What happens when you set your fx500is to large on your preamp?

Larry Chanin

Hi All,

This subject came up in this thread:

Mating subwoofer to fx500is for full range surrounds

The question is if I set my fx500i side surrounds to Large on my preamp and sent them a full range signal, would the speaker's internal crossovers filter out the low bass to protect them from being stressed beyond their design limits? The fx500is have a lower -3dB limit of 50Hz.

Thanks.

Larry

VR3

From what I have done in the past - yes

I have ran almost every Polk speaker I have owned on large one time or another -- they can take it and don't distort! So go for it i say!

scottvamp

With all that money in gear and a dedicated HT room have you looked into Front Projection lately?????
I have ran my FX500's to large before and it wasn't an issue for me. They were not bottoming out are anything. Really never is enough low bass for surrounds for the effort. I had a dedicated rear subwoofer for my surrounds and it never even got a workout or made much of a difference.
If you have a bad **** receiver/amp just set your surrounds to large and use a sub money on Front Projector.

Larry Chanin

Originally posted by Vr3MxStyler2k3
From what I have done in the past - yes

I have ran almost every Polk speaker I have owned on large one time or another -- they can take it and don't distort! So go for it i say!

Hi VR,

Thanks for the response.

Larry

scottvamp

Ya - thanks Trey!!!!:D

Larry Chanin

Originally posted by scottvamp
With all that money in gear and a dedicated HT room have you looked into Front Projection lately?????
I have ran my FX500's to large before and it wasn't an issue for me. They were not bottoming out are anything. Really never is enough low bass for surrounds for the effort. I had a dedicated rear subwoofer for my surrounds and it never even got a workout or made much of a difference.
If you have a bad **** receiver/amp just set your surrounds to large and use a sub money on Front Projector.

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the response. I apologize for my delay in getting back to you, I wasn't deliberately ignoring your helpful comments.

Yes, in my previous setup I also had a single dedicated subwoofer for my side surrounds and didn't experience any obvious problems, but I had the crossover set for 40 Hz. I was concerned that today's movies aggressively use the surround channels, and that without using external crossovers to protect my fx500is from really low bass, they might eventually be damaged since I play at moderately high listening levels. A good case in point is the movie Saving Private Ryan. There's a lot of deep bass in the surrounds.

I'm still in the process of completing my theater as shown in my concept drawings. Refer to the second link in my signature. It shows a 10' front screen and an front projector. In fact, these items have been recently installed, a Stewart Filmscreen FireHawk screen and an InFocus ScreenPlay 7205 DLP front projector. The picture quality is excellent.

The concept drawings also shows a Velodyne digital drive subwoofer. This was installed as well to handle the LFE channel. It's very cool. It has an 8-band parameter equalizer built in to it, along with a test signal generator and a real time analyzer. Velodyne supplies a calibrated microphone and everything is operated with a remote control so you can adjust the frequency response of the subwoofer/Mains at the primary listening position.

I already had a Carver Knight Shadow subwoofer from my previous theater. This is identical to the small Sunfire Architectural subwoofer except the amplifier is only 500 watts peak. This sub is an 11" cube so I figured that I could conceal it in the same columns that my fx500is will be hidden.

I have a Lexicon MC-8 preamp/surround processor powering Parasound amplifiers on all seven channels. Lexicon's chief scientist designed a special bass feature into the Lexicon processors. It's called Bass Enhance. It is supposed to increase the realisim of bass. He found that bass coming from the sides of the listener provides spacial cues that improve the listening experience. The problem is you need full range side surrounds delivering stereo bass to use this feature. I thought I would give it a try. Of course it means buying an other compact subwoofer for the second side surround channel.

I recently got my sound system up and running. I'm using my SDA-1Cs as mains and a CS400i for center. I also recently upgraded my surround back speakers. I went with Polk's LC265i In-Wall speakers and their performance enclosures. These enclosure are huge 55" x 14" x 4". They permit the speakers to go down to 43 Hz at the -3dB point. The fx500i side surrounds, with the help of the Carver subwoofers, should go down below 20 Hz.

Thanks for your interest.

Larry