Please help with crossover settings

[Amarendra]

Hi,

I am using a 5.0 setup for my home theater with speakers from the Monitor Audio M family powered by a Marantz SR5007 AVR.

The speaker specs are as follows:

1. Monitor Audio M4 floor standers: 6 ohms, 91db, 36Hz- 22kHz, 150 W (power handling)

2. Monitor Audio M2 bookshelves (side surrounds): 6 ohms, 90 db, 42Hz- 22kHz, 100 W (power handling)

3. Monitor Audio M Center: 6 Ohms, 91 db, 60 Hz- 22kHz, 120 W (power handling).

I had done the Audyssey setup but was not so happy with the LFE inspite of having floor standers as fronts.

I was also against having a subwoofer since most of my viewing is late night when my baby sleeps- so don't want deep rumbles.

Last night I however went into the manual settings of the Audyssey and discovered that the bass effect for speakers (LFE crossover) had been set very high at 200 Hz. I experimented with this bringing it down from 180 to 150, then 120 and finally to 100 Hz. At 100 Hz the LFE were fantastic.

I played around with the movie Oblivion which has the chase sequence where Tom Cruise is chased by a bunch of Drones across waterfalls and deserts.

The deep rumbles and explosions were right on track which brought a smile to my face.

My question is that will setting a low frequency cut off of 100 Hz damage any of the above speakers. If not then can I dig deeper to around 80 Hz ?

Also I guess this cross over is not applicable to stereo mode when I select Pure direct mode ?

The Marantz seems quite capable of powering this setup with ease.

Thanks in advance.

 

[mshifi]

I have a denon 1910 and the crossover is set a 80hz. No problem faced so far. Fronts are bookshelves

 

[Soundstage]

Hi,

I am using a 5.0 setup for my home theater with speakers from the Monitor Audio M family powered by a Marantz SR5007 AVR.

My question is that will setting a low frequency cut off of 100 Hz damage any of the above speakers. If not then can I dig deeper to around 80 Hz ?

Also I guess this cross over is not applicable to stereo mode when I select Pure direct mode ?

Sir,

If I may..

From what I understand of your post, you had set the LFE crossover at 200hz without having a sub. This means your AVR was sending the sub 200hz LFE channel signals to a non-existent sub and your speakers were only getting frequencies upwards of 200hz. No wonder you werent happy with the bass being put out by the speakers; there wasnt any!

Since you dont have a sub, you should dial in No Sub into the Bass Management system, so that ALL the low frequencies go to your speakers, and set the Fronts and Rears to Large. You may also set the Centre speaker to Large to see if it sounds better to your ears. This way you wont lose any of the low frequencies your speakers are capable of reproducing.

Cheers

 

[Amarendra]

After running the Audyssey set up, there was no sub detected. Inspite of that the LFE crossover was set at 200 Hz. Also the all speakers have been detected as large.

 

[shanmune]

After running the Audyssey set up, there was no sub detected. Inspite of that the LFE crossover was set at 200 Hz. Also the all speakers have been detected as large.

Is that a firmware bug ? May be, Marantz owners can help this out. When the auto setup finds no subwoofer, then there is no meaning in having a crossover setting. In fact the AV receiver should direct all the frequencies (low, mid and high) to your towers. In your case, when the crossover setting is set, I am not sure what it indicates (as there is no meaning for crossover without sub). Or is it that your receiver will send suppress all the frequencies below the crossover ? If so and if the crossover frequency is at 80 hz, then what about the frequencies below 80 hz ? will that not be heard ? If that is the case, then the idealistic way is to disable the crossover for unlimited frequency response. Again, let the techies explain here.

 

[vnmathur57]

Auto caliberations have many limitations. Please keep Fronts as `large', Crossover at 80 Hz. Also in the speaker` configuration' subwoofer status should be `None'. Surrounds should be `small'.

 

[Amarendra]

What is the definition of large and small. Are bookshelves and satellites categorized as small ?
The subwoofer status is "None"

I found out about the cross over when I went to a tab named "Manual". It was another tab next to Augyssey. Under Manual there was a setting for Bass. So I tweaked that to experience the thuds/ rumbles.

 

[vnmathur57]

If there is no sub then all the Low Freq need to be sent to the fronts only. For this, the fronts have to be designated as `large'. Otherwise LF sound will not be delivered at all as `small' speakers are for receiving high Freq only. Generally, speakers with more than 5-1/2 or 6" drivers should be designated as `large'. Most of the floorstanders have this size drivers, hence a sub is not always a necessity.