Speaker settings for Onkyo 875 with RTIA7

rparamount

Hi guys, I'm about to go out and buy the RTIA7's this afternoon for my home theatre setup. I currently have the CS2 as my center, and a JBL 10" sub for my sub. My surrounds are crappy JBL mini speakers but I will be upgrading those in a few months after I save up some money again. Currently my setup is a 7.1 setup.

So when I put the RTIA7's in (they're replacing 10 year old kenwood floorstanding speakers), what do I set the crossover HZ settings and speaker size settings (small or large) to in my Onkyo 875 receiver to get the best sound for home theatre? I use this setup to watch Blu-ray discs and HD DVDs with lossless sound such at Dolby TrueHD. My Blu-ray player is a ps3 and my HD DVD player is a Toshiba HD-A35.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is my first foray into buying speakers of this quality. I've always just had low end bargain basement speakers before. I figure I am going to start with the Auto-speaker setup with the included microphone, and then I will tweak the settings from there.


-Thanks, RP

MADGSF

Welcome to the club rparamount!

If possible I would set the crossover for the fronts to 60Hz as a start but don't be afraid to try higher or lower and see which you prefer. Not sure if the Onkyo can do that. My Pioneer can't you have to use the same crossover for all speakers and the options are 50Hz then 80 Hz.

Be sure to let us know what you tried and how you liked it.

rparamount

Thanks for the info Madgsf. So get this, I went into the store to go buy the RTIA7's and they weren't in stock. All sold out. So I left Future Shop (it's a big box electronics store up here in Canada) and went next door to Visions Electronics. I spoke with the rep there and they don't carry the RTIA7 speakers. They do carry the LSi series though.

I ended up walking out with a pair of LSi15 speakers after hearing them run off of an Onkyo 705 on the main floor. They sounded amazing, and this was in the big open showroom floor, not in a tiny demo room. I was impressed how good they sounded despite the huge room I was standing in.

So I bought a pair, brough them home, and hooked them up to my Onkyo 875. Performed an auto-speaker config, then left the crossover at 80 hz since it was the lowest setting available on my Onkyo. It doesn't seem to have a setting for 60hz although my old Pioneer receiver did. I popped in my wife's Celine Dion Blu-ray disc she just bought and set it to the Dolby TrueHD track. It's the only music Blu-ray disc we own with lossless sound so I wanted to get an idea of the difference between this and my old Kenwood speakers. Even if you don't like her music that girl has a voice and I figured it would be good to use as a comparison test.

All I can say is WOW. I am pretty much at a loss for words. It's like I have an entirely new system even though I just replaced the left and right speakers. I cannot believe how great they sound.

I then tried my Transformers HD DVD in my hd dvd player and it sounded great as well. Night and day from my old Kenwood speakers.

Needless to say in a few months when I have money again I will be replacing my surrounds and my sub with Polk Audio products.

cfrizz

WOW! Talk about an upgrade! LOL.:D

Congrats & welcome to CP RParamount!

Make sure you also plan on upgrading to more power of at least 200wpc. If you think they sound good now, you won't believe how good they will sound after that upgrade!

Actually Gaara is selling his beast of an amp you might want to consider.

rparamount

Yeah I bet they sound awesome with an amp. Unfortunately I tapped myself out buying the LSi15's so I'll have to wait awhile before anymore purchases otherwise the wife might kill me!

Ron Temple

Quite a jump, even over the A7s...Congrats. That Onk should serve for awhile. Enjoy your new speaks.

psomers

I am suprised that Audessy didn't set youtr fronts to full. Also run the cal program over 3 times. The more measurenets it takes the better it gets. I have an 805. I did have to play with the levels on my sub since Audessy is not know for getting that right.

rparamount

Actually they did set my fronts to full band, and I did run them from 3 listening positions. It worked out great. The only thing I can't seem to change is the lfe below 80 hz, looks like the 875 doesn't have that ability. 80 hz is the lowest setting. I've been enjoying the heck out of them since I bought them yesterday. There has been a constant stream of movies and music in our house since then.

-Cheers, RP

psomers

Yeah. You can't set it below 80hz. I ran through 6 Audessy settings and my subs ended up @-14db. You never heard them, so I ended up setting them @ -3db
Enjoy. If you have any questions on Audessy, just search. There have been tons of posts.
PS

J_Kennedy

I've got an 805 and it also set my fronts and center (RTi8's and CSi A6) to full. I was surprised, but it sounds great.

I just added to more surrounds and it set the surrounds to 70hz and the back surrounds to 80hz.

I was surprised that this last time, Audyessy actually bumped the sub up to +1db. It always sets it lower. I tried tricking it with sub volume changes. I still tweak it and all the others. I ended up bumping all 4 surrounds up by about 2db or so. It had already set the fronts and center to -3 to -4db's.

One thing I think it strange is that it doesn't appear to adjust the tone control. I need to look at it, or 0 everything out, then see if Audyessy does set it.