Best Crossover Settings for Monitor 70, 40, 30, CS2 speakers

jam757

Hi there. I have an Onkyo HT-RC260 7.2 receiver with Monitor 70 fronts, 40 rears, 30 side surrounds, and a CS2 center. I have a BIC F-12 subwoofer with the LFE set to 120HZ on the receiver. It is a relatively small room with only about 8-10 feet from the couch to the screen and front speakers. Currently I have the fronts set full range and everything else on 80hz. I have not yet run Audessey and would prefer to experiment on my own. Any good recommendations out there?

pearsall001

jam757 wrote: »

Hi there. I have an Onkyo HT-RC260 7.2 receiver with Monitor 70 fronts, 40 rears, 30 side surrounds, and a CS2 center. I have a BIC F-12 subwoofer with the LFE set to 120HZ on the receiver. It is a relatively small room with only about 8-10 feet from the couch to the screen and front speakers. Currently I have the fronts set full range and everything else on 80hz. I have not yet run Audessey and would prefer to experiment on my own. Any good recommendations out there?

Here's a great article on the very subject. http://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/products/articles/128214.html. Nothing is set in stone so experiment but I'll bet setting your mains to small at 60/80hz will be to your liking. All other speakers set to small & 80hz. Especially since you're not using an external amp.

B Run

I personally like everything set at 80hz, even though they can play lower it seems to clean up the sound a little bit.

Geoff4rfc

jam757 wrote: »

Hi there. I have an Onkyo HT-RC260 7.2 receiver with Monitor 70 fronts, 40 rears, 30 side surrounds, and a CS2 center.

I had a set up very close to this except my 40's were surround and my 30's were wides. FL and R 40hz, C 40hz, SR and L 40hz and WL and R 60hz. This was a great sound in my room. A lot of guys prefer between 60 and 80hz, I've tried it and settled on what you see.

Experimentation is the best thing for you, I tried both full band (large) and small for my mains, small was the way to go, especially with a decent sub.

Right now, I have bigger mains and I take out the sub and switch back to full band while I'm listening to 2ch and then back to small for movies.

Thomasjclark45

I have almost the same set up, and hear is what I found. When I first got my Onkyo it was to replace a dead Sony 5.1 system. I was waiting for my Monitor 70s to arrive, so I just slapped it to place and turned it on. I set all channels to 80hz as that is THX recomends. I was not impressed much at all, but I was happy to not have to listen to my tv speakers any more. Once I got the speakers in, I spent all day running wires and setting up speakers, I didnt have the time to run the Audyssey. I left it on the THX setting for a while but still not happy with it. I couldnt get the sub level right, it was either too little or too much. I also had a hard time getting the levels for each speaker right. Then I ran the Audyssey and WOW! What a difference! I have to admit, how it set my levels was like nothing I imagined. First of all, it set all my speakers to a level of 40hz with the exception of my front highs, it set them to 60hz. I would have set them manually to probably to 80hz myself, and left the Sub cutoff at 60hz. It also caculates reverb in the room based on listening position and adjusted the levels nowhere close to where I would have put them. It set fronts -9db and one of the front height channels 6db lower than the other. It also set the Sub level to -10db, I had it set to 0, no wonder why it sounded all out of wack. All I can say is that if you don't have an SPL meter then let the AVR do most of the work for you. After it is run, you can tweak it to you preference.

cnh

Welcome to Club Polk!

I run a similar speaker complement on an Onkyo TX-SR 805. Pretty much all surrounds are set to 80hz. The fronts I have set to 50hz and the center to 60hz because this Onkyo can handle that and it sounds better in the "music" mode with a lower crossover point! You're AVR probably can't handle that, so I'd start everything at 80hz, as Phil suggests. I run the 805 in 5.1 so it can pretty much realize its 130 watt rating per channel across the board without breaking much of a sweat...and "more" than that in 2.1 or 2 for the occasional CD or FM!

Have fun. Monitor 70s and supporting cast, one of the best cost to performance ratio set ups out there, period!! Throw in a "monster" Onkyo, a good 300W+ sub, and "forget about it"!

Save your money for "tubes" and SDAs (the Two channel set up!).

cnh

Lietuvis91

Replay the same movie scene, something with action and dialog to find the sweet spot for your room as you change settings. I agree with keeping all speakers the same, because that allows for better surround transitions and just better uniformity of sound in general. I have mine set to 120hz all way way around :eek:, and love it for movies, clarity is phenomenal! You will probably have to increase the volume on your sub to pick up the lower end right. Don't be afraid to try higher frequencies, you will not lose anything, contrary to what many believe. You will in fact gain much more clarity and detail, which is what matters in HT.

Play around and let us know where you settled

jam757

So after reading countless forums I went ahead and set the 70's at 40hz, the cs2 and 40's at 60hz, and the 30's at 70 he. I think I noticed a significant improvement with music, it just sounds more full to me and the mids are better. I haven't tried it with must its yet but maybe I'll leave it here for awhile. I agree with other posters that say music sounds better with lower crossovers. Also, why wouldn't my Onkyo ht-rc260 handle it? It appears to handle it fine thus far!

Lietuvis91

The thing is that what sounds good for music doesn't always sound the best for movies. You are correct that lower crossovers sound better for music. I like to run just my fronts in 2ch mode in full range and turn off the sub for music. But when you get to movies, clarity counts much more, so this is where you may find it beneficial to run the crossover higher. Keep playing with it, you'll see.

jam757

I have left my settings as stated above for now. I tested the beginning of Star Wars and thought it sounded pretty incredible. I also watched some football and that sounded great. It's so easy to change the settings anyway maybe I'll just switch back and forth for movies and music. I had a question to the poster above about why my receiver (HT-RC260) would not handle lower crossovers. I cranked music for a few straight hours today and it did fine. Any reason why it shouldn't? Also, I see a lot of people talking about speaker size settings. I do not have these on this receiver.

Nerd

I have a 3.1 setting and ran Audysessy. It fixed the settings as below

F L/R : Full Band (L -1.5 Db, R - 2.0 Db)
Center : 40 Hz ( - 1.0 Db) I later set it to 0 because the voice in the movies was a little low.
Sub : 80 Hz ( -9.0 Db)

Should I put the fronts to 40 or 60 Hz or let it remain on full band

andrew88

Hi there:)
I have 3.1 setup with Monitor 70 and Monitor cs2 for center, denon dsw 37, and denon avr s700w.
Advise please, as this better align for listening Hi Res Audio.
Thanks.