Went full range in front - need more bass...

Just because the new mains have the same diameter woofer as the sub doesn't mean they should have the same output. They may not have the same excursion capability, they may be tuned to a higher frequency etc. Also from your drawing the sub is located in a corner where it has more room gain advantages.

Where exactly are the new mains lacking in bass? Low end extension? They have plenty of bass just not as deep or they simply don't have much bass at all? Make sure you don't have the mains connected out of phase if they seem to have very little bass at all. If the phase of one is reversed they will have very little bass.

Going bi-amp'ed in order to obtain independent gain control over the main's woofers might be useful but you will be adjusting the gain over the woofer's entire band which may not be what you want. A better solution is to know exactly what frequency range is lacking and then address that issue specifically as opposed to arbitrarily turning up the woofers in the mains.

Adding an external amplifier with some form of digital EQ in front of it would enable you to contour the frequency response with or without bi-amping. Even then, if there is a deep notch in the low frequency response due to some sort of speaker placement/room issue you don't want to go cranking the EQ way up in an attempt to fix it, you'll just end up damaging something.

If the existing sub gives you the bass response you want then your best bet is probably simply to take advantage of the new larger mains by setting your crossover point a bit lower than you used with your previous speakers as opposed to setting them to large. That's the simple solution, otherwise download any of the free measurement systems and make a bunch of measurements to determine exactly what's going on and then address all the issues with very specific corrections using external DSP and amplification.

mk

Montekay has nailed it, and in great detail.

+1...you need to know what your FR looks like. Your speakers look very capable. They extend further than your sub. Placement is not ideal per the manual, but I've got similar issues in my room...it is what it is. I think separate amplification will benefit you. The RBHs are 6ohm, 86db sensitive, a fair load for an AVR. It helped me. I've got different speakers, but they are full range, 6 ohm and 90db efficient. In a fairly small room an AVR can drive them, but not to their potential. I've tried several combinations of 2 channel amps in my rig, some better than others, but all of them added dynamics and better deep and midbass punch. This allows me to use my sub only for movies and MCH music. For 2 channel, a sub just isn't necessary or desired. Bass isn't sub-like but very natural and impactful. Just my .02.

What about a second sub?

Not if the processor works correctly but as I personally have recently discovered, even high end processors like the Anthem D2 do not always do things correctly. To know for sure you would need to put it on the test bench and start inputting signals and changing settings to see what happens to the different outputs. That would take some effort and you would have to remember to take things into account like the individual level settings for surround, center, main etc. If the relative gains are different when the speakers are calibrated to be the same level, the processor has to take this into account and realize the large main speaker or sub it's re-directing bass to has different sensitivity than the one it's directing bass from. Otherwise the re-directed bass could be too strong or to weak in addition to possibly not covering the correct frequency band. So the processor has to take these things into account and you have to take these things into account to know if the results you are getting are correct.

mk

That really sucks!

Yes it does! I had not looked at how bass management of surround speakers is handled on the Anthem until just now. It's not handled correctly at all!

With a sub, the low frequency from the surrounds get sent to never never land... it goes nowhere! With no sub and with the mains set to large the low frequency from the small surrounds gets sent to the mains. Also, regardless of the surround speaker crossover setting the corner frequency of the bass boost is 80 Hz. The Anthem allows crossover frequencies from 25 Hz to 160 Hz and although these settings do remove bass from the surrounds correctly at the set frequency, the bass directed to the large mains is always 80 Hz and below. Also regardless of the speaker level calibration settings, the additional bass sent to the mains is always about 2.5 dB. All the same goes for the center channel.

I'm a hard core DIY speaker builder, I build my own active analog crossovers and now more frequently use digital active crossovers. This is why, this is just more proof that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself! What am I going to have to do, start making my own processors??? I don't use the sub outputs as it is, I derive my own sub outputs from the main outs and run the mains in large mode. I do use the processor for the surround crossovers by chance, at 80 Hz so in my case the fixed re-directed bass is at least at the correct frequency if not at the correct amplitude. Ultimately I'll probably make my surrounds full range and not use any of the processors crossovers.

So for the OP, don't worry about it. It's probably sending the wrong bass information to your sub whether you have your main crossover settings and surround settings different or not. I really like Anthem so I would like to think it's not just them and that other processors do the bass management incorrectly as well. I'm half tempted to run out and by a Denon or Pioneer, or what ever just to bring it home put it on the bench and see what it does. Is this just an industry thing to do these things like this or is Anthem more screwed up than I realize???

Edit: I've just discovered you can change the corner frequency of the redirected bass by changing the crossover frequency of the sub. Keep in mind this redirected bass is not directed to the sub but rather to the large mains. In this mode the sub crossover frequency is not available so you have to first set it for 1 sub, change the crossover frequency, and then turn the sub back off. Then the surround etc low frequency is directed to the mains which btw must be in the "large" setting. With the main speakers in small mode and the sub on, apparently the surround low frequency is lost completely, just thrown away. To know what your receiver is doing you would need to make all these same measurements. Who knows, they may all behave differently. I'm not sure what if any industry standards there are. I just know my Anthem is doing this and a lot of other things wrong. Actually the amount of redirected bass is correct, I wasn't thinking earlier. It has to assume that what ever your gain settings in the speaker calibration screen are correct to balance your speakers. So the amount of bass sent to the mains will be fixed and set to work correctly with the speaker levels calibrated regardless of the level settings required to balance them.

Monte

I bet you that your processor works properly. Perhaps it is your expectations on what is the proper bass management routing that is wrong.

What is the signal source that you use to test your unit? DD? DTS? Analog sweeps?

No it's definitely not working right. I'm using analog sweeps to test. The original problems had nothing to do with routing bass from the surround speakers. It has to do with things like an unexpected bass boost when in analog dsp mode, the individual source LF/HF controls impacting each other, the ARC room corrections being different depending on what source input is used, and others. Anthem is looking into it now. I suspect most of it is firmware problems but it could still be a hardware issue just with my unit.

Note I have just edited my previous post after discovering the corner frequency of the bass redirected to the mains can be manipulated by changing the crossover frequency of the unused sub. So at least you can get around that issue but it goes back to the concern of the OP because it means all redirected bass must become a function of the crossover settings for the mains. In the case of the Anthem everything is independent but even so, you will want to match the crossover of the sub with the mains even if this requires the two have different settings. So, if you for example end up setting your sub to 50 Hz to work correctly with your mains regardless of where this requires the main setting, your surround bass is now redirected from 50 Hz regardless of where these are set, even if they are set at the maximum of 160 Hz.

mk

Bass management is complicated. If you change any speaker size from small to large, then bass mangement changes. If you are using PL-2 instead of DD or DTS, bass mangement is different.

For example, if you use PL-2 on a 2 channel source then surround bass is never redirected to any other channel regardless of your settings. The only exception to this is the PL-2 Game Mode. For DD and DTS 5.1, surround bass is redirected.

At one time I had a chart that showed the individual mixing levels and bass redirection schemes of each of the different combinations of speaker size BM settings. I tested my receiver with a DD test signal, and my receiver conforms to the differences in the chart as I varied the speaker size settings.

The key to the BM chart is that unlike external bass management (AKA an external crossover), mixing levels and bass redirection will vary as you change your speaker configuration. LFE may or may not be redirected to the same channels as redirected small bass.

In addition, when I use a DSP mode like Cinema, things like speaker distance settings are ignored. All sorts of phase shifting and EQ is used, so the FR is not flat. I don't have any room correction features in my receiver, but I bet that feature would also be ignored in the Cinema mode.

My original issues with the D2 have all been solved with the exception of one. Not by Anthem but by this forum in the dedicated Anthem thread.

Also, I talked to my local dealer and he also believes that it is correct that the surround speaker bass is thrown away when a sub is used and redirected to the mains when the mains are set to large. So, this resolves the issue of the OP. Since he uses a sub, the low frequency of the surrounds is thrown away anyway and thus will not be effected by changing the crossover frequency of the mains.

For me it doesn't matter because I don't use the sub out so the rear surround low frequency does get routed to my mains. I just have to remember to turn the sub on briefly and change it's crossover frequency if I want to change the crossover frequency of my surrounds. I've never liked using the sub out and now I have a good argument as to why!

mk

End user setup errors are not Anthem defects.

Anthem thread






The OP does not own an Anthem, so what your dealer "thinks" does not matter. With use of a standard DD or DTS 5.1 mode, the surround bass is never thrown away. When you start playing with PL-2X to make the system a 7.1 system, the entire matter is not clear. The THX rating means that the bass management works as specified by THX.






I don't use the subwoofer output jack either. Most people do not like to have LFE on their mains, but it works for me. However, in DD and DTS 5.1 my surround bass can be redirected to the subwoofer if the subwoofer option is selected. What redirected bass goes to what speakers varies along with speaker size settings.

I also do not have PL-2X, so I can't test what happens to surround bass (side and rear) when fake 7.1 matrix surround is used on 5.1 DD/DTS material. In general, the processor is not supposed to redirect any matrix bass due to phase cancellation issues.

Do you have an adjustable LFE LP filter on that unit?

Yeap, the non ARC related issues turned out to be me being stupid.

The ARC problem however turned out to be that ARC doesn't work with true full bandwidth systems (no sub) like yours or mine. This news came just today directly from the developers of ARC.

What my dealer thought was regarding processors in general, not just Anthem. I wasn't sure if he was correct or not.

I use Behringer digital crossovers, one on each the left and right channel. This gives me full control over both the crossovers and EQ for not just the sub but also everything else. It can actually do most of what ARC can do and really more. It's just less convenient because it's not automatic. I have Arta for the measurement software and an Earthworks M30 calibrated mic for measurement so overall it's probably a better solution than ARC anyway. Still, I hope they add the feature as they suggested they might.

mk