Newbie with setup questions

dapunkster

Here's a quick rundown of what I am running and I need to know how I should be wiring them and what my crossover should be set at.

Fronts: Polk RT55I's
Center: Polk CS400i
Sub: Velodyne VA-1512 (12" front-firing & 15" down-firing)
Rears: None at the moment. I'm still looking for the right deal.
AVR: Yamaha HTR-5280

I have had them set up for quite some time, but I can't help but feel that something's not hooked up or set-up right. Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

BrentMcGhee

haha, those are the exact same front three speakers that i have and i love them. it took me along time to get everything set up how i liked it but it was a labor of love and it was well worth it. The thing i found to be the hardest and paid off the most was getting the crossovers set right on all of the speakers and the large/small setting (wich kind plays right into the crossover setting)

how is everything hooked up right now.
i.e.

what type of speker cable?
are your 55i's and 400i bi wired?
what is each speaker set as large or small?
what is the crossover set to on any of the speakers you have set to small?
what is the sub crossover set to?
how is the sub hooked up lfe or line level?

i hope i did not throw to many questions at you at once but this setup is kinda dear to my heart becasue i really do love those speakers and it took me a long time to set them up to sound as good as they do.
I think i will really be able to help yha out at shortning the tweaking period.

dapunkster

Originally posted by BrentMcGhee

how is everything hooked up right now.
i.e.

what type of speker cable?
are your 55i's and 400i bi wired?
what is each speaker set as large or small?
what is the crossover set to on any of the speakers you have set to small?
what is the sub crossover set to?
how is the sub hooked up lfe or line level?

Speakers are hooked up with Monster XP 12ga wire. Sub is hooked up with a MonsterBass 300 interconnect from the AVR subwoofer out to the L/R in on sub (using Y-connector). No bi-wiring. Speakers are currently set to small. I'm not sure about my current crossover settings because I don't really know enough about how to tweak them. That's part of my problem. I believe the sub is hooked up lfe, but I'll have to double check.

Willow

you can turn the xover on the sub all the way up and just fine tune the volume. Your receiver prob. has a set or changeable xover setting.

BrentMcGhee

first thing to do is to bi-wire those guys. All three of them. even though bi-wiring is a huge debate whether or not it makes a difference i belive it makes a subtle improvement. To my ears i can hear difference with my 55i's from bi-wire to single wire. just pick up some monster 16g omc to run to the top binding posts. (make sure you remove the jumpers between the terminals though or else bye bye amp)

After you bi-wire them i would change all three speakers to large so they get a full range unfiltered signal. They can all handle the full range plus it makes it alot easier to blend them with a sub when your front speakers are set to large so they are producing some mid bass. (this was the part i played around with the most (large vs small) but in the end i found setting them to large greatly improved the transistion from speakers to sub... it is almost seamless, alot better then when i had them on small.)

you have you sub hooked up through lfe wich is good if you can adjust you the cutoff frequency from the amp. (make sure you have the cable pluged into the lfe on your sub so as to avoid double crosover efect.) right now you have it split with a y adapter and going into the right and left line level. If your sub does not have an lfe connection or sometime called filtered connection then keep it hooked up like it is but turn the crossover on the usb all the way to avoid the double crossovers.

**If you cant adjust the cutoff frequency for your sub from your amp then you have to completley change how it is hooked up.**

set the cut off frequency for the sub on your amp to 60hz.... after extensive testing i found this to be the perfect area to begin to cut sound from the fronts and send it to the sub. The 55i's are rated to play down to 35hz but they really begin to lose volume around 50hz so setting the crossover here gets you the maximim out of your 55i with out wasting any frequencies on a speaker that can not produce them at refrence volumes.

there are a couple more things i can recomend but i would like to know what your source is and how you are hokking it up. also what is your systems primary use, music, movies or both?

BrentMcGhee

o yeah i almost forgot the most important step after you make all those changes. take a sound level meter and play some test tones to level out all of your speakers to the same volume. Do not use the ones that are built into the amp they will not be very accurate. The ones i have found to be the best are on a disc called "Avia - Guide to home theater". It has some really good audio and video calibration tools, as well as alot of information on home theater in general.... i learned alot from it. (if you cant find it anywhere i would be more than happy to mail you a copy of it)

Pinktulip7

Willow is right,try different setting like 80hz..60hz ....do the experiment see whichone sound better!!