Setting all speaker to small

landry_p2000 · August 2004

Is it just me, or does the "small" setting make the surround effects and subwoofer bass more intense? I would usually have the RTi10s set at "large", and the center as well. My sub was about 3/4 of the total volume. Now , it is at 12 o'clock and still shakes the whole townhouse. This helped me alot by just messing around with the Onkyo settings. It seems to give me more productive sound, and puts less strain on my gear.

RuSsMaN · August 2004

You've probably just addressed a phasing / placement issue, without actually changing phase or placement. I'd re-visit large on the 10's, and try moving the sub to different locations if possible, to get all the benefit the 10's have to offer.

You are correct, small will make life easier for a entry - mid level receiver.

Cheers,
Russ

gatemplin · August 2004

I also think the sound is more clear with the speakers set to small. Setting speakers to small reduces intermodulation distortion and the strain of high current low frequencies from the amps. The sub will have to work harder but thats what they are built for.

brody05 · August 2004

whats the point of having large speakers if your only going to run them as small, maybe save yourself some money and buy a sub/satelitte system and be done with it.......

marcpam · August 2004

the purpose of setting your speakers to large is if you are not running a seperate sub. A good quality sub can outdo any tower speaker, even if it is a powered tower. If you truly want home theatre than you have to set your speakers to small and add a good quality sub. I have my rti12 set to small and a dedicated sub to handle the low end. I am pushing the 12's with an outlaw 770 which is 200 watts per channel. They sound extraordinary, even set to small. I have also set to large in order to see the diff., very minimal.

brody05 · August 2004

May I suggest you read the bass management advice on the polk audio website, it sounds as though you may learn something out of it. I do not suggest you send all the bass to your speakers, set them to large, and send the LFE + mains bass to your sub therefore doubling up on the signal, the sub does the same as what you suggest and guess what, your other speakers get a full signal for a smoother transition between mid and low effects not to mention stereo bass. Even RT 55i's can easily produce sounds lower than an 80 or 100hz cut out as you suggest (and Polk also suggest those be set to large) so I am sure your speakers can handel it.
Maybe in days gone by what you suggest was the way to go but movies now days have full range signals going to all channels and not utilisng this is a waste. You dont need big speakers and a big amp to easily handel a full range, provided your listening levels are within the amps capability. I even have my FX1000 on large.
Set to large being minimal, I find that difficult to believe, perhaps it is the tracks you are using??? There is a big diff between an 80 to 100hz cut off and full range. Even in my centers (RT55i) in large I can here distinctive differences between voices such as mel gibson ect, he sounds a bit girly without a full signal.
Everyone will have diff opinions on what suits them, but I have had this discussion so many times before and THX mode or 80 to 100hz cut off is outdated, soundtracks, amps and speakers are built for full signal, I have RT2000i in the rear and the bas signal they get funning off the pre outs is awesome, I have changed a few set ups of people I know and they all seem to agree that done right, full is the way......

Dr. Spec · August 2004

(sigh)

marcpam · August 2004

Originally posted by brody05
May I suggest you read the bass management advice on the polk audio website, it sounds as though you may learn something out of it. I do not suggest you send all the bass to your speakers, set them to large, and send the LFE + mains bass to your sub therefore doubling up on the signal, the sub does the same as what you suggest and guess what, your other speakers get a full signal for a smoother transition between mid and low effects not to mention stereo bass. Even RT 55i's can easily produce sounds lower than an 80 or 100hz cut out as you suggest (and Polk also suggest those be set to large) so I am sure your speakers can handel it.
Maybe in days gone by what you suggest was the way to go but movies now days have full range signals going to all channels and not utilisng this is a waste. You dont need big speakers and a big amp to easily handel a full range, provided your listening levels are within the amps capability. I even have my FX1000 on large.
Set to large being minimal, I find that difficult to believe, perhaps it is the tracks you are using??? There is a big diff between an 80 to 100hz cut off and full range. Even in my centers (RT55i) in large I can here distinctive differences between voices such as mel gibson ect, he sounds a bit girly without a full signal.
Everyone will have diff opinions on what suits them, but I have had this discussion so many times before and THX mode or 80 to 100hz cut off is outdated, soundtracks, amps and speakers are built for full signal, I have RT2000i in the rear and the bas signal they get funning off the pre outs is awesome, I have changed a few set ups of people I know and they all seem to agree that done right, full is the way......

The polk website means nothing to me when it comes to setting up my speakers. I am here to tell you the most economical and best sounding way to set up the speakers. Who cares about sending the lower portion to your mains when your sub is more in tuned to handling that part of the soundtrack. I have already discussed this with the polk cust. service and they tend to agree with setting the speakers to small UNLESS you are not using a dedicated sub. You are double bassing if you intend to produce lfe's out of your main and sub. If what you are saying is correct, then why would you even entertain a sub in your setup. I am not here to teach people how to setup their system, I am just trying to tell them the best way. Also if you use lfe+mains, you are directing too much bass into the track. It will not give you the intended theatrical sound. Just because you are a basshead don't mean that everybody is looking for the sound that you prefer. You need to go take an average of what people think and not quote only what the polk website recommends. You need to go learn a few things before misguiding people.

P.S. most people tend to agree that svs subs are the best on the planet. Go to their website and they will tend to agree that you would also set the mains, center, surround to the small setting. Why? because why spend 2000 on a sub if you are also dedicating your towers to help with the bass. I will tell you, the svs sub will torch any tower, if you compare them basswise. So why would you want to have the towers help out in the bass dept. Geez, you need to learn something about this.

PolkWannabie · August 2004

Does this mean that since you are running a dedicated sub i.e. the 505 that you are running the 12's as small ?!

landry_p2000 · August 2004

I tried the speakers at large and small last night, and I am still not sure what to leave them at. My sub is not an SVS top of the line, but it does the job for me. I am leaning toward "small". They were at "small" last night and I was watching "X-Men 2" on DTS and it was amazing. I will keep at it, and try a few more movies at both settings maybe just on certain scenes. Thanks for your input fellas.

marcpam · August 2004

Originally posted by PolkWannabie
Does this mean that since you are running a dedicated sub i.e. the 505 that you are running the 12's as small ?!

since you still don't understand, lets try something. Go get a setup disc and play a continuous 20 or 25 htz. tone. The sub will have a greater impact and sound pressure than the 7" woofers found in the rti12. I know first hand about the 505 bass and the rti12 bass. I am here to tell you, there is greater, much greater, impact out of the 505 than the rti12's. You show me where the rti12 are considered a front staging/subwoofer and I will drop everything and listen to what you have to say, if not, then you have no leg to stand on. The point is, is that the rti12's is considered an imaging and left,right focal point for movies. It is not considered a subwoofer. Therefore you set to small and allow all of your amperage to stage the imaging. I have my 12's set to small with the crossover set to 60 htz. I am still getting nice lowend frequencies. If you set the htz to 100 and above you are not considered at getting a full range sound. If you set it around 40-60 htz, you are considered at getting a full range that will allow the tower to utilize its performance. Therefore again, if you set to large than you are allowing your mains to go below the xover point, only because you apparently have no subwoofer in your system. Why set to large, when you have a dedicated sub to do so. Any ht mag will tell you that a sub is key to having a great home theatre. If you still need me explain myself further, please go read some documented sources and you will see that you are wrong, and guess what, I am right.

PolkWannabie · August 2004

I understood ... I never suggested any decent sub couldn't outperform on the low end ... I was just interested in how you had your 12's set.

The reality is that the 12's are clearly overkill to be set on small ...

You might as well have 8's or 6's ...

Early B. · August 2004

Why set to large, when you have a dedicated sub to do so. Any ht mag will tell you that a sub is key to having a great home theatre.

Chill out marcam. Your argument is spurious. There's plenty of reason why one would want to set his front floorstanding speakers to LARGE, even with a sub. Some people prefer the sound better at LARGE than SMALL. Apparently you don't, and that's OK. There's no right or wrong answer here, just preferences. That's why we have choices. I have an SVS and RTi10's with speakers set to LARGE. Bass all over the place -- that's the way I like it. I tried them on SMALL and my 10's sounded, uh, "small."

Dr. Spec · August 2004

A reminder for anyone setting the xo lower than 80 hz: Most BM circuits low pass the LFE (.1) channel at the selected xo.

The LFE channel typically has decent signal strength up to about 80 Hz and then the mixing engineers tend to trail it off (despite that fact that in theory it can go to 120 Hz where it is then brickwalled).

So if you set the xo to lower than 80 Hz, you are in essence lopping off the top of the LFE channel and sending it to data heaven (since it is not high passed and redirected to any of the speakers like the other 5 channels).

There are a few pre/pros that allow the user to set the low pass for the LFE channel independently from the speaker channels. This is a very nice feature, and allows you to leave the LFE channel at say 80 Hz and lower the other channels to maybe 60 Hz for a greater impression of "full range" imaging.

If you want to know whether or not your BM circuit low passes the LFE channel at the selected xo, it's easy to tell. Set the xo to say 40 Hz in your pre/pro, and then run the 120-20 Hz reverse sweep of the LFE channel with Avia. If you don't hear much of anything from the sub until around 50 Hz, your pre/pro is low passing the LFE channel at the selected xo point. Again, this is extremely common and nearly all BM circuits function this way.

I won't even get into the small/large debate again; I've posted hundreds of times on that subject.

Doc

brody05 · August 2004

First things first, before you quote someone as saying something make sure you are 'talking' to the same person.

Secondly, I am not an idiot and have my fair share of knowledge in most things home theater and go back to the days of prologic being the greatest invention ever.

Thirdly, as Rick said, why buy big speakers and then run them on small???? What a waste of money, you might as well have bought some better quality bookshelves.

Also, tell me where in my post I said that RTi12 are better than subs at producing bass??? what I am saying is send them a full signal, your amp and speakers have the capability of producing them, they are not built for LFE and will not produce those very low sounds but will do a lot more than the small setting.

Subs in my opinion are added to a system for the low freq effects that towers can not do due to amps not being able to handel the load, they have low pass filters in them due to the amps capabilities not the drivers. They are purpose built for it as you say, but hey, large speakers are built for full range signals, small speakers are built for small.

I have read many documented sources and to tell you the truth couldn't be bothered arguing my case, your mind is made up and thats fine but could you explain to me why you have large fronts if you are not utilising them.

60hz is certainly closer to full range than 80 hz and I wonder why if small settings are so much better and the sub should do all the work as you say why dont you set the xover to 80 or 100hz, isn't that the point you are trying to make..........after all, as you say, that is much better........

Oh and please dont tell me to go and read up more, I have done more than enough of that over the decades and have not only formed this opinion from my understanding but from experimenting, I don't like being told what is better, it is a matter of opinion and I don't stand alone in this respect, there are many peopole who like one or the other and no shartage of either. If I wanted a sub satelite system I would have bought bose..... and that demonstrates how much more effective full range speakers are.

Dr. Spec · August 2004

I wonder why if small settings are so much better and the sub should do all the work as you say why dont you set the xover to 80 or 100hz, isn't that the point you are trying to make..........after all, as you say, that is much better........

Clearly there is a break point where you can start to localize the subwoofer and lose the sense of full sound from the speaker channels.

80 Hz works well for most people, especially of the sub is between the mains in the front stage. Since the high pass is not a brick wall, the speaks all produce sounds below the xo frequency (albeit at a diminishing rate). This produces what Russ refers to as the "masking effect". Where the audible directional mid-bass cues are still emanating from the speaker channel even as the sub starts taking over and filling in the bottom end.

Sometimes the sub can be localized at an 80 Hz xo if it produces a lot of port noise or harmonic distortion (since the harmonics will be easily localized). In that case lowering the xo won't help much; just get a better sub.

If I could adjust the xo for the LFE channel (see my above post), I would TRY 60 Hz, since all my speaks are rated to at least 50-55 Hz. I wouldn't go any lower because you start to really stress the drivers and chew up amp power below that point, and the speakers can't play that low anyway, so what's the point?

brody05 · August 2004

Why buy a sub at all?

To get bass,

Why buy large speakers?

To get a fuller sound with more bottom end,

Why do people want bigger and better subs and more of them?

To get more bass and lower freq, does that make them 'bassheads'?

Why set your speakers to small when they are big???? Especially when there is 200watts running to them, I also happen to think that a 60hz xover is more on the large speaker setting side of things than the small, who would agree or disagree?

Doc, the argument for and against could go on forever as we already know, my initial input into this post was questioning having large speakers set to small and it is yet to be answered. Sure I may have got a bit defensive but who can blame me with the above???

I can go to previous posts where even you advised running full range signals, even since our 'blurb' in the THX thread, so tell us once and for all, what is your opinion on it? for or against? I am sure it would depend on speakers and amp, no?

And your right, (yawn)............

PS. I hope this post doesn't sound too 'defensive', it is not my intention, just making some points and asking some questions....

landry_p2000 · August 2004

Guys with my amp set at 80Hz, it seems when I set my speakers to large I lose my surround effects. They are not as detailed and little harder to hear. My receiver is only 85 x 6. (Onkyo 601) Here are my settings. Fronts: large, center: small, surround L/R: small, surround back: small, crossover: 80Hz, sub on LFE channel set at 12:00 at +12. Is this good? I maybe need to turn the fronts down. They are set at +8 and everything else is set at +12. Is it too much? Is it not enough? I know I need more power, but I am trying to get the best out of this until I can do better.
Here are my speakers:
RTi10s
CSi3
FXi3s
RTi4
PSW50

Thanks for the input. Maybe with a little help tweaking , I can get it together.

tntvt · August 2004

I hate to even say this from the fear of being blasted! After having this conversation with Dr.Spec months ago. I switched my 3000p sats to small and ran the subs off the lfe. I think the sats showed much more detail set to small. OK here we go... I even have the sats on my SRTs set to small and I do think it sounds better, more detailed. I have to agree let the subs do the work if everything is set correctly you loose nothing. You gain more detail and have less drain on your amps / receivers. OK let me have it! :rolleyes:

PolkWannabie · August 2004

Originally posted by tntvt
I even have the sats on my SRTs set to small and I do think it sounds better, more detailed.

So do I ... They fall off at 65 hz ...

AsSiMiLaTeD · August 2004

Why have big speakers if you're going to set them to small???

1 - Maybe you want the ability to do small for HT and large for 2channel playback

2 - Some people like the look of towers better

I'm sure there are lots of reasons...

My experience, I like everything set to small. I get better mids and highs that way...why? Probably becuase I'm putting less strain on my amp...

Dr. Spec · August 2004

I can go to previous posts where even you advised running full range signals, even since our 'blurb' in the THX thread, so tell us once and for all, what is your opinion on it? for or against? I am sure it would depend on speakers and amp, no?

Yes it depends on the speakers, the amp, and whether or not you are building a system or dealing with existing equipment.

If you have RTi12's and 300 watts per, sure, run 'em on large even if they can't dig as deep or as strong as a good sub. You might get cancellation issues with three sources of bass in the room, but hey, you bought your bass and your power - might as well use it.

If I'm building a system, I deliberately design for speakers set to small. With that said, I always spec the biggest/best midrange available, since it fills the room SO much better than the smaller counterparts.

I'm the type who would spec the RTi8, CSi5, FXi5 over RTi6, CSi3, FXi3 even at the same xo frequency. The bigger set-up will sound better every time. What I don't buy is my bass twice. You won't find a true woofer in any speaker I'd spec for a HT set-up; just big, room-filling mid-range drivers.

And the lack of a true woofer further exacerbates the IMD issue, making it almost mandatory to run them on small at high volumes. The RTi8 (for example) is a true 2-way and is really suspectible to IMD when set to large. In comparison, the RTi10/12 is a true 3 way and will exhibit far less IMD when set to large.

Not only that, the RTi8 really has no genuine bottom end, and is already starting to trail off at 45 Hz. Ditto for any of the other speakers I listed above. None of them can play a full range signal properly - not even close. What they can do fabulously is lower midrange and upper bass.

At least on my system, if I manually power off the subwoofer with all the speaks set to small (80 Hz 2nd order), I'm always surprised at the amount of upper bass I still hear from all the speakers.

brody05 · August 2004

1 - Maybe you want the ability to do small for HT and large for 2channel playback

Makes very little sense, if they have the ability to do one job well then they have the ability to do both....

I had my SRTs set to large, so does James. I know there is a lot of support out there for both, Iv'e come accross it plenty on the Polk Forum site....where are the people for large and full range...c'mon don't be shy...

As I said before, I don't consider 60 or 65hz a 'small' speaker setting, it is closer to full range than than the truer small setting or THX which is the 80 hz thing and most amps on small use the 80hz as a benchmark, some even 100hz.

Cancellation issues????..... easily fixed, variable phase, sub placement...., when I had the CS1000p all up I had 5 sources of active bass in the room, sounded great.....

Trailing off at 45 hz, great, a lot more than 80hz and a noticable diff in listening too I would think. I just don't understand why with todays digital and DTS movies and the improveent in HT gear why people don't utilise this better and hear the lower stuff in every corner of the room, sure there is a slight drawback in losing some detail to a small degree that most people wouldn't notice, but it is after all a movie, music is diff and I use the 2 channel thing where ther is more power and more detail.

How many of you have actualy given it a real good try???? actually sat down and watched a full movie????
We all have our preferences, neither one is right or wrong, I love the bass coming from everywhere and have a large setting, but everyone thinks that I must have the bass cranked all the time, I actuall dont, I have my subs set to -5 to -8, when the SRTs were here I had them to - 12 most of the time, sure I like bass, low crisp and clean, I also like hearing lower freq (45 to 80hz) coming from all channels. there are benefits there if, it may take some tweaking but hey, thats what I love, playing around until I get 100% out of my setup.
:cool:

Setting all speaker to small

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