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large, small, or THX normal? (1 Viewer)

Johnny_M

Second Unit
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Apr 6, 2004
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I know this has been discussed MANY times. I've spent the last couple hours reading old posts about this. I think I understand the difference now between small and large setting on a receiver, small would be better since I have a powered sub to handle low frequencies. But whats the "THX Normal" setting do? As far as I know my speakers are not THX, but how would this differ from the large and small settings.

Thanks guys.


Johnny
 

JohnSmith

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Apr 8, 2003
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What are your speakers?

THX setting would set to 80hz for all, and use THX's features like de-correction, EQ etc.
 

Johnny_M

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Apr 6, 2004
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My speakers are as follows...

All Yamaha, except sub

Front L/R Towers.. Model NS-A200XT
Front Center.. NS-C444

Surround L/R.. NS-5290
Surround Center NS-AC40x

Sub, Athena AS P300



johnny
 

Steve Schaffer

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Steve Schaffer
THX spec is all speakers set to small and crossover set to 80hz, so if you select THX normal, that's what you should get.

My reciever, a Pioneer 45tx, allows me to select whatever speaker sizes I want under "free" but reverts to THX spec size and crossover settings when I choose to use THX processing. I'm using bookshelf speakers as mains and surrounds with a smallish center, so I choose the THX settings for everything.

In your case I think the THX Normal setting is mainly a shortcut to selecting all speakers small and setting crossover to 80hz. Perhaps the owner's manual for your reciever has an explanation, whether that explanation is understandable depends on the quality of the Japlish the manual is written in.
 

Johnny_M

Second Unit
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Apr 6, 2004
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281
OK, I re-read my manual and I might have been wrong about something. There are 2 different speaker settings:

1) speaker size, the only options are "THX/Normal" and "Large". So I figure setting this to THX would be the small equivilant.

2) theres also something called "Speaker EQ Mode". My options are: Speaker EQ Small, Speaker EQ Normal, and Speaker EQ Large.

The manual just says set this to whatever the size of your speakers are, but does not get more specific. Small seems to sound best. Wierd thing though, when my sub is disabled, the speakers sound to have more bass with the "Small" setting.

Does this seem right to you guys?


Johnny
 

Steve Schaffer

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I don't have a Kenwood but my guess would be that the THX/normal is equivalent to "small" on other receivers--redirects bass below 80hz to sub.

The "speaker eq" is probably different equalization to try to tailor the receiver's output to the type of speaker your using. Typically a small speaker won't reproduce as much bass as a large one, so the small setting would probably jack up the bass part of the signal being sent to the speaker to try to compensate--"the speaker will produce bass but not as much bass as high or midrange, so let's send it extra bass to bring that up." this would account for the more emphasized bass when you set "speaker eq" to "small". This is jacking up the high end of the bass (above 80hz) when you have the speaker setting as "THX/normal" but it's still kinda low frequency, so it's gonna be perceived as bass from the satellite speakers. this is all theory of course but seems to make sense.

So probably "THX/normal--Large" is turning the crossover on and off, with a fixed crossover point of 80hz, while "speaker eq" is emphasizing lower frequencies to compensate for lower bass volume compared to mid or high volume from small speakers.
 

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