My speakers play down to 40hz but my sub is crossed over at 50hz? (1 Viewer)

[Andre*C]

My speakers (ESS 10") play down to 40hz but my sub(energy ES12) won't crossover any lower than 50hz. This causes an overlapping bump that drowns out the detail of my main speakers. Do I need a reciever that has a built in crossover to fix this problem or should I just get a new sub?

 

[Anthony_Gomez]

depends on how many speakers and what other electronics you are using. Is this 5.1 (etc) or 2.1?

there are many possible options, but I need a little info.

 

[Rick Guynn]

Are you running your mains through the sub? (speaker-level inputs?)

As a general rule, you *want* the crossover to occur somewhat above what your mains can play down to.

RG

 

[BrianWoerndle]

If you are using a crossover, in the sub or receiver, you are not getting an overlap. Everything below the crossover is sent to the sub, and everything above is sent to the speakers. So, if you have the crossover set to 80hz, you speakers are not getting anything below 80hz. (Crossovers actually taper off, but you get the idea.

 

[Phil A]

Bass frequencies sum. So if you are listening to music vs. movies and the ".1" channel effects you want your sub to be crossed over just below where you mains drop-off to fill in the missing frequencies that are not produced by the mains. It naturally depends on your room and crossover slope that is used. You could try to lower the volume a bit on the sub to see if it somehow brings the problem to an acceptable level. You also could listen without the sub and try moving the mains back towards the wall if possible to increase the bass performance or moving them away from the wall to decrease it (or move the sub a little bit away from room surfaces) or any combination thereof. The other solution as you noted is to get a receiver with a flexible crossover.

 

[Fernand]

I had a related problem. But I have a receiver with a built in crossover setting. If you're gonna set your mains to small (in order to send the lows to the sub) you need a crossover setting in your receiver. My mains holds up to 40Hz so i set up the crossover to 80Hz. It's not a religious setting, but my copy of AVIA it's on it's way so later on I will find which is the correct setting for me. Remember: there's no right setting for all the systems. It's up to you to decide that.

Check the instruction manual thoroughly to see if the crossover frequency setup appears only in case you set your speaker to small instead of large (that's my case).

Which receiver do you have??
Which settings does your sub have??

BTW, Rick is right. Are your speakers running through your sub??

 

[ChrisAG]

This is a question I have asked myself also. Let's say you let the receiver do the bass management, and its crossover setting (with the mains set to Small) is 100 Hz., LFE to the sub. Some have said that the sub's crossover should be set to full open (e.g. 150 Hz) to let the receiver send whatever it wants to the sub. In trying this, I found that deep male voices could sometimes be heard from the sub, which was unacceptable, so I reduced the sub's crossover to 100 Hz, which solved the problem. Is this the "right" setting to use though? Should I set the sub to 120 Hz, 80 Hz?

 

[Phil A]

Chris, what I think you are touching on, which was also my reading of the original post (not that I read well) is the difference between music and movies ultimately. If one is trying to get the ".1" channel effects then the crossover built into the receiver or processor is used it is dividing the frequencies that the other channels get vs. the sub and in the ideal world the sub crossover should be set higher. Again the setting is slope and room dependent. The room is the most overlooked component. This is also why the settings in the receiver don't provide a seamless transition (other than perhaps in theory) of the division of the frequencies.
I have not see it yet but the new Thiel sub, which I also hear is extremely expensive ($6k?), has an optional box with a crossover that just requires you enter the distance from room boundaries and it does the calculations. The 80 or 100Hz crossover in the receiver has no idea as the characteristics of the room. The best solution I have seen, assuming you can also turn off the crossover in your processor and go analog direct, that allows optimation for both movies and music is a Rel (www.rel.net) sub. It has 2 crossovers, high (speaker) and low level (RCA) with separate volume controls. They are are also not cheap compared to other subs (not nearly as expensive as the Thiel though) and for sheer home theater bass output there will be other cheaper choices as well so it is not a solution for everyone, especially those who mainly use their system for HT vs. music. The crossover setting with many of the models goes down to the low 20s so they can even be used with full-range systems.
It is easier to set the levels for HT where one must just get the speakers at equal level with the sub. When one is dealing with reproducing music you are dealing with levels and frequencies in a unique environment, your room. I have seen the same systems in different rooms sound both good and bad for the reasons as noted in this thread. An optimized system may sound much better than a more expensive set-up.

 

[Dustin B]

Also remember, if you are passing your left and right channels through the sub using speaker level (or line level and feeding the signal back to your amp) you will have a fixed high pass filter some where around 120hz and a variable low pass filter that the crossover dial is adjusting.

Only the rather expensive subs have the high and low pass filters adjustible (Rel, the HS series amps from Adire, etc). But this is only with line level connections, can't be done with speaker level connections.

 

[Andre*C]

There are five speakers, none of which are going through the sub so the main speakers are playing down to 40hz and the sub is definitely playing up to 50hz. My other speakers are set to small. I am only concerned about this problem for music. Like the Sneakers soundtrack's theme song looses detail on the timpani when the sub is on. I don't want to turn the sub off because I want to here the really low bass in music. I don't want to set my main speakers to small because they have better musical bass above 50hz. Does the B&K 307 have a sub crossover that works even when the main speakers are set to large?