Cross Over Help with 1057

[Sticky Hawk]

I am in the process of tweaking my set up. I have B&W804S for the front, B&W HTM3s for a center, B&W 601S3 and B&W DS63S for the surrounds. I have a Velodyne DD-15 for one sub and an Outlaw LFM-1 for the other. I am using Rotel RSX1057 as a prepro and RMB1077 for the main amp.

My question is looking at the manual for the 1057 I think that I can set the front speakers to large and they will get full bass (with no LFE) up to the crossover I set (60). I can set the subs to MAX and they will get the same full bass (past the cross over I set) PLUS any LFE.

Hope this makes sense, am I correct? I do not want the LFE to go to the front speakers if I set them to large (i.e. don't want to damage them). It sounds really good to me this way but I don't want to cause any problems either. :E

Thanks in advance for you help.

[Kevin D]

Setting them to LARGE will get all the bass on the front channels plus the center and rears, regardless of the crossover setting. The crossover setting for the individual speakers is the high-pass setting when set to small.

If you have a sub setup, no LFE will ever go to anything but the sub. Setting the sub to max is only an option when the fronts are set to large. As above this puts full bass from fronts (and other speakers set to small), plus a copy of this information goes to the sub as well. This creates a double-bass situation that you wouldn't want in 99% of rooms.

Very few speakers can be considered large, and I would recommend setting them to small, but possibly lowering the crossover to 40 or 60.

Also just curious, why two different types of subs? This will generally cause more setup issues then the crossover settings in the 1057 can handle.

Kevin D.

[ICEMAN70]

Can i ask you why you would want full bass from your fronts when your SUB can handle that job better? You have an nice Sub there, why not set the fronts to small at around 60HZ and Set the Sub cross over at 80 and let the Sub do the work?

I know everyone has a different taste in music and setups will not be the same but with the setup you have now, don't you find that your speakers over power the Sub? How is your highs with this setup?

[Sticky Hawk]

Thanks to both of you for you replies and questions.

Kevin, my room size is 20'x50x10. When I first was putting the system together I was looking at the 600 series with B&W and the Outlaw sub, then I listened to the 700 vs the 600, oops, we moved up, and then I made the mistake of listing to the 804S, (I really wanted the 803D) but my wife and I at that point thought we reached our dollar limit.

I bought the Outlaw sub early on (when I was still thinking 600 -- my mistake -- thought the constuction was going to be done sooner), in talking with other people and spending some time on the AVS forum I came to realize that one sub was not adaquate with this size room, and I needed to get a second (much bigger) sub. Because of the room size I was very concerned with being able to balance it out. I bit the bullet and expanded my budget (again) to get a DD-15 (I got a pretty good deal on a new one) but I could not swing two. The EQ on the DD has been a godsend, I was able to get a fairly flat curve in about 25 minutes. Adding the 804S to large helped flatten out the curve. Could you elaborate on some of the issues I might look for in the crossover settings having the two different subs (the other thing I have considered is plugging the Outlaw into the DD). To be honest the real answer (long term) is to save up for another DD, but I kind of want HD-DVD at some point and I also at some point will want to move away from the 1057 to a dedicated processor (move the 1057 upstairs) and maybe add a 2 channel amp. Wow this hobby is worse than my wine or golf hobbies :rofl:

ICEMAN per the above the main reason for setting them to large is it was easier to get the curve to go flatter. Next step would be to do some room treatments But since this is a large main area downstairs, my wife will have a lot of input in what I can do.

I keep tinkering, my kids call me the mad scientist when they hear the test tones coming from the speakers :P I welcome any suggestions and input :T

[ICEMAN70]

You have an fairly large area. I would suggest maybe looking at another 2ch amp like RB 1092 to power your front L & R and run rest of your speakers from your 1077. You have really good speakers, and they could use more power to get you going. With RB1092 you would have 500 watts to play with instead of 100. Just a tought.

[Sticky Hawk]

ICEMAN -- Thanks for the input, this was exactly the way I was thinking was a 1092 (or something like it) and put them on the front speakers. I was actually hoping Rotel comes out with a 200 or 300 watt 3 channel or 5 channel digital like the 1077, then I could amp up the front 3 the same.

But I need a while to recharge my credit card. :lol:

[Kevin D]

Bass is a very strange thing. Trying to EQ one sub into a system is hard enough. Having another sub with different characteristics (and most likely in a different spot) will most likely create more issues then you can solve.

With two identical subs, in the same spot, and set the same; you're just getting about a 3db gain. I think you would be better suited to just run the DD until you can get another one. The correction issues that would crop up are not worth the gain.

Now.... I said large/max is not good in 99% of the rooms out there. You can be in that 1%. In the end, you're the only one that will know what sounds better. You might try running the LFM in high level with the 804's set to large. This will let you adjust the the fronts/LFM combo and then still have the DD doing LFE duty.

Kevin D.