|   Bass Management: Should speakers be set to "Large" or "Small | Beancounter
Oct 6, 2001 7:22 AM | | I am sure this topic has been covered many times but I could not find the answer in the archives.
My question is this: Since I have a subwoofer should I have the rest of the speakers on "Small" setting for Home Theater applications or should they all be set to "large"?
I currently have tower speakers in the front that produce decent bass. |
| experiment.... | Scott2k
Oct 6, 2001 7:47 AM | | you're going to get different answers to this question, all based on personal taste. If you set your mains to Large, they'll get the full signal. If your receiver has DTS, it'll seperate the LFE signals for movies and run them through your sub anyway. Remember, there really is no "right" way to run this. Try it both ways and listen for yourself. I have done this and keep my mains set to large, as I like to listen to music in 2 ch. And that's what you have full size mains for anyway, right? Use them for what they were made for. If you're going to set your mains to small, then just get bookshelfs. IMHO |
| There is only one answer | Adam
Oct 6, 2001 8:20 AM | | I respectfully disagree with the idea you should experiment. You need to look at the bandwidth of your speakers. There is a rating for your speakers that says something like this 40hz-20,00hz @ 95db. In my setup all my speakers roll off (the low part of the bandwidth) at around 50hz, since Dolby digital and DTS's LFE (low frequency effects) can go as low as 20hz I know that that setting my speakers to large would be down right silly since my speakers only go as low as 50 hz, thus I wold be missing information from 50-30hz.
Can you post your speaker bandwidth numbers and the specs on your sub. |
| There is only one answer | Beancounter
Oct 6, 2001 9:14 AM | | The manufacturers specs for my main speakers (PSB 5Ts) are 35-21000Hz with LF cutoff at 30Hz.
The sub is the PSB Subsonic 5 and the specs show a frequency range of 30-150Hz with LF cutoff of 27Hz. |
| There is only one answer | Adam
Oct 6, 2001 9:42 AM | | According to Klipsch, the company that makes my speakers, as well as many other tech folks on the speaker manufacturing side, they say that typically manufacturers specs are off from 10-15hz. So I typically assume the worse. In your case that would mean that your PSBs are actually good down to 50hz. In that case I would set the speakers to small then set the subs x-over to either 120hz or as high as it goes. By setting it as high as it goes the receiver controls all of base management. Depending on what receiver you have it may set the basss redirection at 100, 90, or 80hz. Additionally your receiver may give you a flexible bass management option meaning you can set the bass redirection level for each individual speaker. Sony receivers definitely have this, Denon's don't and i'm not sure about onkyo and marantz. |
| Adam a follow up question if I may | NickG
Oct 6, 2001 2:02 PM | | Do most receivers not send any bass (other than LFE) to the sub pre out if the rest of your speakers are set to large? It seems on my Onkyo 595 does send the full signal to the sub even when the other speakers are set to large, or perhaps there is a distinction between say CD play back and DD/DTS play back and what the receiver sends to the sub. I just tested this the James Taylor Live at the Beacon in DD all speakers set to large and the sub seemed to be getting a full signal. Others have told me this can not be and that a large setting on all speakers will result in only to LFE going to the sub. The Onkyo manual is no help in explaining this. I thought I had a handle on bass management, but now I am a bit unsure about it all. Does what I described about the James Taylor DVD seem correct and is there a distinction if the source is a plain old CD vs a DVD with DD?
Thanks, Nick |
| Adam a follow up question if I may | speedlever
Oct 6, 2001 3:18 PM | | I've found the following thread to be very helpful when considering large vs small speaker setting.
Scroll down to where Brian Florian jumps in if you don't want to read the whole thing.
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/003524.html |
| kinda long | Adam
Oct 6, 2001 4:11 PM | | LFE is defined as the .1 in 5.1 or the subwoofer track. LFE is only contained on the .1 track, however this does not mean that material 120hz and lower is not present in movies for the other speakers. It is this reason that you really do need a nice sub if you are setting your speakers to small. Theoretically the sub would then be handling the LFE track (120hz and below) plus 80hz and below (if setting speakers to small) for all the other channels.
It is for this reason that a flexible bass management system like sony has is truly great. Let's say your center channel and rears roll off at 70hz bt your fronts roll off at 30hz. Well with flexible bass management you could then set things up so that your sub plays the LFE + material 30hz and lower that would normall go to your front speakers and material 70hz and below that would normally go to your rears and center.
Don't confuse X-over with Bass management, they are two totally different things. Bass management is controlled from the receiver and the x-over is controlled on the sub itself.
When setting speakers to large the speakers are resposnsible from material 20hz-20,000hz when setting them to small typically it results in a setting of 80hz-20,000hz (the THX spec).
Knowing your speakers "true" bandwidth is essential in determining if they should be set to small or large.
I hope that answers it :) |
| Thanks for the reply Adam, this is what I am gonna do | NickG
Oct 6, 2001 8:15 PM | | I have Paradigm Studio 20s and a HSU VTF2. The Paradigm dealer recomended setting them as large and crossing over the sub at about 45Hz to augment lower bass. I have finally figured out that following his recomendation loses LFE above 45Hz. After some experimentation tonight with setting the speakers as small, switching off the cross over on the sub to allow the receiver to handle the bass management and playing with the bass volume adjustment, the bass sounds fuller and I think the musical mid range sounds clearer. Is the mid range clearity to be expected because the speaker and/or receiver has less work to do? Or perhaps it sounds clearer because I want it to, i.e. the expensive speaker wire effect :). I hope not. Anyway, thanks for the reply Adam, I am going to keep the 20s set as small for the time being and see how it goes. |
| Thanks for the reply Adam, this is what I am gonna do | Adam
Oct 6, 2001 10:26 PM | | Glad you got your bass back. I bet your dealer proabbly was confusing bass management/redirection with corss over. As you said with you HSU VTf set to 45hz you were only getting 1/3 of the LFE channel. Please let me know how it turns out. I would expect that you'll hear much more synergy with your setup now especially in the 50hz and belwo area. |
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