Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater crossover madness

I was bored today, Sunday and tried some stuff on the AVR.
I set the M80's to 40hz and the VP 150 to 80 hz and the QS8 to 120 Hz and it all came together for my little CD collection. of course this doesn't sound as good for the movies, (80Hz for everything seems to be the magic numbers for Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD MA)on my AVR.

Now there is a little more of the musical Bass from the M80's and i lowered the warm fat bass from the EP 600 and things just seems tighter and more musical. the back surrounds didn't sound as fat as they were at 80 Hz and gave it more of a natural openness to the music now that they were at 120Hz. Very Nice.

I hope that i am not breaking any audiophile laws here and if i am who cares. the sound difference is astounding.

I also refuse to listen to music in stereo. the 5.1 experience is so engulfing that 2.0 seems antiquated.

Has anyone else tried this?

From the looks of it, you and I have the same lot of speakers and aren't too far off on the crossovers. I set the front two m80s to "full band." I figure short of a room with multiple subs, the m80s put out a good amount of low to help with the load. I've got center on 120Hz, and the surrounds on 80Hz. (also 80Hz on LFE)

I'm watching a film now, but might fiddle around with your settings and see if I notice anything.

Mark, when I ran Audyssey a couple of days ago, it gave me very similar crossovers as what you have set yours on. M80s were set at 40hz(large), Vp150 at 60hz(small), and QS8s at 120hz(small). I found that there was a bit too much bass up front in this arrangement when watching regular TV, not so much for movies though. Right now I am trying fronts at 60hz(small), my centre at 80hz(small), and my surrounds also at 80hz(small). This, so far seems to work well for me, esp the 60hz on the fronts, which seemed to get rid of the subwoofer localization I felt I was getting at 80hz.

Many have and agree with your results.

Glad you are happy with your adjustments, like you said who cares if you are breaking audiophile laws, as long as you like it then do it.

Although I found the A1400 with the M80s to be very enveloping in direct 2 channel/no sub.

Did you try the surrounds at 100hz as well?

Your right Adrian, when playing movies or Tv the AVR is set to 80Hz across the board.

But for music, wow. it changed everything. It's working for me right now.

PS, i find that I need more 600's to tame the room as they say. I was considering to buy 2 more. one behind the TV, which by the way seems to be the best place for it and the other 2 to be placed where the Subwoofer crawl sounds best.

Hello Jay,

to answer your question, yes i did. i found 120 sounded a little better.

Very interesting, something else to try out when I get up and running again.

Mark, I never limit myself to listening to 2-channel source material in stereo when I'm listening to a setup which has surround speakers. Applying processing such as DPLII extracts the surround ambience from directions other than the front which had to be mixed into the front channels because there was no place else to put it and directs it to the surround speakers where it belongs. The home listening experience is made a little more realistic.

Definitly agree with you on that John.

If it sounds good to you to hell what anyone else thinks.



I usually had my AVR set to LFE+MAINS with a 60 or 40 crossover for the mains and center and an 80 crossover for the surrounds and backs. Many people don’t like LFE+MAINS because it gives them to much bass but for my square room it smoothed things out. Sitting only 6-8 feet away from the front speakers with LFE+MAINS lets me feel the shock of explosions and things hitting me from their onscreen direction the way they feel in real life. Use to have my subwoofer front and center but kept whacking my toes on it so moved it directly behind (EP500 beats little toe every time). I didn’t notice any difference in movies with the surround and back crossovers anywhere from 80-100 but did notice a small timber change when certain music panned around. However, there was a big timber change with game sound effects panning around when the mains are at 40 and the surrounds are at 100 so I stuck with 80 for the surrounds.


For me there’s no one size fits all solution with DSP. Concerts, jazz clubs and ambient music to name a few sound better with PLIIx or some other DSP applied. However, most studio recordings (read the well mastered ones) almost always sound better to me in 2.0. Especially SACD studio recordings like “Going Down to Liverpool” on the Bangles SACD. The high notes just float around me in 2.0 and fall flat if I engage PLII or PLIIx. I imagine if I had M80s all around this might not happen so when I move I will at least try out my M22s as surrounds for music to see if they sound better for studio recordings. Poorly mastered studio recordings almost invariably sound better with some form of DSP.

Also don’t limit yourself to using PLII or PLIIx. Some of the other DSP modes sound pretty good to me depending on the source and with headphones they can really help out.

Cheers,
Dean

Dean, just to make sure that we're talking about the same thing, the various ambience extraction modes(DPLII, Neo:6, Neural Surround, Logic 7, etc.)aren't really "DSP" modes(maybe you just used the term in a very broad sense). The difference is that the extraction processing takes out natural ambience which is present to varying degrees in all 2-channel material and then redirects it to the surrounds. The various DSP modes(Jazz Club, Stadium, Beer Garden, Sportin' House, etc.)add an arbitrary amount of artificial reverberation and other processing.

I certainly wouldn't characterize it as "one size fits all", but I've never come across a 2-channel source that wasn't improved at least to a small degree. The amount of ambience mixed in varies and to a limited extent the Dimension setting in DPLII can be used to send more or less of it to the surrounds. Suddenly switching from surround to straight stereo demonstrates how the sound field suddenly collapses toward the front.

Hi John,

Yes I was using DSP in the broadest sense. But thanks for clarifying for others who may read this.


Sorry I didn’t mean it to sound like anyone was implying that it should always be used. As you point out Dolby PLII(x) extracts the ambience mixed in, which is probably why I like it for all ambient and concert recordings. However, I’ve noticed with many recordings especially female vocals (my preference) it often (not always) changes the voice seeming to smear it out some. The net effect for me is the little added ambience doesn’t outweigh the changes in the front soundstage for most studio recordings.

I did try out the experiment you suggested. I alternately disconnected the front speakers and the surrounds and listened for what the processing did. It flattened out the front speakers sound when they were loosing the ambient sounds especially where lots of ambience had been present. Listening to only the surrounds/rears sounded sort of like leaving the hall to use the bathroom but still hearing part of the music in the background, but less muffled.



While I certainly notice this with many recordings. It’s less noticeable and even the oposite for me with others. The Bangles SACD version of “Going Down to Liverpool” is the most striking example I’ve found it sounds much more airy and enveloping in 2.0 than with DPLII(x) in my room. I never even really like that song until I heard it in 2.0 on my M80s now I love it.

When I first got my system I thought everything sounded better using DPLII until I started experimenting and realized I only liked some of the recordings better that way because of the higher SPL when running in 5.1. When I adjusted the SPL for the extra speakers I found many of the studio recording sounded better to me in 2.0. The experiment you suggested confirmed to me that the recordings with lots of ambience always sounded better in DPLII(x) while less ambient studio recordings often but not always sounded better in 2.0.

Please note I’m not some sort of 2.0 audio purist. I came into quality audio very late in the game so no legacy to cling to here and I think I’ve established my position on not being a slave to conventional wisdom on many occasions. So I’m pretty sure I’m not fooling myself into thinking 2.0 sounds better for some recordings. It will be interesting to see how the new more spacious room I’m moving into will effect all of this.

Thanks for the discussion.
Cheers,
Dean

Since I'm still in a tweaking mode my speakers are set on either 80 or 60. Listening to music I'm either in 2 ch direct or if it's SACD 4 ch direct which I discovered a couple of days ago. Sometimes it helps having M80's as surrounds.
Mel N.

I don't have the DPLII setting so I use the Denon 5-ch Audio. Given its grey beard, I'm very impressed with the 5 ch sound. But when my imaging is really keyed in, and using very good material (like remastered Dire Straits) I like 2 Chanel direct best. On other less critical material, spreading the sound really helps in my room.