Subwoofer Crossover and Integration
Get your popcorn. Sorry for the length.
I sit here not knowing how to broach this topic. It's a discussion I've always wanted to have, but doing so in the venues I've had available to me before has always led to very dogmatic situations. Either live or on various internet forums, opinions vary wildly in content, and vary minimally in their passion.
But I am amazingly curious about this topic because I seem to be, and always have been, a weirdo about this topic: I like my subs crossed over as low as I can get them because if I don't, I can localize the sub.
So have any of your 80hz folks, 60hz folks, 50hz folks (depending on what your equipment allows you to do)... played with running your mains (in this case I'm presuming Ascend gear) full range and crossing over the sub as low as it will go? 40hz... or lower?
I've been told that there's measured evidence that says under common circumstances, the localization of frequencies at or below 80hz isn't possible, and that the common explanation for when it happens is that psycho-acoustic cuing from higher associated sounds lends to the localization. I've also been told that that sensitivity to lower frequency sounds is higher in males over females because of simple biological size differences.
Have I read a publication record of either of these two statements? No. At the moment I don't care to. I'm just putting them here as examples of conventional wisdoms that seem to be prevalent.
But regardless, a subwoofer in a dynamic musical or home theater performance doesn't strictly play things only below it's crossover point. I don't think I've ever seen a infinite db/octave slope on a consumer product. This means that the sub will indeed play some material above the crossover point, and this brings me to the meat of my point.
My sub (HSU VTF-3 MK4) is not in the far field with my main speakers. I'd love it to be, but the compromise is furniture layout and room design. Because of this, the sub is in the nearfield acting as a coffeetable to the left of the couch. Temporarily last year it was in the far field next to the television cabinet. When integrating it post-purchase, as usual an 80hz crossover point drove me nuts. So much material was coming out of the sub above 80hz that getting the levels on things matched up to where I had a relatively flat response down to sub-20hz was impossible. 50hz was tolerable, but only if the mains were left full range. If I let the AVR cross them over, I could hear the stereo image going to crap in the bass voices.
The Sierra's I recently purchased, set up and am currently breaking in do so well in my room down to 40hz that I can now bypass the AVR's crossover entirely and use the one on my sub to drop it down ~35hz. With the levels on everything balanced up I have a very, very difficult time now localizing bass information outside of the front stage. I'm waiting until the break-in hours are done before I go in and do crazy measurements on everything, but right now it's in a good place.
So anyway, like I said. Any of you tried this? Thoughts on it? Opinions on what you heard?
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Originally Posted by Alleric
