Surround Bar with HK AVR235/Athena PS-4000 - Best settings?

tolax

Hope this is in the right place in the forum, seemed to fit about three catagories.....


Is there some consensus as to the best way of hooking up the surround bar?

Currently I have an HK 235 receiver and a Athena PS-4000 subwoofer (Also have the Polk subwoofer that came free with the Surround Bar but I suspected the Athena was the better unit)

I sit approx 12 feet away from the TV/Surround bar with a wall directly behind me. Looking from the sofa at the TV the right hand wall is only about 6ft away and the left hand wall is about 20ft away and open (classic L shape). Surround bar is currently mounted above the TV (6ft)

At the moment I have the subwoofer wired up using the speaker level inputs in parallel to the surround bar as per the manual.

On the receiver I can either configure my speakers by X-over or size. Currently I have them configured for size.

L/R - Large
Center - small
surround- small
surround back - none
subwoofer - none (other options are LRE or LRE+ L/R)

I can enter distance for the speakers and currently all speakers are set for 12ft distance.

I can boost db on any speakers but presently all of these are set to 0.

Currently I would say the sound is okay, better than the TV speakers but I never hear anything approximating a 'surround sound'. Not sure if this is due to setup or room dimensions. Love the look of the surround bar but would love to get a 'better' sound. All components are connected via optical cable and are typically giving either dolby 5:1 or DTS depending on source material. System is used 99% for TV/DVD's.


Lots of questions (sorry in advance)

1) Would it be better to connect the subwoofer directly to the receiver? If so what setting should the subwoofer be set to in the receiver (LRE or LRE+L/R). Any thoughts on the X-over setting for the sub - 120 ?

2) Are my large/small settings correct for the surround bar? Wasn't sure if I should be enabling the 'rear surrounds' and also whether my large/small speaker settings were correct. Also whether it would be smarter to set the speakers by X-over freq instead - and of course what those settings should be?

3) I read somewhere that it was a good idea to boost the db on the speakers. Is this just for the L/Rsurrounds? Is +3db the consensus?

4) Currently I have the distance set as 12ft for all speakers (dist from speaker to sofa). I also thought I read though that you could set an additional delay of 15ms (?) for the surrounds. Guessing that that is about 1.1ms/foot would it be sensible to set the rear speakers to 25ft (12+13ft) err.... or set all the speakers exect the surrounds to 0 and set the surrounds to13ft.

A fine example I think of what too much reading and too little basic knowledge can do!

Any input gratefully received.

tolax

ben62670

I would manual set the crossovers at 100hz, and the sub at 100hz. Setting the L/R at large sets the crossover to low for the soundbar. As for the LFE set it at only LFE. Leave the settings at 0db for all. The speakers in the SB are all the same drivers from what I have read. Yes keep the distance for the speakers at the same level.

tonyb

I am no surround bar authority,Agree on the sub option.Since your room is open on one side,the soundbar can't bounce off any walls on that side.Tell me again why you chose the surroundbar for your setup?

tolax

I decided on the sound bar becuase I have four kids (two under 3) and I wanted something I could put out of their way. Life is hectic as you can probably imagine so the hassle of running speakers etc to the rears or sides was something I also wanted to avoid. Finally I also wanted something that ashetically matched the 50" Pio plasma.

Considered other solutions such as Niro or the yamahas but as I had the receiver and sub already the polk fitted the bill.

Never was under any illusion that this was going to be a 'great' setup. From a 'hey that took 10 mins to setup', 'ha, the kids can't reach it or try and eat it' and a 'that sounds better than the speakers that came with the Pio' it fitted the bill.

tonyb

No on wall,in wall or in ceilling options?Carpet on the floor?Since you have a wall directly behind your couch,why not some small bookshelf speakers on stands with the wires under the carpet ? Shame to have such a nice TV and not have the surround sounds to go with it.Buy the wife some flowers,take her out for a nice dinner,then go parking.Like it or not,there is a price to pay for what we want.:D

tolax

Not sure after four kids the wife is very trusting of me when I take her out to dinner and wine & dine her.

Thanks for all the input - much appreciated.

VXR8

L/R - Large
Center - small (should be large)
surround- small (should be large)
surround back - none
subwoofer - none (other options are LRE or LRE+ L/R)



2) Are my large/small settings correct for the surround bar? Wasn't sure if I should be enabling the 'rear surrounds' and also whether my large/small speaker settings were correct. Also whether it would be smarter to set the speakers by X-over freq instead - and of course what those settings should be?

Hi Tolax,

Haven't received my Surround Bar yet, but have downloaded the manual for the product. Re the above speaker settings, the manual suggests that you set all your speakers to Large. Also to parallel run your main speakers through the sub, and set sub to off through your AVR. They also have the LFE connection within the manual, so it maybe worth having a quick read through there for alternate connection types.

ben62670

If you are going to run through the speaker level inputs yes set the L/R at large. You would be better off setting every thing at 100hz (read the sound bar spec, why would you want to send a lower frequency to speakers that can't reproduce them?), and send the LFE via line level to the sub.