Bass management: Marantz strategy? (1 Viewer)

[Mark Tranchant]

I've just taken my first tentative steps into home cinema with the purchase of a Marantz SR4200 amp - very impressed.
My main speakers are old Wharfedale Diamond 4s, and until I get around to building a dedicated subwoofer, I'm using the aux in of my Clavinova which works surprisingly well.
However, I don't want the Clav powered up all the time for music, so I've set the mains to LARGE. I've noticed that if I do turn the Clav on, the subwoofer output is still active even for non-LFE sources (e.g. CD). I would have thought that LARGE mains would give an LFE-only subwoofer.
Does anyone know what the Marantz's strategy is? No mention in the (rather brief) manual...

 

[Chris PC]

I think its straight summing. Front=Large and Sub=Yes gives you bass divided evenly or maybe even fully duplicated in both the front and subwoofer. Kinda problematic as they both don't offer the same response, so where the sub and fronts both produce flat output you end up with too much bass. I have my subwoofer connected to a socket which is controlled by an on/off switch on the wall, so when I want to listen to the fronts LARGE alone, I don't have to also set SUB=NO, I just leave the wall switch off

 

[Jeff D.]

The key here is the subwoofer setting. With SW set to 'Yes', bass energy will be sent to the Subwoofer whether the fronts are set to 'Large' or 'Small'. The only difference, of course, is that in 'Small' low bass energy is not sent to the mains.

The theory is relatively sound for such a simple bass-management system. Even though your speakers can be run as 'Large' ie. full-bandwidth, their response is probably not that great the lower you get (in terms of frequency). On the other hand, the sub was designed for response in low frequencies, so it could still be handy. Unfortunately it isn't perfect as you have no control over the crossover frequency (100 Hz in the Marantz) which is a bit high.

Using the SR-8000 in my system, I run it two different ways: for movies all speakers are set to 'Small' and the sub is fed via the Sub Out. For music, I run in Source Direct, where only the mains are active as large (no bass management). I run lines to the sub from the receiver's Left and Right pre-outs and use the crossover in the sub to dial in the bass accordingly. This creates a near-seamless blend between the mains and the sub and I am no longer a slave to the Marantz's cross-over.

Question: does the SR-4200 have a 'Source Direct' feature? I believe it does. If so, that is the answer - switching to Source Direct when you listen to music will remove the subwoofer output.

/Jeff

 

[Mikey B]

Jeff,

How do you run/connect the line out sub from the receiver to the sub AND L & R pre-outs to the sub? Are you using a switching device?

And yes, you are correct in that the SR4200 has a source Direct mode which removes all bass management (including no sub-out data).

 

[Doug Smith]

What does "source direct" do when playing a DVD 5.1 disc? Is the crossover affected?

 

[Chris PC]

Jeff,

I know I've asked you this before in many mutitude of bass threads, but refresh my memory. What are your mains -3 dB point and where do you set your subwoofers crossover at? Just wondering what sort of overlap results. I was thinking about this in another thread and I never got around to making a crossover. I could try using a pair of cables from my front main outs, but I've not a long enough pair right now just have a single. Mine is Marantz SR6200 and PSB 6T fronts and Mirage BPS-400. I listen to music without the sub sometimes. So far I've been using the 100 hz crossover when I listen to music with the subwoofer but I use the Mirages 100 hz crossover too. It works ok, at least better than just the Marantz crossover alone.

Hmm, that is a good question about the bass sub out and left and right out. How the heck do you switch that?

Chris

 

[Mark Tranchant]

Jeff - thanks for the advice. Source Direct seems to work just fine. Do you also run the sub out from the SR-8000 to your sub for the LFE channel and mix that in?

A note to anyone with the SR-4200: the manual states that the Source Direct feature sets all speakers to Large and the sub to On. Conceptually, this may be true at some level, but I can validate that (for a digital two-channel PCM signal at least), Source Direct mode does not give any sub output.