The "Official" Pioneer Elite SC-55/SC-57 Owners Thread - Page 49

Why would you want to send 80 to 150 Hz to single sub that is tucked into a corner and probably down firing when you have a pair of perfectly capable woofers matched with your front tweeters in an optimal position in front that you could use?

Not following you. Don't know what your mains are. It really doesn't matter.

Anything below, oh....let's say 120 Hz for the sake of argument, would be better served by a sub, with a dedicated driver and amplifier, specifically made and tested to do so.

If you're talking only 2 channel music, you might have an argument (maybe). Even there, the speakers I've owned over the years (particularly the Maggies), you didn't get much information from them below 80Hz.

I had some Klipsche Forte IIs a long while ago, that did a credible job down to about 50 Hz. But, even there, the visceral part of the Hz range (down to about 20 Hz-32Hz) you're not going to find many alleged full speakers able to get you there (where a good quality sub, would). Personally, I've got 2 subs for just that reason...SPL, smooth out the room anomalies, and reaching to subterranean depths.

In the HT world, you're better off setting your crossovers to 80Hz and letting your sub(s) take over from there.

You're confusing quantity of speakers to quality.

A single sub is specifically designed for those exact frequencies you're talking about.

Lower Hz are non-localizable. If you've done your set up correctly, you wouldn't know where the lower frequencies are coming from (nor would you want your entire speaker range to be localizable).

There is a large contingency (me included) that wish we could have ONE speaker that would reproduce the entire audible spectrum. Crossovers in mains, different speakers in a cabinet, all of them contribute to some nasty things.....distortion, phase shifts, to just name a couple.

That's the beauty of a sub....one speaker, meant to do one thing...and only one thing (and a good sub will do it well). You can't say that about your mains.

I'll bow out (I swear....I will) and let everyone else take over. I only stopped by to see what was happening and got drawn into this.

Graphicguy has most of it covered. One additional question/point:

What would the direction the sub fires matter to this discussion. Bass is non directional, so down/side/up firing is irrelevant.

You guys are killing me. All I know is that my old ears (68) hear more detail in the audio from all the speakers when set to large. Yes, I do get more dynamic audio when set to small with a 80 crossover, but more detail when set large (some bass still in the audio below the 80 crossover). Is it me or my room?

Bill

50 Hz sure .... 150 Hz no

And remember things tend to produce resonant frequencies

Sure SUB woofer. And I have a pair of woofers designed for specific frequencies that only does on thing and does it well.

I used to have a sub made by Museatex when Ed Meitner of hi-end digital fame owned the company and was experimenting with electrostat-planar type speakers (his main products way back then were DAC's & dig transports & still is: EMM Labs. Meitner was 1 of the early pioneers in digital audio)

The sub was huge & had an internal cross at 160 or so. I could always tell bass was coming from the left corner, without fail. Lopsided and ruined the soundstaging that Magnepan speakers are noted for. I found out later that his sub was meant to be put only in the center between the 2 planars.

Anyone who thinks they can crossover a sub at 150 and not tell where it's coming from is delusional

That's why the whole idea of Bose & similar "lifestyle" sats with a bass module off to the side is ludicrous for serious home theater & especially music. Unless you have stereo modules & position next to the sats, you're not going to get seamless bass transition.

The highest crossover I would use is 100 and if my main speakers needed higher, I should be buying new speakers b4 I spent a dime on anything else, including this receiver.

imo, of course

Bill......your room perhaps? Usually, what we refer to as "detail" resides in the mid/upper frequency ranges.

^^
very true, altho boosted, boomy bass can over-power or mask mids, make dialog less clear. at least that's what the companies making bass traps say

His room no doubt is contributing to the smearing of detail. Maybe too much ringing at certain freq's the sub handles at a higher x-over

I completely agree with #1 point. It's about time Pioneer updates to what's currently available in other AVR's. Independent LPF per channel & allowing small incremental changes would be ideal for many users.

Pioneer always did have a simplistic way of redirecting bass. It might have been good enough in earlier 5.1 DD days, but no excuse for not updating it. It's very inadequate now, with up to 11 channels & all kinds of speaker combinations that can be used. If I have full range mains low passed at 80, that means any widths/heights also should be equally capable. That is not realistic or how most people would choose those speakers.

Pioneer is just plain behind the times, have been for over 3 years on bass mgmt.

I'm unsure I understand what you mean by adding more filters being undesireable. Audyssey has what, 512 filters available? Are you saying this is bad for some reason? Can you elaborate on what you meant?

Thanks

Agreed
I was reinforcing his comment that 150 would be directional I thought someone had made a general comment about bass being "non-directional".

Sending certain bass frequencies to the sub, and others to the fronts does seem like would mess up the imaging. I thought the idea was that LFE gets added to re-directed bass below the low pass and the sum is sent to the sub. I remember reading posts maybe 6-8 yrs ago about how certain AVR's/prepros didn't sum it the way Dolby intended, taking a shortcut in effect, basically not doing bass mgmt correctly. I think it was more of an issue in mass market budget receivers.

I always wondered if this is why Denon (among others) allowed choices like LFE or LFE+Main in their sub setups. One could pick the "right" way or deliberately choose a "wrong" way if it suited them. Not sure I'm remembering the issue correctly. Audioholics and a number of informed posters here discussed it at length.

One thing I don't like about the bass management is that I can't cut it in the audio features menu (LFE attenuate feature) for late-night viewing, unless I have the front speakers set to Large (in which case, I lose bass routing to the subwoofers in Stereo mode). I have to go into channel level menu and adjust it there, which is a bit more cumbersome.

It is the room. Room is 28 long by 18 wide with peak ceiling down the middle at 14 feet, with half of the left side open to other parts of the house. This setup was too narrow for me so I turned the room 90 degrees. The length is 18 and the width 28, with the openings at the rear. Room does not seal off from other parts of the house.

Bass is nondirectional up to a point - as far as our perception is concerned. Somewhere between 80Hz and 90 Hz it clearly begins to become directional. Keep that in mind when you select your crossover point; I would definitely not set it at 150 Hz.

Bill....that's a tough room.

And, I agree with those who say that setting the crossover on a sub above 80Hz introduces directionality to the sub(s).

20Hz (or below) up until 80Hz is the sweet spot for a sub.

Correct - I should have been more specific and said "bass under 80hz is nondirectional for most".

I've tried higher xovers, but find anything over 80hz in my setup begins to become localizable, with bits occasional male voices being barely audible through the subs. Too distracting for me, so 80hz it is.

It is taking me 3 subs to get it the bass right. I might just move it all after January to another room that is 24 X 14 with a normal 8 foot ceilings.

Please help! I recently purchased the sc 57. I am unable to get a signal from the preamp output (I have only tried the fronts). So far I have tried using fm tuner and Bd player with a CD as the signal sources. Is there a setting that I am missing. Thanks

Thinking about adding the Emotiva XPA5 amp to my SC-55, you think this will help or just an unnecessary add on?

^^^

an unnecessary add on... are you going into protection or clipping now?

Neither of the two, just want more power, and honestly just trying to improve my system, av receiver is the 55 the player bdp 95, speakers well, a 7.1 synergy from klipsch

You want to improve the sound look into room treatment or speakers... The amp, while appealing to one's ego, won't make much if any audible difference.
IMO - Don

Thank you for your reply. I am using the built in amps to drive speakers in a 9.2 configuration. I would like to use the front preamp outputs to supply audio signal to receiver aux in and associated speakers in other rooms in the house. The main 9.2 speakers work fine. I simply only get a very faint audio signal + some hum from the front preout jacks. I can get a good feed from the dvr out jack.

FilmMixer -- I think that I have a problem. I tried the test tones and discovered that I don't have any signal from either the sub1 or sub2 jacks. Curly1942

well, that is what i am doing now by simply turning sub to off and fronts to large

have you tried a phantom center before? after all, a good stereo image will be right in front of you

and imaging is excellent and it is a whole let better than sending stuff >80 Hz to a single subwoofer sitting in a corner which produces terrible imaging

and you are correct, i am not aware of any product that offers this option

but what i am doing is exactly what magnepan suggests for their center speaker because as they put it, most receivers have very poor bass management options

thanks everyone for the stimulating conversation i think this topic has been beaten into the ground

maybe future pioneer owners will get some exciting new bass management capabilities

i for one was expecting some more advancements in this area when going from the VSX-1014 to a SC-57 but for all practical purposes it is the same

honestly, i should have done more home work as i didn't really understand all the subtleties involved but anyone in the market for a receiver in this price range should consider the limitations of bass management in the pioneers and look closely at what is offered in competition