HT newbie, have some questions

bass addict

I just purchased a modest ht system and having been running it for about a month now. Now that I am getting a hang on what to listen for I want to tweak it for optimum sound. Here is what I have and the basic settings.

Sony STR-DA2ES receiver, Polk 6700 5.1 surround, and a Sony SA-WX700 sub. In the next couple days I am going to add a polk 2350 for the rear. The sub puts out 250 watts to two 10" woofers.

Setup. I set up the speakers according to Polks directions. The two fronts run into the sub. The sub on/off on the receiver setup is set to off, and the sub is connected to the sub out on my receiver. The LFE cutoff is set to standard and all other HZ settings are standard. The fronts are set to large and all others are set to small. The sub hz is set at almost highest HZ.

Should any settings be changed or are they all OK?

Also I am not very impressed with the sony sub so in the next day or so I am ordering an SVS sub. I love low pounding bass and have decided to go with the 25-31pc+. Will this be a good compliment to my 6700's or an overkill? Also, should I leave my sony sub hooked up to my fronts and run the svs off the other sub out on my receiver, or should I run the fronts to the svs sub? If I keep the sony should I get the 20-39 instead to catch the lower regions? Sorry for all the newbie questions. All help is greatly appreciated. Travis

danger boy

i have the 20-39 PCi. it's all the sub i'll ever need.

Grimster74

Not sure where you purchased you Sony subwoofer from but if you have or still have a return policy, RETURN IT. Beleive me, once you hear the SVS it will be all the subwoofer you will need. As far as settings go. On the Sony receiver. I would set all you speakers to SMALL, cross them ALL over at 80Hz, and use the SUB OUT on the back of your receiver to one of the SUB IN on the SVS. Not to familiar with the SVS your interested in purchasing but it should have the ability to disable to crossover, if so, DISABLE IT. By setting all your speakers to small and x-over to 80Hz it will send all your low frequencys to the SVS where they should be in the first place. Oh yeah, WELCOME to the forum.

bass addict

So do I change the crossover frequencies across the board? Do I leave the lfe cutoff set to normal or change the hz on that too?
If I set it up the way you recommend do I still run the fronts into my sub or run them right off the receiver?
As I mentioned I am getting another speaker for 6.1. I wouldn't mind having a better center. Can I take the existing center and move it to the back surround and buy a new center or should I go with a 2350 for the back surround?
Thanks again.

Grimster74

Yes, change them across the board. As far as the LFE cut-off, I beleive I set mine to 80Hz. also. Then again, I may have left it at normal which I beleive is 120Hz. Dr. Spec told me one time before but I'm pretty sure I changed it to 80Hz. also. 80Hz. is supposed to be a THX standard. As far as movie your existing center to the rear and purchasing a new center, as long as its as close to being Timbre matched your can get, that will be just fine, especially when your center does most of the work in the H/T enviroment. As far as the subwoofer goes, if you hook it up the way I recommended using a subwoofer cable, then the front speakers will hook directly to the receiver. My father pretty much has the setup as you do, he is using the DA3-ES receiver and the RM6600 series satellites with a PSW450 subwoofer. I tried both the "Polk Way" and the subwoofer cable route and he liked the subwoofer cable route much better.

bass addict

I heard that polk recommends running the fronts to the subwoofer to keep from blowing them. But I assume with the new setup they should be fine if I set them to small?

Grimster74

Basically the reasoning behind that is this. If you look at the back of the PSW450 for instance. Right between the binding post is a toggle switch which says 80Hz and Full Range. If you us the "Polk method" which is the speaker inputs you are supposed to set the switch to 80Hz. so it will cut off anything below that. If you think about it, by setting all you speakers to small and crossing them over at 80Hz your basically doing the same thing but instead of doing it at the sub your doing it at your receiver. Beleive me, my father likes his movies LOUD, at or near reference levels, he is 51 so I think his hearing is shotand beleive me, his H/T does just fine with it setup this way. The best thing to do is to try it both ways to see which one you like best. EXPERIMENT my man. Another thing to keep into consideration is its a whole lot easier to setup with a SPL meter and a setup disc using the subwoofer cable method.

tryrrthg

You'll need a much higher crossover than 80hz with the RM series. They are too small a speaker to reach that low. You'll need a crossover in the 125hz range.

Since the RM6700 only go to around 120hz, unless your receiver has a high crossover near the 120hz range you'll be missing quite a bit of the freguency range. SVS's high pass filter is fixed at 80hz so buying the SVS might be a bad idea with the RM6700. If you can return the RM series I would do that and get some of the smaller bookshelf speakers. That way you'll have speakers that go low enough to use a lower crossover.

Grimster74

DAMUM, my bad. Guess I was using my setup compared to my old mans. These long hours at work are just killing me. Thanks for clearing it up for me tryrrthg. Think I'm just going to stay off the forum until things calm down at work to keep me from **** up again.

tryrrthg

Grim, you gave fine advice you just forgot that the RM series are very small satelites, everything else you said is fine.

I had the RM series for a few months and couldn't live with them for music. they did fine for movies but they weren't my cup of tea in the music department.

Grimster74

Thats the exact reason I passed my RM6600 onto my old man. Not only that they just didn't do anything for the size of the room I have now.

section19

This old thread might be helpful:
http://clubpolk.polkaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10509&highlight=rm6700

After posting this I called Polk CS myself and they verified what Tony said. There IS an internal filter in the 6700's that kicks in at 150Hz. The CS guy strongly urged me to set it up the "Polk Way". Plus set the Sub x-over to 150 Hz. and the x-over in the Rec. to 80 Hz.

I don't think you will blow your speakers if you hook them up the standard way (with a sub cable) you just (theoretically) will have a gap in your FR if your Rec. doesn't have a x-over setting fo 150hz. or higher (my 1803 only goes up to 120Hz.).

I never did understand why the CS guy said to set my rec, x-over to 80Hz.? That seemed kind of low to me for these speakers. He said the Rec. setting affects the center and surround speakers while the Sub setting affects the sub and mains.

As was already stated, experiment. If you can't tell any difference in the sound it definitely is handier using the sub cable and running the mains straight out of the Rec. I have my set up the "Polk Way" and the sound is great.

Good luck and have fun.

dorokusai

Originally posted by tryrrthg
Since the RM6700 only go to around 120hz, unless your receiver has a high crossover near the 120hz range you'll be missing quite a bit of the freguency range. SVS's high pass filter is fixed at 80hz so buying the SVS might be a bad idea with the RM6700. If you can return the RM series I would do that and get some of the smaller bookshelf speakers. That way you'll have speakers that go low enough to use a lower crossover.

The default crossover point for the Sony ES, is 120hz, and adjustable to 200hz. You can certainly use the RM series. If set correctly, you will not lose any freq. range.

You can use the Non-Polk way, it is simpler and involves less cabling.

I have to agree with Tryrrthg. Unless this is an application specific use, bump up to a RTi28. The RM series is a great line, but it has all the shortcomings that come with that size.

bass addict

OK, let's see if I got this right.
1. Run the fronts directly off of the receiver.
2. Leave the settings alone on the receiver (LFE, crossover, etc)
3. Run the sub off the sub out on my receiver and set it to 120 hz)
Should I turn my sub to on in the setup menu or leave it off? What is the difference? Should I look at going with another sub other than svs then if my polks cut out at 125 hz and the svs is tuned to 80 hz? If so would you recommend a velodyne?
4. Change the fronts to the small setting along with the rest of the speakers.

This sound right to you guys?

Again thanks for all the help.

bass addict

OK, let's see if I got this right.
1. Run the fronts directly off of the receiver.
2. Leave the settings alone on the receiver (LFE, crossover, etc)
3. Run the sub off the sub out on my receiver and set it to 120 hz)
Should I turn my sub to on in the setup menu or leave it off? What is the difference? Should I look at going with another sub other than svs then if my polks cut out at 125 hz and the svs is tuned to 80 hz? If so would you recommend a velodyne?
4. Change the fronts to the small setting along with the rest of the speakers.

This sound right to you guys?

Again thanks for all the help.

bass addict

I was looking on svs website at their pc + sub and it shows the sub has a crossover that is adjustable from 40 to 120 hz. Am I missing something or were you referring to a different line of svs subs.

section19

bass addict, your rm6700 speakers internal filter will start to kick in at 150Hz. not 125Hz.

You will need either a sub that has a low pass filter that goes as high as 150Hz. or a Rec. that can be set at 150Hz. or higher.

The reason Polk recommends running the mains through the sub is that their sat. speakers aren't designed to play below 150Hz. There WILL be a FR gap unless one of the two above mentioned criteria is in place.

However, if you do decide to run the mains straight from the Rec. you should not be in danger of blowing them since they do have that built in filter.

bass addict

I just ended up purchasing Hitachi's 46" tv yesterday and seeing as I had to move and rewire all my components I went a bought a monster cable sub cable and ran the fronts right off the deck with the x over set to 150 hz and the sub set to 150 hz. The difference is night and day. The sound is cleaner and the sub sounds 10x better. Polks way might be great for polk subs or designed for rec that can't set the front crossover to 150k but for anything else off the rec is the way to go.

Grimster74

Glad to see everything turned out okay.

PolkThug

bass addict,

Be careful with that Sony sub, the display model at my local CC was already blown.

Regards,
PolkThug

bass addict

Thanks again for the help guys. If I blow my sony sub that will make it easier to justify buying an svs. LOL