Hookup Questions (need help!)

Ken1222 · August 2003

Hi everyone. I have a Onkyo TX-SR600, Polk RM6700 sats, Polk PSW404 sub, JVC DVD player. I have a few questions:

1. The Polk manual says the "best hookup method" for the sub is to wire speakers thru the sub, and not to use the sub cable from receiver to the sub, and to tell receiver "no" when it asks if I have a sub. The store where I bought the stuff from says to ignore that and hookup using the sub cable. What exactly is the difference? Will a novice like me notice any difference in sound?

2. I placed all of my sats at the same height in my 12 x 16 room. Should I lower the fronts to sitting ear level and keep the rear sats at standing ear level? Will I notice a difference?

3. When I play music CDs (mostly classic rock), most if not all of the music comes thru the center channel and front sats. Should I go to "all" stereo mode to get music from all five sats?

4. I am confused as to what levels to put my sats at. Should they all be the same? Should the rears be higher then the fronts?

Thanks very much

Ken1222 · August 2003

regarding item # 4 in my original post...I was regarding to the selectable calibration levels in dB of the sats and center channel. Not sure what to set them at.

thanks

Loud & Clear · August 2003

Somebody? Anybody? Hope someone with a similar system can hook, Ken, up with the lowdown.

Where do the sats roll-off? What crossover options do the receiver provide for?

For Heaven's sake ... help this man!

danger boy · August 2003

Originally posted by Ken1222
Hi everyone. I have a Onkyo TX-SR600, Polk RM6700 sats, Polk PSW404 sub, JVC DVD player. I have a few questions:

1. The Polk manual says the "best hookup method" for the sub is to wire speakers thru the sub, and not to use the sub cable from receiver to the sub, and to tell receiver "no" when it asks if I have a sub. The store where I bought the stuff from says to ignore that and hookup using the sub cable. What exactly is the difference? Will a novice like me notice any difference in sound?

2. I placed all of my sats at the same height in my 12 x 16 room. Should I lower the fronts to sitting ear level and keep the rear sats at standing ear level? Will I notice a difference?

3. When I play music CDs (mostly classic rock), most if not all of the music comes thru the center channel and front sats. Should I go to "all" stereo mode to get music from all five sats?

4. I am confused as to what levels to put my sats at. Should they all be the same? Should the rears be higher then the fronts?

Thanks very much

sorry i don't know much about sub/sat settings..

but. the front sats should be at ear level.. the rear surround sats should be about three feet above your seated position. you want the rear surround to go over your head. not firing directly at your ears.

Listening to music in pro logic or PLII or any of the other digital modes gives you a very hollow sound effect. Most music will sound best in plain old stereo L&R only. those DSP modes usually sound pretty bad for music.. they do ok with movies.

As for your hook ups.. try both ways.. one might sound better than the other one. It's all subjective. Some prefer one way.... other perfer the right way.

good luck. more guys will chime in on this soon. just be patient. and check back.

later

BeginnersLuck · August 2003

The clubpolk way of hooking a sub up is to use the LFE output on the receiver to the LFE/stereo inputs on the sub. Turn the crossover on the sub all the way up (to its highest setting). This is just the preferred way as most sub amplifiers do not offer better bass management (lacking varriable high pass crossovers) then an AVR...

1) Most new AVR's allow you to set the crossover of the sub thus allowing you to set the high low pass filter of the sat sub, however these filters are referred to usually as the subwoofer crossover frequency. The internals of the receiver do the rest of the work...With your sats, I would recommend using the sub output on the receiver, setting the sub to yes, and starting with the crossover set at 120Hz and see how that sounds...

2) Place the fronts and center tweeters at ear level (or as close as you can to ear level) and mount the rears 2-3 feet above ear level...

3) For music cd's you should set the receiver to stereo as most DSPs (Digital Signal Processing, these are different modes usually consisting of hall, theater, pro logic, pro logic II, 3 ch/stereo, each being different to different manufacturers) used by the receiver will not sound nearly as good as good old stereo....however, feel free to experiment with whatever DSP modes you like, as I nor anyone else in this forum cannot tell you what sounds best to you...

4) Get a RS Sound Level Meter to calibrate all the channels to the same db level...this will balance your system...highly recommended...

Hope this helps, if you have any further questions or need some clarification on the details, please feel free to ask...and welcome to the forums....
-BL

mccarts747 · August 2003

i have the onkyo tx-sr600 also. i am no expert but here are ome suggestions from my experiences. good luck

1.
for the sub. my feeling is for now, as a novice you probably will not notice the difference in your hookup method. I would go with the direct hookup to the receiver. that is how i have mine and so far it sounds fine. I have a CS Cube8 sub in a 20 x 13 living room. it's a new(old) house so i am sure as time passes i will feel the need for some more base in my home theatre but for now it provides a good thump and my fiance doesn't yell at me.

2.
if you can't put your front sats at sitting ear level i would angle them toward your favorite listening/watching position. or your front sound stage might seem a bit off.

3.
for playing music, take the receiver off surround mode unless you are listening to a disc that is encoded for it or all your sound will
come through you center and two fronts like you are watching a movie. depending on the environment i use either "all ch stereo"(if a few of us are sitting around the living room, lower volume but better envoloping sound) or just "stereo" if i am wandering about the house the sound seems to carry a bit better this way.

4.
as far as calibration. play around with it and see what sounds right for your listening preference. size of room, distance to speakers and screen all play a roll in this. use the ch set button to test the white noise in each speaker the volume should be the same fo all speakers. for now i have left mine all at 0. one note i wouldn't put your rears db level higher than your front. you wnat the sound back there but you don't really want to know where it is coming from. if it is too high it might be distracting.

hope this helps
McCarts

Ken1222 · August 2003

wow, great responses...thanks, everyone!

section19 · August 2003

I have the 6700's and initially hooked them up the traditional way (since I had already sprung for a $40 subwoofer cable). But, after perusing some threads here and talking to a Polk CS person I switched it to the "Polk Way".

Apparently the 6700's have a built in freq. x-over that starts to roll off at about 150 hz. Since my 1803 x-over setting only goes up to 120hz. (my sub' s x-over does go up to 150hz.) I was concerned about a freq. gap in the 120 - 150hz. range.

To be honest, I don't know if I could tell the difference. Now that my speakers are good and broken in, I just might switch them back for a while and see if I can tell the difference.

One thing I do miss having it hooked up the "Polk Way" is the ability to adjust the sub volume on the fly w/ the remote. Since the sub is patched into the L - R Main channels and the sub setting is "off" the only way to adjust the sub level (without also increasing the L- R Main channels volume, too) is by hand with the volume knob on the sub itself. That kinda sucks, but I guess I've gotten used to it.

I don't know if any of this is helpful or not but I thought I'd chime in since I have the same speakers (that I really love, BTW

). The whole internal x-over thing (which isn't mentioned in the manual or on the website, you have to talk to the customer service dept. to get that info) is what prompted me to hook them up according to Polk's recommendations.

Good luck and enjoy! :cool:

Hookup Questions (need help!)

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