Crossover setting for bi-amped Rti8s?

TORI3

I attempted to search this topic, but didn't come up with much...so maybe some of you can throw me some good insight.

Recently bi-amped my Rti8s with my Onkyo 607 and heard an improvement in my 3.1 system. Originally I had the Rti8s set at the following crossovers:

Rti8s - Full Band
Csi3 - Full Band
PSW303 - 80hz (LFE)

After Audyssey, the settings were as follows:

Rti8s - 40hz
Csi3 - 40hz
PSW303 - 80hz

The Audyssey settings seemed to take a little out of the Rti8s' mid-range (not as dynamic; muddier). Maybe I'm hearing things since the crossover settings are so close to Full Band?

From previous threads, Polkies have stated that an 80hz crossover setting through the fronts, center, and sub have helped the lower-end blend better. But with the fronts bi-amped at 80hz, wouldn't I theoretically be missing out on 50hz, especially when the Rti8s' overall frequency response is rated at 30hz and 27khz?

Any recommendations for crossover setting with bi-amped Rti8s?

Thanks in advance!

John K.

TORI, the first point is that your RTi8s aren't bi-amped at 80Hz or any other frequency. Bi-amping can't be done with a receiver. For details see explanations by myself and other of our members(including present bi-amping of Monitor 70s thread on this page).

The crossover frequency to be used is an independent question and depends on the relative ability of your speakers and sub. Note that when you had the speakers set to full-range your sub wasn't being used at all for music(unless you applied a "double bass" setting, which is generally a bad idea)and just occasionally during movies when LFE(explosions, etc.)was present in the .1 channel. You should try the 80Hz crossover, which will give the sub more to do from 40-80Hz and the speakers less(than with the present 40Hz setting). If one setting sounds significantly better, use it.

TORI3

John,

Nice. Thanks for the explanations. Everything made sense, and I learned a lot from your post.

Even though the Onkyo 607 manual states that bi-amping is possible (via connecting separate speaker wire through the surrounds to the speakers), I understand that this truly isn't bi-amping because the surrounds and the fronts are still using one amplification source. I followed your advice, messed around with the crossover settings, and found that 80hz works pretty well with my rig.

Thanks again for the insight, and hopefully this can answer some future questions pertaining to the Onkyo's 607 true capabilities.