Polk Speakers trouble with lows, bass

poulanium

Hey, I just got the Polk RM6800 set, powered by a Denon 1905 reciever. When I play any audio source (including Dolby Digital and DTS) it seems like the lows, and bass tones are muffled. The mids and highs sound fantastic, but the lows sounds muffled and metalic. Does anyone have any settings or hookup suggestions that might make the bass tones crisper and more life-like? Or is this just my imagination? Thanks.

PolkThug

On the receiver, all speakers to "small", sub to "yes", crossover to 80 or a little higher. Connect receiver to sub with sub out rca.

poulanium

I set up the sub by running the left and right speaker wires through the sub (as instructed in the polk manual) and then running wires from the sub to the L and R speakers. I get good sub response, is this possibly causing the lows on the speakers to be muffled. Also, it seems like the dialogue from the center channel is pretty muted in comparison to the music and surround effects.

PolkThug

Set it up the way I suggested, it will clean your sound up a lot. Then, the next step will be setting channel levels.

Also, try to place your sub in the front left or right corner of the room.

Regards
P-Thuggy

poulanium

The sub is currently in the right corner of the room. Changing the frequency from 40 to 80 seemed to help quite a bit. It is sounding much better in terms of base, and moderately better for the center channel. The dialogue still sounds a bit flat, but I'll tinker some more. Thanks for your help!

poulanium

Oh, and I also adjusted the center chanel so that it is a few db higher than the l/r/surrounds. perhaps I should mute the surrounds more to bring out the center?

Frank Z

The center channel should not be any louder than any of the other speakers in your system. Proper calibration means that all of the Sound Pressure Levels (SPL) as measured in Decibles (db) are exactly the same. Although some people calibrate their systems by ear, but the most accurate way is via an SPL Meter. Linky follows >>--->>> http://www.audiophilia.com/hardware/spl.htm

Eric W

poulanium wrote:

I set up the sub by running the left and right speaker wires through the sub (as instructed in the polk manual) and then running wires from the sub to the L and R speakers. I get good sub response, is this possibly causing the lows on the speakers to be muffled. Also, it seems like the dialogue from the center channel is pretty muted in comparison to the music and surround effects.

If you have it setup this way (which is best, the LFE method on a 6800 will cause double filtering as the crossover in the sub is non-defeatable and is fixed), on the receiver's setup menu make sure the front L and R speakers are set to "large", the center and surrounds are set to "small" and the crossover frequency is set to 120 Hz and the subwoofer is set to "off". As somebody else suggested, use the Radio Shack SPL meter to calibrate the relative levels of the channels.