Crossover Question

corrinthians

I ordered Monitor 70's and a sub. I'm trying to set up the receiver settings. I have the speakers set as small and subwoofer to on. However, as far as I can tell, there are no settings to change the crossover. I'm assuming that it is just preset to some number (older sony receiver STR-SE501). Should I just use the crossover on the sub by connecting the M70's to the sub?

corrinthians

Should I have posted this question in the speakers section instead?

codyc1ark

Hmmm... I've got an STR-DE635 (i think) and I don't know if ours are similar, but there should be a setup on the front of the unit where you can see the xover settings, does your AVR have a sub out for RCA? If not, you won't be able to set your sub xover on your AVR, but you should be able to play with it on the back of your sub.

corrinthians

My avr does have an rca out for the subwoofer. Going through pretty much all of the settings I don't see any crossover settings. I'll use the crossover settings on the sub and see if there is a difference in sound and cutoff points.

codyc1ark

Here... http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=STRSE501

If I remember, try the set-up button top right of the jog dial, try going into that menu, when I get home I'll fire mine up and take a look if you haven't figured it out by then, good luck.

kuntasensei

Typically, if your AVR doesn't have an adjustable crossover (and most older ones don't), it uses 80Hz for the crossover for any speaker set to SMALL (though if I recall correctly, older Sonys used 90Hz). However, many older AVRs also low-passed the LFE channel as part of this, meaning 80-120Hz LFE content was thrown away completely (whereas AVRs with per-channel crossovers don't do this). Per-channel crossovers are a fairly recent development in AVRs, in the grand scheme of things... so if your AVR is 4+ years old, it's kind of a crapshoot whether it will have them.

John K.

Corri, the manual for your 501 doesn't appear to give even a hint of what the crossover frequency is. Although 80Hz is the typical default frequency in modern receivers, earlier low-cost receivers often used 90 or 100Hz.

You've asked about using the "crossover" in the sub instead, but subs have no internal crossover, even if some manufacturers attach that label. There's only a low-pass filter which rolls off the response of the sub driver above the selected frequency. This has no effect on the mains, even if they're connected through the sub. This is a straight-through connection, just as if the wire ran directly from the receiver terminals to the mains terminals. A very few subs have a separate high-pass filter on the speaker level outputs to the mains, but this has nothing to do with the sub's low pass filter and its frequency control.

If you consider the 501 crossover at probably about 100Hz to be higher than you care for, the alternative is to not use the sub out with bass management, but instead to connect the sub with speaker wires and run the Monitor 70s full-range("Large"). You'd then try to blend the sub in by setting its low pass filter around 40-50Hz, if it has such a setting(you didn't say what sub that you're getting).

corrinthians

Thanks for the info John. I just really need a new receiver. Then I won't have any issues.

20hz

corrinthians wrote: »

Thanks for the info John. I just really need a new receiver. Then I won't have any issues.

I have a older sony strda333ES with the same issue , (the sub out sounded bad) my sub is not a plate type amp with crossover , so even at the sony factory ?120hz? it had a bunch of upper bass going to it that drowned out the deep bass .
In your case you have a plate amp ?? it should have adjustable crossover points , but I was told not to run 2 crossovers into each other it will create phasing issues , since the factory lfe out sounded bad on my sub I run a adjustable elec crosover (a energy EAC) out of the mains the low goes to my sub the high goes to my satalites .
I was told (just like john k said) update and I will be able to not use the energy eac X/O but untill than it sounds REAL GOOD .
My subs get 109 db at 20 hertz the X/O is set at 80 hertz (so 80 down feeds the subs and 80 up feeds my polk moniter 5's ) .
Oh my center and rears are on small and the mains on large .