New Speakers - Input Apprecited

laneman

Hi All

New here, lots of info so far. I just purchased the following:

2 x RTI A7 fronts
1 x CSI A6 Center
1 x PSW125 Sub

I upgraded from an entry level PSB Alpha set, but still use the PSB Satellites for the surrounds (for now). I am using a Yamaha AVR (forget the model) but its a lower end one from about 2.5 years ago. I have 2 questions Im hoping to get help with:

1) The PSB sattelites have a Freq Response of 100Hz-21,000Hz. I have all the speakers hooked direct to AVR and using the sub-out RCA. I have my crossover (global crossover in Yamaha) set to 120Hz right now on the basis that the sattelites start at 100Hz - would you recommend this or something else? The options I have for the crossover on the AVR are 60, 80, 100, 110, 120, 160, 200.

2) On the Yamaha, I can send the LFE to the sub only, fronts only or both. Right now I have it to sub only but thinking with the crossover point, to have it sent to both?

Any thoughts would be greatly apprecited - and I love the new speakers!

Kris

rooftop59

Welcome from another newbie to CL!

1) In your situation I would personally set all three of my front speakers to LARGE and keep the crossover where you have it at 120hz, that way you are not stressing you sub too much. Another option is to set just the A7s to large and set the crossover at 80 or 100. You will experience a slight gap in frequency response in your surrounds, but I personally would not want to sacrifice that huge front soundstage.

2) If you change your A7s to large (highly recommended) then just keep the LFE at sub only.

Bottom line is to try out different settings with some familiar material and see what sounds best to you. Other guys here who have owned those exact speakers will probably have better advice.

Peace,
Paul

laneman

Thanks for the response - I will def try that.

One other question I forgot - should I worry about bi-wiring the fronts? Does it make much of a difference in sound quality? If I do bi-wire, I assume the top posts on the A7 are for highs and the bottom posts for lows?

rooftop59

You are right about how to bi-wire, but someone else will have to chime on on the benefits as I do not have much experience. Again, probably just try it and see. Some people think it makes a difference, so do not. But remember, you are not REALLY bi-wiring unless you are using two separate amps...

tfried

laneman wrote: »

Hi All

New here, lots of info so far. I just purchased the following:

2 x RTI A7 fronts
1 x CSI A6 Center
1 x PSW125 Sub

I upgraded from an entry level PSB Alpha set, but still use the PSB Satellites for the surrounds (for now). I am using a Yamaha AVR (forget the model) but its a lower end one from about 2.5 years ago. I have 2 questions Im hoping to get help with:

1) The PSB sattelites have a Freq Response of 100Hz-21,000Hz. I have all the speakers hooked direct to AVR and using the sub-out RCA. I have my crossover (global crossover in Yamaha) set to 120Hz right now on the basis that the sattelites start at 100Hz - would you recommend this or something else? The options I have for the crossover on the AVR are 60, 80, 100, 110, 120, 160, 200.

2) On the Yamaha, I can send the LFE to the sub only, fronts only or both. Right now I have it to sub only but thinking with the crossover point, to have it sent to both?

Any thoughts would be greatly apprecited - and I love the new speakers!

Kris

Kris,
If your yamaha came with a mic you should definitely run ypao to automatically configure your receiver settings.

If not you should experiment with your front speakers set to small, should provide more omph from you sub.

For the xover experiment within the 80-120 range to see what sounds best to you.

Good Luck!

laneman

I have run the YPAO mic but it set the crossover to 160hz and put my sub at 35 feet away (its 11feet away). The sub, in my opinion, does not seem loud enough. I have the volume at half and when I run pink noise through it, its barely audible and not sure why.

wutadumsn23

Welcome to Club Polk laneman. While the setup programs like YPAO are good, they are not always an end all to system setup. It gives you a good place to start, and then you can fine tune from there. I set up my rig using Audyssey, and then fine tuned the stuff I didn't like after listening to it. The key to getting any rig sounding good is time and patience, try different settings, placements, and if you mess it all up restore to factory settings or run YPAO again and start fresh. As for Bi-Wiring, I would forget about it all together, IMHO it isn't worth the cost of the extra speaker wire. Your AVR only has so much power to give and it all comes from the same place, so adding another set of speaker wires to the unused Surround Back L/R isn't going to send a whole lot more power to your Mains, nevermind double it. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

-Jeff

rooftop59

I agree with Jeff. The built-in YPAO/Audyssey/et al set-ups on the avrs are highly unreliable. Your best bet is to invest 50 bucks in an spl meter from radio shack so that you can basically set it up yourself. Measure the distance of the speakers, and use the spl to level the volume. Then use the spl to see how low your mains and center channel can go while maintaining a fairly consistent volume. When the volume begins to drop, set the crossover a little higher than that. If they get close to 35-40 hz, I would set them to large to relieve your sub. But I am coming more from a music standpoint than home theater, though my set-up is for both at the moment. It seems like other guys favor a higher crossover, so maybe that works better for a home theater setup, I just think you are going to overwork what is a fairly small sub if you set your crossover too high.

Peace,
Paul

wutadumsn23

I have a PSW125 sub and I am almost positive that my crossover is set to 120hz on it, and it does a very good job in my small room. Forgot to add that to my previous post, YMMV though.

-Jeff