Definitive Owners Thread - Page 338

So you guys are saying to take the rca cables off of the y splitter and do not run them to the 7004's(just run one rca cable to the lfe on the back of the sc2). Do I still need to leave the 7004's plugged in or will the woofer still work with them unplugged. Sorry for the noob question my old setup just used regular speaker wire on my towers. I am sort of new to the whole powered sub tower thing.

So what you guys are saying is that the towers will still get the bass signals just through the regular speaker wires. I just assumed they were wired different than regular towers because they were powered.

I was wondering if anyone upgraded from a mythos seven center to mythos three? Do you see any difference?

Or if you have the mythos three what is your thought on this center speaker?

Preceisely. Just speaker wire to the 7004s and the RCA interconnect to the SCII. Definitely leave the 7004s plugged in- as I was saying before, those powered woofers will still be working, and they WILL get the full signal range you send to them. Having those powered woofers brings a lot of punch and fullness to the 700x towers, so it's in no way wasted with the speaker-wire hook-up.

Many of us here kind of think DefTech goes overboard with all these unnecessary hook-up options. The simplest really is best most of the time, and the other stuff just makes it confusing. As you have discovered.

Yes. Just run one RCA cable from the receiver to the sub. Definitely keep the 7004s plugged in. It's not that the other options are wrong, I just want to get your system on track and sounding good. There will be some tweaking to come later and you'll be in a better position to control them.

ok guys thanks a ton,
I am gonna go home tonight, yank the rca cables off of the 7004's.
take out the splitters and just run the rca to the sc2. then plug in the mic and let the pio 92 recalibrate itself. I am going to make sure I turn the low pass crossover all the way up to 150hz so the reciever can use its internal crossover on the sub.


I really appreciate all the help and input. This site is great so far.

The only thing that stinks is now I have to go play the old redo all the wires on my ht setup game. Oh well

Oh, come on....it's fun! (We've all been there!)

one thought came to mind. If the towers dont need the rca input to get the bass, why did def tech make a spot for it. seems kind of like a confusing decision on their part.

It makes them more flexible for advanced users. As one example, some like to run their LFE a few dBs "hot", and a separate LFE input allows them to do that without affecting the speakers' balance for stereo music.

I'm glad DefTech gives us the option, but admit it can be confusing to less experienced owners.

I posted this on the Mythos tread, but thought I'd repeat it here:

Just got my Feb/March issue of Sound & Vision. They picked the Mythos STS Home Theater speaker system (includes Mythos Nine and Gem's) as their 2008 Audio Product of the Year.

Connecting the RCA from the receivers' sub preout to the subs' LFE in will bypass any setting on the low pass control on your sub. Your Pio AVR will now be in control of the bass management. Not to complicate anything, but I must mention that auto setup with bipolar speakers often gives strange results. You might make a note of the receivers' results and share them with us. Your receiver may say that one or more of your speakers is out-of-phase. If you check your wiring and are sure they're correct, then ignore that result. Also, the auto setup may consider some speakers large, when they are indeed small. This is also why I suggested earlier to set all your speakers to small and enter the crossover frequency manually. The BP7004 could be set to large, but for now let's just use these; BP7004-small cross @ 40, CLR2002-small cross @ 60, SM350-small cross @ 60, subwoofer-yes.

for people with powered towers & extra subwoofers who wish to run the LFE .1 channel to both the towers & the extra subs

RCA's is the only way to do that

but in most cases, it's best to run the LFE .1 channel to the extra sub or subs and let them do all the heavy lifting

would be nice if surround receivers were more flexible with where you can send the LFE channel

i can sense it, someone out there is thinking right now "but what about the (LFE + main) option"

most people think that sends the LFE channel to both the subwoofer output and to your main speakers but it doesn't

when you set all your speakers to large and subwoofer to "yes", the only channel going out to the subwoofer output is the LFE .1 channel

with "LFE + main" option selected, the subwoofer output on the surround receiver will now send the LFE .1 AND the bass from your "main" channels as well

here's an example:

let's say you have 7 bp7000sc's all the way around and each channel set to "large" and dual trinity's for the LFE channel with subwoofer set to "yes"

let's say the director sends a 20hz thump to the front right channel

the trinitys will be sitting there doing nothing and your front right bp7000sc will handle the 20hz thump

with the "LFE + mains" option turned on, the 20hz thump that was sent to the front right channel will now be reproduced by the front right bp7000sc AND the dual trinitys

Are you suggesting these crossover frequencies based upon the bass capabilities of the speakers or upon the most efficient use of total system power?

Although my membership to this thread is based only upon the possession of a first generation PowerField 1500 sub, I follow it keenly. My powered Infinity Interlude IL-60s are very similar to many DT towers (no bipolar), and I have found that an across-the-board 80Hz XO has worked best for me to minimize localization of bass AND to minimize receiver power output on bass that can be performed better by the powered sub. This leaves more amp power for that precious mid-range, especially at higher volume levels.

Now I'm definitely confused. How is it that gtmorgan23 can run BP7004's with a SC-II and everyone recommends I get a SC Reference or better with BP30's instead of a SC-I? How do we differ? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand.

Well, it's two different situations. One is a set-up question, and the other is buying advice. For him, it's "what's the best way to hook up this equipment I have?" For you, it's "What's the best sub to buy to complete this set-up?"

the bp30s extend down below every powered tower except for the bp7000sc

different people will recommend different things but personally, i would never get any supercube other than the reference or the trinity

but that's me

i'm sure there are people with smaller rooms, apartments or who are not insane bass heads who would love the other supercubes

Hello GLBright. If those were my only two choices, it would the bass capabilities of the speakers. The receiver has plenty of headroom. Keep in mind these are just a starting point. I believe it will be a better starting point than what the auto setup will result in. The IL-60 is a four way tower with one tweeter, a 41/2" mid, 61/2" driver, and a 12" woofer with a 500 watt amp in a monopole design. The freq response is 28Hz-22kH +/-3dB. I hope I got that right. Although I have not had the opportunity to hear this particular speaker, I can sorta see where you see similarities with the BP7004. I do think that the 80Hz number is a good starting point also.

That's a good point. I know that I could never use my Reference if I lived in an apartment; I think it's already loosened the house from its foundation!

Gotcha. I guess my biggest question is, won't a reference be overkill in my situation, townhouse and all? Is it that I would just turn the volume down on the sub but it would hit lower? I often times feel that the SC-III I'm running with the BP6B's now might be too loud.

A 911 Carrera would be overkill too. After all, the speed limit is only 65mph.

yup. for apartments, i'd recommend a smaller sub that is nearfield

For the right price, I would buy the Reference no matter where I lived. It could be a wise purchase for the future. Life changes for us all the time and we can plan for the future, but we cannot predict it.

Ok, I'm not an audiophile but how is this possible?

def tech magic

but really, let's take a single bp7001 and compare it to a bp30

the bp7001 uses a single 10" driver plus the dual PR's (PR's are just another type of port to extend response) and with not all that much box space to work with

the bp30 is using four 6 1/2" drivers in a tall ported box and they have the whole box to work with

so let's focus on the cone area of the active drivers. 10" in a smallish box vs. 26" in a large ported box

these +/- 3db frequency response numbers are from chet at def tech:

BP30:..........................22hz - 20khz +/- 3db
BP-7001SC:................23hz - 20khz +/- 3db

the bp7001 and bp30 are probably very close in extension when both are calibrated properly but as you move down the chain 7002 7004 7006 the bp30s start to dominate the scene

a bit of an update

ok so before I changed any of the wires around I just did mcacc.
It set all my speakers as large, so I manually changed the center and rears to small. It also seems that it set all the speakers to 80hz. I can change all of them through the mcacc settings but I am gonna have to read the manual to figure out how to individually change each speakers crossover setting.

On a side note, otk you must love ear bleeding bass cause the bass my 7004's and my sc2 make together is pretty amazing

I am going to tinker with it more tommorow evening, my son is asleep now so the insanely loud speaker testing is over for tonight.

By all means, let him sleep!

You might be misreading the options on your receiver. For any speaker set to LARGE, there should be no crossover. (You mentioned that they are set at 80Hz.) It may be that 80Hz is in the options window as a default, but isn't actually being applied, at least for the fronts.

Is that really all there is to it?? If it were about cone surface area, couldn't subs just be a lot of smaller drivers? (The actual area comparison would ~78.5in^2 versus ~132.75in^2, or about 70% more surface area in the BP30. Sorry, I was kind of a math freak....)

there are tons of variables. the specs of the driver, the size and type of the enclosure, the wattage of the power amp

the bp7001s have a long throw 10" driver with a massive magnet and lots of power. i'm sure you could crank up the volume knob on the 7001 and drown out the bp30 with bass but you would no longer be "flat" anymore and the bass would be boomy with music

once both towers are dialed in and calibrated "flat", the bp30 edges out the 7001 by a single hz according to def tech

i'm sure that combo is very amazing

i hope i'm not sounding negative, sometimes i get carried away

hey bro not at all, you like what you like and I respect that.

Hey, do any of you all use the squeezebox? Do you know if the remote is RF?