Should I set my front towers to large?

Large = "Don't send any bass to subwoofer from this speaker"

Small = "Send any bass below this speaker's crossover point to the sub"

This gets to be a reasonably complicated issue, and there are many discussions about it here which go into all the depth you probably want. I just wanted to make sure it's clear that "large/small" don't mean big and little when it comes to bass management.

The mains are placed for proper imaging, which is likely not the best placement for bass response. The sub can be placed wherever it takes to maximize bass performance. So, even if your mains are capable of handling deep bass, setting them to small and using the sub may still work better.

See also this thread from late December: Tower speakers with 10'' woofers set to LARGE.

Set your speakers to Small and do a subwoofer crawl. Let the sub handle the deep bass even if it's only 8" it's power handling capability will ensure you what it was designed for.

I would get a bigger sub, at least 12" in a >3cf cabinet. Size of the enclosure does matter, the smaller the enclosure the less bass you'll get without EQ. Some subs, such as the Emotiva one's, trade off deep bass for a small enclosure <2cf. Because you're sub is so small that it may be less capable than your mains each of which has a 10" woofer, compared to a single 8" in your sub.
Edited by Theresa - 2/9/13 at 5:38am

Try both and see what sounds best to you.

I see your point, we are trading off a single 8" moderate xMax driver against two 10" drivers that probably have less xMax but we don't know for sure. The sub isn't wasted because it is still probably doing LFE duty.

I like Theresa's idea - get a decent Sub. It is too bad you aren't in the states and capitalize on things like Amazon's < $200 deal on Polk PSW 505s.

I know that you have posted here before, but I can't remember what the make and model of your front speakers are. Can you please state the make and model?

What AVR do you have? Does it have an auto-calibration system? Did you run it?

I see. Well, in that case you will still need to setup your system as outlined in the Manual of the Onkyo TX-SR308 starting from page 30. (Just looked it up for you!) The two most important things you need to do are:

1. Speaker distance setting. You will need measuring tape to enter the values manually.
2. Speaker level setting. You will need to buy/borrow a sound level meter and use the built-in test tones to calibrate your speakers' levels.

When done you can set the global crossover to 80 Hz and listen. And if you like it you can call it a day. If not, come back for more assistance.

Hope I could help.

mogorf is spot on with advice, i would add if you have a smart phone try a free spl app if you can't borrow one, no need to spend $40 ish for one time use.

It will get you very close to a dedicated meter, and more important you will have same relative spl from each channel then at your MLP, master listening position.


Sent from my 32GB iPhone4 using Tapatalk

Isn't the mic on a smart phone very directional? Would laying it on its back give a good pattren?