PDA

View Full Version : Setting up a Sub



curtis
12-10-2003, 01:22 PM
Did you read your VTF-2 manual?

How you have it setup will depend on the room and your preferences. How big is your room? What kind of material do you listen to? Do you have a SPL meter? The one thing you do not want to do is have no ports plugged and the switch in max extension.

With a SPL meter you were be able to balance all the channels out.

-curtis

J.A.P
12-10-2003, 09:04 PM
I have read the manual. It doesn't seem very informative to me, though I haven't seen any other sub manual. I listen to 90% movies and 10% cd's. My room is @ 18 x 15 not to big. I do have one of the ports plugged in max extension. I don't have an SPL meter right now.

azanon
12-10-2003, 09:25 PM
I'd go with "large" setting for your speakers so you can hear the direction explosions are coming from on your movies. For your sub, go with a high crossover point (80-90hz) so you'll capture all the LFE effects via the sub. For phase, just try 0 then 180, and whichever sounds right to you, leave it there. I think this setting can vary depending on your setup. Go max extension mode so you can get as much sound across the frequency as possible. Volume on the sub is a preference - set it to something, then go to the prime listening spot and ask yourself if the bass is just right (put in a bass heavy CD). I have no idea what the "out position on the crossover is". My VTF-2 sub hasnt come in yet, and my old sub doesnt have an in/out crossover button or whatnot.

azanon
12-10-2003, 11:02 PM
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I'd go with "large" setting for your speakers so you can hear the direction explosions are coming from on your movies. For your sub, go with a high crossover point (80-90hz) so you'll capture all the LFE effects via the sub.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Please note this came from my Sony receiver manual, not me per se. Apparently, this is in disagreement with most of the folks at AVS Inc, and they suggest "small" setting with 80hz or less crossover. My only guess as to the disparity is that Sony is speaking from a "home theatre, movie" perspective where directionality of sound at all frequencies is a good thing (cause you can hear, as well as see, where things are coming from). On music, however, directionality can be good or bad and with respect to bass, its probably always bad. But that's just my guess /shrug.

Bighitter
12-11-2003, 04:04 AM
Azanon sorry but more than just AVS disagrees with that thinking including THX and Dolby labs who both suggest a crossover of 80Hz for all satellites and to send the rest of the signal below 80Hz to the sub. Anything below 80Hz is mostly non-directional as well. There are more problems associated with going large on your satellites than benefits for 99% of people out there anyways.

azanon
12-11-2003, 05:05 AM
Ive been sold on this now having read 2 articles on the net regarding it. I'm going to go with "small" and use my receiver's hardwired 100hz crossover point, and disable the crossover on the sub. It does make me wonder though how Sony could have got that so wrong? I'm sort of glad my receiver's crossover point is 100hz instead of 80hz because i learned that LFE frequencies above the crossover point chosen are lost. I'll lose less LFE at 100hz than 80.

Bighitter
12-11-2003, 05:55 AM
You should only lose LFE Frequencies above the crossover of your sub not the crossover of your reciever. The LFE should be fed unfiltered to the sub though it will have the additional re-directed bass frequencies from the satellites. If you turn off the internal crossover in the sub you should get the full LFE signal that is being sent to the sub that the sub is able to reproduce.

JohnnyCasaba
12-11-2003, 08:02 AM
Azanon,

I replied earlier to your thread on the sub setup and x-over, but as I was not signed in, I lost my reply. You stated the Sony manual recommends small when you don't have full range speakers, well the Ascends are not full range speakers so as you have already found out, your best option would be setting the speakers to small with sub on.

azanon
12-11-2003, 11:44 PM
I also stated in that same sentence that the sony manual recommends using small when you are utilizing "satellite" speakers, but should choose large otherwise.

Also FYI, "Full range" is a generic term that can mean different things to different people. If you mean Ascends (ie: cmb170) cant hit 20hz (the lowest frequency a human can hear) therefore are not full range, then yes you would be right. However, if you are saying that a pair of cbm-170s dont perform and reproduce music beautifully by themselves and/or you are saying they require a sub for sufficient use, you'd be wrong. More than one reviewer remaked they did admirably without a sub.

Judging by the context of the sentence in the Sony manual, they were using definition #2 of "full range".

azanon
12-12-2003, 12:24 AM
Check this out from Soundstage.com - an exerpt:

"Other bass management problems include what to do with deep bass in the surround speakers. Most setup menus let you select "large" surround speakers or "small" surround speakers. If you select "large", deep bass is sent back to the surround speakers. If you select "small", the bass that would have gone there is supposed to go to the LFE subwoofer, according to Dolby Labs specifications. Unfortunately, many (most?) receivers or surround processors just dump that bass into nothingness. Even if you do have an LFE subwoofer, the bass that is intended for those rear channels might just evaporate somewhere inside the surround processing circuit, never appearing at the LFE sub.

If you have small main speakers, there may be a setup menu choice to identify these speakers as "small." If you do that, Dolby Labs says that bass should be redirected to the LFE channel. Again, unfortunately for us, many (most?) receivers and processors do not perform that redirection, and the bass that should go to the main speakers also evaporates inside the processor somewhere.

The main problem with lack of control of bass management is that consumers don’t really know that errors are being made. They sit at home in their home theater thinking that they are getting some hot sound. Yet they could be missing all or most of the fun of movies because it is easier for manufacturers to ignore proper bass management than it is to do the bass management correctly."

Full article: http://www.soundstage.com/video/columns/200003_db_hometheaterbass.htm

curtis
12-12-2003, 12:56 AM
That article is almost 4 years old. If some of that stuff was happenning now...you would be able to easily hear it.

-curtis

azanon
12-12-2003, 01:51 AM
Ahh yeah - good point.

JohnnyCasaba
12-12-2003, 03:21 AM
Azanon,

I know what you stated, and my take on it was that Sony was recommneding a small setting if your speakers were small sats and/or not full range. And I think the term full range speakers is pretty straight forward. They are speakers capable of reproducing the "full range" of the human hearing spectrum.

azanon
12-12-2003, 07:52 AM
Johnny,

I understood you the first time as well. I have nothing further to add.