run 7.1 with the m22's on the outside of the m80's but I'd need to know about my first question about setting the crossover point.

I suspect on the 788 you will just have one option for all speakers regarding the crossover point. The 788 owners manual will provide you with such information. If this is the case a crossover point of 80hz all around will be a very good starting point for your mains, center channel and surrounds.

Regarding the crossover point selection on the M80's you will hear of 40hz, 60hz and 80hz. Alan Lofft of Axiom has said in the past he likes 80hz, on the other hand the lead engineer and owner of Axiom likes the 40hz crossover point with the M80's. There are also some that like it set to 60hz.

Point being, play around with crossover implemantation yourself between your mains and sub and see what sounds best in your room.

On the zones, it makes no difference whether you put the M80s on zone one or two. There is only one power supply in the receiver.

As for crossovers, Where you set it is dependant on your room and speaker placement. As Dr. House wrote, you need to experiment.

Its amazing how badly Denon can mangle english and the utility of an instruction manual. Its bad enough that you can find some online 'translations' from Denon speak to English.

2P, the default crossover setting on your 788 is a uniform 80Hz setting for all speakers. However, there is provision for setting separate crossover frequencies for the different speaker locations. Despite this, you might find that staying with the uniform 80Hz is best. Rather than wasting the M80, you might view not using 80Hz as failing to take full advantage of the fine sub which you've described.

Hi 2packer,

To expand on what JohnK and others have posted, by setting the M80s to an 80-Hz crossover or lower, you are not "wasting" the bass output capabilities of the M80s.

All crossovers have a "slope" (think ski slope), which gradually lessens the amount of bass to the M80s' woofers so they don't have to "work" as hard (i.e. the cone excursion--the distance it moves back and forth--is reduced); when cone excursion is reduced, distortion is also reduced, and your subwoofer will take over the bulk of low-frequency generation powered by its own amplifier. This frees up more amplifier power from the Denon's power supply for the M80s and your other speakers to handle peaks (bass frequencies use up a big chunk of amplifier power).

Note also that the M80s woofers will continue to reproduce upper bass up to around 200 Hz, which will give lots of support to those octaves of music.

Regards,
Alan

This may help decipher your Denon manual...

BATPIG'S "DENON-TO-ENGLISH DICTIONARY"