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Anyone prefer 100hz crossovers? - Page 5

post #121 of 134
3/14/13 at 5:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kiwi2 View Post

Tell that to Nightlord above!

Well, my livingroom speakers are quite capable at normal full range (largest full range speaker of the brand), I just want to go 5-10Hz deeper than that (into the infrasonics), be able to play louder, bring distortion in bass range down and smoothen out room respones from driving the room from 8 points instead of 2.

Top graph - fullrange, bottom graph - with subwoofers.
pi60s-s_utan_med_basar.PNG


- - - - -

My front theater speakers on the other hand are designed for use with subwoofers and a rated to handle 7dB more @100Hz than my fullranges can.
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post #122 of 134
3/20/13 at 5:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kiwi2 View Post

If I was going to use a 80 or 100hz crossover, then I may as well just brought myself small 4" satellite speakers.
Which might be fine if you needed low output. A headphone driver too has enough frequency extension, but not enough output 12 feet away. For me, to get 110db peaks from seats without needing huge xmax woofers and huge amps, I had to go with 10" woofers. But because they're sensitive, they don't extend low so I crossover at 80-100hz.

I hear you about the smoother graph versus the blend.

Have you looked at distortion graphs in REW at your desired drive level? It's a newer feature in REW.
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post #123 of 134
3/20/13 at 3:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eyleron View Post

Have you looked at distortion graphs in REW at your desired drive level? It's a newer feature in REW.

No I haven't as of yet but may be something I will look into one day. Thanks for the suggestion.
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post #124 of 134
3/21/13 at 4:37pm
Well I'm going to do a big 'U' turn today: The reason I ended up at 100Hz was due to a colouration from my centre speaker which is really positioned too close to the floor. At 80Hz it gets an extra bit of bass and on louder sections it starts to sound 'muddy' so I settled on 100Hz as I wanted to retain some 'depth' to my surround since 100Hz is starting to become directional I wanted the surround effect to stay at the sides and back rather than at the front in my sub. I only have a global crossover setting in my Oppo, so I have to chose the best compromise.

Anyway, today I experimented with a phantom centre setting. This totally changed the sound, making it much more 'open' yet as my seat is dead centre it is near impossible to tell that there is no centre. Even sitting off to one side still sounds better (not that my OH would notice TBH wink.gif ). I found that I could run at 60Hz crossover (40Hz started to sound 'muddy' again and the speakers sounded less punchy/dynamic). This worked better than 80Hz since I have a bit of a bass null at my seat and using 60Hz gives a more even response.

It really has made the system 'sing' and I listened to a 'Police' concert disc twice as it just sounded so good set this way. It seems a bit of a waste of a £600 centre speaker, but I'll look into trying to rig up a higher stand for use when I have my projector on.

It's threads like this that have made me reassess my set up (which I've become a bit disappointed with lately due to the colouration issue) so I'm grateful for the information within, even if it just spurred me on to try a few experiments for myself and let my ears (rather than THX) be my guide.
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post #125 of 134
3/21/13 at 5:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelvin1965S View Post

Well I'm going to do a big 'U' turn today: The reason I ended up at 100Hz was due to a colouration from my centre speaker which is really positioned too close to the floor. At 80Hz it gets an extra bit of bass and on louder sections it starts to sound 'muddy' so I settled on 100Hz as I wanted to retain some 'depth' to my surround since 100Hz is starting to become directional I wanted the surround effect to stay at the sides and back rather than at the front in my sub. I only have a global crossover setting in my Oppo, so I have to chose the best compromise.

Anyway, today I experimented with a phantom centre setting. This totally changed the sound, making it much more 'open' yet as my seat is dead centre it is near impossible to tell that there is no centre. Even sitting off to one side still sounds better (not that my OH would notice TBH wink.gif ). I found that I could run at 60Hz crossover (40Hz started to sound 'muddy' again and the speakers sounded less punchy/dynamic). This worked better than 80Hz since I have a bit of a bass null at my seat and using 60Hz gives a more even response.

It really has made the system 'sing' and I listened to a 'Police' concert disc twice as it just sounded so good set this way. It seems a bit of a waste of a £600 centre speaker, but I'll look into trying to rig up a higher stand for use when I have my projector on.

It's threads like this that have made me reassess my set up (which I've become a bit disappointed with lately due to the colouration issue) so I'm grateful for the information within, even if it just spurred me on to try a few experiments for myself and let my ears (rather than THX) be my guide.

I noticed you are setting crossovers in your oppo.  Is this because you are using analog connection rather than digital/HDMI?

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post #126 of 134
3/21/13 at 5:39pm
Yes, I have an older Arcam AV9 that doesn't decode HD soundtracks (but sounds better for stereo than the HD decoding receiver I had previously). For AV use the AV9 is just an 8 channel volume control.
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post #127 of 134
3/21/13 at 6:24pm
Thread Starter 
Well I have to kind of update my stance on this, I was messing around with an 80hz and 60hz crossover setting with my sub turned off listening to music pretty loud and it didn't sound like the woofers were bottoming out or that there was too much distortion. I guess the real issue is either I'm getting a lot of room gain or that I just don't like that much bass. I'm going to be getting a mic soon to check my frequency response to see if that's it but I suspect I just don't like as much bass as most people, with a 100hz crossover and my sub set pretty low it sounds best to me for music at least. I like the extra oomph the 80hz crossover provides for movies.
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post #128 of 134
3/22/13 at 10:58am
Being able to set different crossovers for different uses can be useful I find: My AV9 has 5 memories so I could have 5 different crossover settings (and speaker level/distances if I wished) as well as my Oppo since I use it's internal decoder for BluRay viewing.

So for me just changing the input on the AV9 gives me two choices of crossover (any input that uses the current AV9 setting and the external analogue input which uses the player's settings). After yesterday's testing I now have a 60Hz crossover and phantom centre for high level BluRay watching, but for lower level day to day TV watching I use a 100Hz setting in the AV9 with the centre engaged which seems to work better as the phantom centre image tends to collapse at lower listening levels. Previously I'd just set everything to 80Hz without really testing it, so it's good to experiment and find an improvement. Every system and room is different so in the end it's your own ears that have to decide of course.
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post #129 of 134
3/22/13 at 12:10pm
If receiver handles pushing to fronts before pushing to sub, try 250hz on the center.
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post #130 of 134
3/22/13 at 12:31pm
Unfortunately both my crossover options (Oppo and AV9 processor) are global. However, I'm a trained electronics Engineer so I may yet make up an external crossover box to put between my processor and power amp. However the easier solution is that I'm going to attempt to make a lift up centre speaker bracket so that the centre can be raised when watching on the projector (more critical listening and higher level than day to day TV) since it's the proximity to the floor that is causing the issue that forces me to use a higher crossover when the centre is in use.
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post #131 of 134
3/24/13 at 11:30pm
The XO should be based on the sub and speakers:

mains 50 Hz-20,000 kHz
center and surround 70 Hz-20,000 kHz
Sub 29 Hz- 180 Hz

xo range 70-180 Hz

in this example a range of 70-180 is acceptable. In general set the xo 10-15 Hz higher than the weakest speakers frequency range. Also try to stay under 100 hz unless this is a satellite system which may xo the sub at 120-200 Hz. Some subs don't do well over 80 Hz so it all depends on the speakers and the subs undistorted frequency response.
Edited by derrickdj1 - 3/24/13 at 11:37pm
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post #132 of 134
3/25/13 at 8:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by derrickdj1 View Post

in this example a range of 70-180 is acceptable.

In "theory" going by the "numbers". If that 180 crossover sounds terrible though and makes your system sound sterile and boring... then it isn't acceptable. Ultimately you need to go with what sounds good over going by numbers.
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post #133 of 134
3/25/13 at 11:23pm
That is why I stated staying under 100 Hz for the sub is good unless you have a small satellite system where you have to use a higher sub xo.smile.gif
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post #134 of 134
3/27/13 at 3:40pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by derrickdj1 View Post

The XO should be based on the sub and speakers:

mains 50 Hz-20,000 kHz
center and surround 70 Hz-20,000 kHz
Sub 29 Hz- 180 Hz

xo range 70-180 Hz

in this example a range of 70-180 is acceptable. In general set the xo 10-15 Hz higher than the weakest speakers frequency range. Also try to stay under 100 hz unless this is a satellite system which may xo the sub at 120-200 Hz. Some subs don't do well over 80 Hz so it all depends on the speakers and the subs undistorted frequency response.

This is the "normal" recommendation but the point of the post was asking if anyone preferred a crossover higher than 80hz but whose speakers could be crossed over at 80 if they wanted.
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AVS › AVS Forum › Audio › Audio theory, Setup and Chat › Anyone prefer 100hz crossovers?