In the house: Lexicon MC1 vs Onkyo 989 (1 Viewer)

[Ricky T]

Lexicon redirects the center signals below 120hz to the sides for Logic 7 and Music Surround. Sounds fine pretty good so far
I read that link to Phillip Brandes write-up on Bass Enhance. Phillip says if I use my subs as side speakers, and set subwoofer to "NONE", I lose the LFE for 5.1 sources? Is this true?

 

[Richard Burzynski]

Rick:
Not a problem. Just get an SVS sub and use it as a dedicated LFE sub. Problem solved.
And until you get yourself an SVS, just set the mains to large and LFE should be re-directed there. I know that your 2 12" NHT 3.3 woofs aren't anything special (sarcasm) but maybe they're worth at least a try.
Rich B.

 

[Jeff H]

Ricky, IMO the bass enhamce is a must. I have a Polk CS1000 center with built in subwoofers and I was unwilling to try bass enhance. I figured my center can go down to 40hz and I spent all this money on it, I'll be damned if I am going to cross over my center at 120hz. The people at SMR convinced me to try. I compromised and set my center crossover to 80 hz and hooked up 2 subs to the sides. My side are Polk 11t's, they go down to 30 hz. I tried it without the subs and it sounded good. I then hooked up 2 subs and was blown away by the sound. I still get the benefit of a powerful center and the enjoyment of bass enhance. I have a Sunfire MKII for the LFE. You should get a SVS for the LFE. Once you have it setup and calabrated, I believe you will be amazed. I have not tried it for movies yet, but for music it is incredible. Enjoy!!

 

[Ricky T]

Richard B,

Yes, SVS LFE and NHT SW3p sides would be the dream setup. Too bad I live in a townhouse.

Jeff,

I honestly have no place to put an SVS sub in my ~ 13x15 room...already have two full size couches, NHT 3.3s, two sw3p subs, 56inch toshiba. Richard is just kidding, he's been to my place and knows I can't play any deeper/louder bass without getting in trouble with the neighbor. If you'd like, I can email you an excel diagram of my room.

 

[Drew Eckhardt]

Lexicon DC-1/DC-2/MC-1s running the v4 software do bass management differently than other processors with or without bass-enhance enabled. The specifics are complex and incompletely documented enough that they are probably not fully understood by any one but the Lexicon software engineers, although Philip Brandes's writings (including his wonderful Bass Enhance FAQ) come closest.

Lexicon bass enhance applies phase shifts to apparantly monural bass, giving you an enveloping feeling at the expense of some slam. It doesn't change where bass would be routed otherwise - to do that requires speaker cross-over setting changes that affect routing with or without BE. Given that the effects work best when they come from the sides, speaker cross-overs are usually changed for bass enhance.

In all cases, bass from a given channel is effectively first routed to larger (lower cross over) speakers on the same side (the mains in the case of the center), then to the sub-woofer (IOW, given a 120Hz center speaker cross over, 80Hz front, and 40Hz side, center bass in the 80-120Hz range would go to the mains, center bass below 40Hz would end up in the sub-woofer).

Another difference is that the sub-woofer cross-over frequency also affects LFE on discrete formats, with LFE above the cross-over going to other speakers. For example, with a 40Hz sub-cross-over, 80Hz main speaker cross-over and 40Hz side speaker cross-over, all bass below 40Hz will end up at the sub-woofer and LFE above 40Hz will end up at the side speakers. In the absence of a sub-woofer LFE is routed elsewhere and can have its level adjusted on a per-mode (5.1 and DTS Logic-7 are different modes) basis.

However, in 2-channel modes the cross-overs work more like on other processors - the main speakers get high-pass filtered at their given frequencies, and the sub output is a low-passed (or unfiltered if the sub cross-over is off) version of the left+right sum.

This means that while the canonical 120/80/40/80/40 (center, front, side, rear, sub) bass-enhance cross-over settings work for multi-channel, on 2-channel you'll end up with a hole caused by the main speakers' 80Hz high-pass and sub's 40Hz low pass.

The other thing worth noting is that the these Lexicons use THX cross-overs: -12dB/octave high-pass, -24dB/octave low pass. This will result in less than flat response when not using speakers with a 12dB/octave acoustic roll-off at the high-pass point.

If you like tweaking things, you will go nuts (probably in a good way) with a Lexicon

 

[Randy G]

Drew,
And your opinion of the pre-amp section of the MC-1 in two channel mode? I'm just curious because I've read numerous opinions that for two-channel listening(admittedly, the MC-1 IS billed as more of a home theater processor), the MC-1 is merely mediocre and tends to sound somewhat sterile. Did you find this to be the case?

 

[Drew Eckhardt]

I run a DC-1 in my system; haven't tried an MC-1 in it and therefore couldn't speak on it from first-hand experience.
As far as the DC-1, I haven't used the analog inputs for critical listening. Using the digital inputs the DC-1 is neutral with a hint of the smoothness you get with a tube line stage. Compared to the Adcom GCD700 CD player+500II preamp/tuner combination I was originally using it's a big improvement. I lived with a Marantz 7C (vintage, not reissued) for a while; running two full-range channels the Lexicon seems more honest which is better on high-quality recordings, worse when they're a bit bright. If you don't fall into the wire with gain camp, I think you'll prefer something else.
DC-1/MC-1/DC-2 run the same software and are architecturally the same so comments on one regarding configuration or processing are universally applicable, but the hardware implementation differs so you can't really extrapolate. People who've owned a DC-1 and MC-1 seem to agree the differences are more in sound quality than character, although having not done comparisons in the same environment I can't verify that.
If you want to hear the other side of the two-channel arguments, you could troll the official Lexicon forum at www.smr-forums.com. Some guys are ecstatic, some suplement with a two channel preamp or do the zone-2 analog pass-through hack and use an outboard DAC.
YMMV.

 

[Shawn Fogg]

Drew,

"worse when they're a bit bright. "

All the more reason to take advantage of the tone + tilt controls. Want the Lexicon to be a touch warmer... dial in +.2 or +.4 on the tilt. Recording a touch bright... tone it down.

Shawn

 

[Jeff H]

Ricky, you really have to have a LFE sub. I can't imagine dvd's without one, although I haven't tried it with bass enhance. Try a Sunfire MKII or Junior for you LFE. They are very small, 11X11. You can get some good deals at Audiogon. I have seen the Junior's go for about $600. Velodyne also makes small subs. You do pay for the small size, but the sound is very good. Email me you diagram. [email protected]. I am not an expert by any means on Lexicon. I just got mine about 3 months ago and still adjust things every day. My 2 favorite toys to play with are my Lex and my Pronto.

 

[Ricky T]

Jeff,

I plan to integrate my current end table/subs to the sides (Bass Enhance should rock!); then set both sides and mains to Large. All four speakers have the same 12inch woofer, tuned to ~ 27hz, and the Lexicon should redirect the LFE to both mains and sides....so each 12inch woofer only has to reproduce 25% of the bass. I won't be lacking for bass (and I think four NHT 12inch subs has more output than one smaller sub).

I will hook up the subs to sides this weekend..using an external crossover...and let you know how BE and LFE sounds. I am worried I might get sound quality issues (ie, unwanted phase shifts, distortion) from mixing time-alignment signals from my prepro with the external crossover.

 

[John Tompkins]

Ricky, just as a side note. I had the sw3 nht sub for about a year. I can tell you that it is VERY close to my SVS 20-39. The first week I had it I was emailing Tom at svs and told him I really didnt hear much of a difference. He said to give it a couple of weeks. It turned out that there was a bit of a difference, but the nht was real close

 

[Jeff H]

Ricky, I have a couple of concerns. Again, I am not an expert by any means, so take this with a grain of sand. My first concern, I believe if you set your mains to large you will lose the bass enhance effect. Your center low frequency will go to your mains first. Therefore, you will not be using bass enhance at all. From what I understand bass enhance will look for the lowest available frequency from the mains first and then look to the sides. Your mains will get all the low frequency. You are going to have to set your mains for small with a 40 HZ crossover. Second point, what do your subs go down to? I am not familiar with the subs you have. If they only go down to 27 hz, you will be missing a lot of LFE from DVD's. I believe you need a sub that is almost flat down to 20 HZ. Again, this is only my opinion. The reason you bought all this excellent equipment is for the sound AND the ability to try different parameters. Have fun trying all the different options and please let us know your results.

 

[Ricky T]

Jeff,
For Logic 7 and Music Surround (and I will use one of these 99% of the time), lexicon will redirect center bass under 120hz to the sides.
You should do a web search and look at the NHT 3.3 towers and sw3p passive subwoofer. Both have the same 1259 12inch woofer and tuned to 27hz. The sw3p is housed in a slightly bigger cabinet (3.1 vs 2.7 cubic ft), so has more output below 30hz. I think both can do 105+ dB at ~30hz. And will have some output at 20hz. Tom V read the five 3.3 magazine reviews (which are now available at the NHT website), and said the 3.3s have at least as much bass as the biggest Def Tech powered towers.
Tom V posts some subwoofer lists (derived from Tom Nousaine tests) from time to time...I can't seem to find a link to one When you say 20hz, do you mean 105dB at 20hz? Look below, very few subs can do that (the list is longer...subs with deceasing output are not shown):
Nousaine numbers (as posted by Tom V)
SVS Dual 20-39cs+600w amp 115.5 /20hz~97 / 25hz ~111.8 / 31hz ~120.9(124dB peaks)
STRYKE HE15 proto-type 115.3 / 16hz~99 / 25hz~106
VELODYNE F1800 - 111.9
20-39cs - 109.5 / 20hz~91dB / 25hz~105.8dB
VELODYNE FSR15 - 109.1 / 16hz~90.1 / 25hz~103.1
MISSION 700as - 108.1 / 25hz~102
Paradigm PW2200 - 108 / 20hz~84 / 25hz ~104dB (112.8dB peak)
VELODYNE HGS15 - 107.7 / 16hz~89.1 25hz~102.1dB
Paradigm Servo15 - 107.3 / 27hz
VELODYNE SPL12 - 107.1 / 20hz ~90 /25hz ~ 99
HSU RESEARCH TN25(w/250w) - 107.1 / 30hz
HSU RESEARCH VTF-2 - 107.1 / 20hz~9325hz~99dB

 

[Jeff H]

Ricky, you might want to ask about setting fronts to large with bass enhance over at SMR. I have a copy of the bass enhance FAQ's by Philio Brandes found on the Lexicon FAQ at SMR. From reading it, I don't believe you can set your mains to large for bass enhance to work. I could very well be wrong, but I think further clarification is necessary. I will look into it. Let me know if you find out. Thanks, Jeff

 

[Richard Burzynski]

John,
You got my attention. Let me see, in your opinion, your SVS 20-39 sounded very close to your NHT SW3 sub. That makes me feel pretty good about my sub selections as I just can't afford SVS's right now.
Hey Rick,
Check it out, if ONE NHT SW3 = ONE SVS 20-39, then . . .
(# of smiles do indicate a crazy plan)
This is gonna be fun!
Rich B.

 

[John Tompkins]

Rich, I had emailed Tom and he said the nht sw3 was a great sub and might not be a night/day difference. I must admitt after a couple of weeks that there was a difference, I would choose the svs but the sw3 was very close, in my room anyway..thanks
I can also say that I went through a bunch of subs before svs and if I couldnt have my svs, I would choose the sw3 over the klipsch, sunfire, infinity, jbl, def tech 15tl and others that I cant remember that I have had

 

[Ricky T]

Jeff,
Phillip already verified that his writing (on that link earlier in the thread) was written in the early lexicon days, when he didn't know everything about Lexicon. Large = LFE redirect with no Sub.
Richard B,
Tom told me in his email...the NHTs roll off at ~ 30 hz. Tom usually speaks in terms of reference output (ie, 105+ dB). The SVS 20-39 is basically a 39inch tall, 20hz reference sub. I think that's could be a huge difference at reference level. IMO, a great sub setup is two SVS for front/LFE and two 12inch NHTs for side/rear bass

 

[Richard Burzynski]

Rick:

I agree that SVS is probably now ideal target for many (myself included). But saving a few bucks is always nice. And I didn't say it would be same, but "close" is a very big compliment considering SVS quality (as per John, Tom, himself, says not a night/day difference). Also, a nice EQ like Behringer allows for juicing lower/rolled off frequencies.

Rich B.