Polk Sub

Kresto

Hey gang, hope everyone is having a good day

Here's what's going on, I have a PSW110 sub, a Pioneer VSX-1020-K receiver, TSi-200 fronts, RTi-A1 rears and a CS-20 center.
I love my setup, sounds great (IMO) in my 12x14 room. My question is what do I set the sub crossover/frenquency to??? There's a couple switches on the back for crossover and volume. Should I use only LFE? I have the RCA's going to it now from the Pre-out on the receiver. Hate to bother everyone with these noob questions, but to be frankly honest I don't know if I'm geting the most out of my sub and at the same time I don't wanna hurt it.:eek:

Thanks in advance.

kawizx9r

Well, that'll be up to you really (personal preference).

Some people utilize the LFE option, which will bypass your subwoofer's built-in crossover leaving you to do adjustments on your Pioneer.

If you use the LINE-IN on your subwoofer, you can then use the subwoofers built-in crossover though you will want to set your receivers LFE/cut-off at it's highest that way you don't have 2 filters going at once at the same frequency.

Can't tell ya what frequency to blend it at but just use whatever frequency it blends in the most. I do it until the speakers+sub sound like one, don't like overpowering bass (just my preference).

-Freddy

Kresto

Thanks kawi, I'll try messing with the crossover a little, I just didn't want to blow the thing out or get 1/2 the performance because I had something set wrong. Being a bit of a noob on these things I'm a little punchy to start changing things.

Thanks again!

P.S. I ride a ZX also

djperez81

I have a psw10 what i did what crank the crossover knob all the way up and set the crossover freq on my receiver to 80hz and it sounds great. By setting the sub to its highest freq it lets the receiver set the crossover point.

John K.

Krest, for the most accurate and complete bass management you should let your 1020 handle it and bypass the low-pass filter in the PSW110 so that it doesn't interfere. Subs don't have a full internal crossover which is controlled by the frequency control on the back; this is just a low pass filter which rolls off the sub above the frequency set, but doesn't affect the speakers, which would continue to run full range. To provide a full crossover, connect the coaxial cable to the right input with the "LFE" label and also set the frequency control all the way up to "LFE". These two steps bypass the internal low-pass filter and allow for the 1020 to perform a crossover, which for the fine speakers you have could all be set at "small" and 80Hz.

Kresto

Thanks John for the awesome input. I notice you said the right input on the speaker, does that mean leave the LEFT one off??

By setting the knob on the back of the sub to "LFE" I then set the "volume" to what?? and furthermore what do I do with the "phase" switch?
It shows a setting of either 0 or 180? (which again with my noobie-ness, I don't understand)

Thanks again for your continued support

Mon40CSMM10

On the PSW110, the right input is labelled R/LFE In. Also, the left input would be left unconnected if using the LFE Out from the Pioneer receiver, since that output is mono output rather than stereo output.

Volume, I'd say start at Min and increase until the bass sounds good, that's one way to do it. If using a sound pressure level meter then try to get the receiver subwoofer channel setting and subwoofer amplifier volume knob setting adjusted so it's around 78 dBC. VSX-1020K should also have the automatic setup, it might be a good idea to try using that too.

Also may be of interest: For the older VSX-517 I am using, I found that anything below a +6 dB receiver subwoofer channel level was causing the subwoofer to shut off at a modest volume that should have still had subwoofer output. What I did to solve that was that I maxed out the receiver subwoofer channel level at +10 dB and then lowered the subwoofer amplifier knob until I reached about the 78 dBC level on the sound meter. For the room I have the system in, that works out a volume knob position so that the line on the knob is at about the 9:30 position as one would view an analog clock hour hand. Now, it may not be necessary to do that with the VSX-1020K, but if that problem does occur this is one possible solution.

Kresto

Thank you all for the awesome help and advice. Just one more question regarding the sub. On the back of the sub there is a switch that says 0 and 180? What the heck do I do with that? I don't wanna start flick'n switches if I don't know what's going to happen :eek:

Thanks again for your generous help.

MADGSF

That is the phase switch, you can try it in both positions but you will most likely leave it at 0. I would only change it when you have the volume turned down.

It is used for applications where the speakers and sub get out of phase. To simplify think of it as the speaker is pushing out while the sub is pulling in. When this happens the sound waves can offset each other lowering the overall sound level as compared to when the speaker and sub push out together. Hope that makes sense.