7100, LFE, and Subwoofer level, relationship?

[Wadsbrau]

I am trying to wrap my head around LFE, and subwoofer levels and how they interact with the 7100. I completely understand what LFE is. However, I am not sure how the 7100 settings for Subwoofer level (in speaker setup menu) and the LFE level interact with the 7100. Subwoofer level generally sets the ouput level (db) for freqs at or below the crossover freq in the setup.


I am just not sure how each of these interacts with each other.


Thank you
Darren

[Chris D]

Heya, Darren, and welcome to the Guide and Club Parasound! :banana: Unless you own ungodly priced and performing high-end speakers, you'll want to set each of your speakers in the 7100 to the "small" setting. This will allow all sound that is contained in that speaker's channel below 80 Hz to be sent to the subwoofer, not the speaker. I personally adhere to the principle of letting the subwoofer recreate the frequencies that it is designed for, not your subwoofer.

So what that means is that your 7100 will be sending the LFE signal which is a DEDICATED channel in DTS or Dolby Digital 5.1 to your subwoofer. It will ALSO be sending the frequencies below 80 Hz in each of your speaker channels to the subwoofer. So the sub will be recreating each of those sounds.

Now, you may be actually asking, "which adjustment do I use for the subwoofer 'volume', the 'subwoofer level' or the 'LFE level'?" The answer is, you want to calibrate your system using the subwoofer level. If you find that the LFE tracks of DTS and Dolby Digital specifically (NOT the low frequencies from the other channels) is either too high or too low, then you can adjust the "LFE level".

Think of the "LFE level" as a subset adjustment of the "subwoofer level". The sub level adjusts the level of all signals sent to the subwoofer. The LFE level adjusts ONLY the LFE signals sent to the sub, leaving all other subwoofer sounds alone.

[psychdoc]

Nice post Chris. I was always curious about that stuff too even though I don't have a sub. Matt.