Please help - Bowers & Wilkins receiver (1 Viewer)

[Al.Anderson]

Normal speaker wire is fine. You don't have to break it apart; for instance, if you're going to use the banana plug for you connection to the receiver and the hole for the bi-amp, and both wires fit in the hole, then great ((the more stands the better). If not, don't worry about it either; and if you think it'll confuse you or someone else later, then break it apart.

If it were me, I'd probably use a spade connector to jump the posts, and the banana connector to run to the receiver (so the spade can stay permenantly tightened and the banana plug can be removed if you have to move the speaker.

 

[JasonJJJ]

Normal speaker wire is fine. You don't have to break it apart; for instance, if you're going to use the banana plug for you connection to the receiver and the hole for the bi-amp, and both wires fit in the hole, then great ((the more stands the better). If not, don't worry about it either; and if you think it'll confuse you or someone else later, then break it apart.

If it were me, I'd probably use a spade connector to jump the posts, and the banana connector to run to the receiver (so the spade can stay permenantly tightened and the banana plug can be removed if you have to move the speaker.

Awesome, thanks for your help (and for every else's help as well)! I set up the jumpers using regular speaker wire and the speakers sound much better now! Can't believe I had these speakers hooked up wrong this whole time.

One more question... Even though the speakers sound much better now, I feel like the frequencies (highs / lows / mids) should be more separated. I don't know if muffled is the right word but I feel like I expect the sounds to be more individually defined from one another. I play my music from Amazon Ultra HD digital so it should be high quality audio. What else can I do to make the frequencies less muffled together and more separated?


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[Al.Anderson]

You have good speakers, and with high sensitivity they don't need more amplification. If you haven't run the YPAO set-up start there. Otherwise ... this might be hard.
If they're close to the wall, move them out if you can (a foot or so if you can); space almost always helps. And if you haven't already, try angling the speakers toward the main listing position.
If your room is dead (lots of soft items like large sofas, heavy drapes, tapestries) they could be sucking up the energy and there's not a lot you can do other than more/different speakers and a larger amp.
You could try moving to a 3-way speaker; which might emphasize the frequencies more (do better in the driver's respective ranges).
And lastly, and most ironically, you could drive the high/low speaker input with separate channels (instead of jumping them). But this involves more than just using a receiver's extra channels - that doesn't accomplish anything (expect a little more power, which you don't need with those speakers). You'd have to use separates (not a receiver) and add in an external crossover. I've never done this so I can't speak from experience, so I'll just leave you with the phrase, "active crossover" to search on.

 

[JasonJJJ]

You have good speakers, and with high sensitivity they don't need more amplification. If you haven't run the YPAO set-up start there. Otherwise ... this might be hard.
If they're close to the wall, move them out if you can (a foot or so if you can); space almost always helps. And if you haven't already, try angling the speakers toward the main listing position.
If your room is dead (lots of soft items like large sofas, heavy drapes, tapestries) they could be sucking up the energy and there's not a lot you can do other than more/different speakers and a larger amp.
You could try moving to a 3-way speaker; which might emphasize the frequencies more (do better in the driver's respective ranges).
And lastly, and most ironically, you could drive the high/low speaker input with separate channels (instead of jumping them). But this involves more than just using a receiver's extra channels - that doesn't accomplish anything (expect a little more power, which you don't need with those speakers). You'd have to use separates (not a receiver) and add in an external crossover. I've never done this so I can't speak from experience, so I'll just leave you with the phrase, "active crossover" to search on.

Hi, been a while, hope all is well. Should I run my receiver cross-over at 60hz or 80hz? Thanks

 

[Al.Anderson]

There's really not a wrong answer. Here's three ways to decide:
1) If your sub is good, well placed, and the room acoustics are decent - run it at 80 so it handles all the low end and reduces stress on your mains so they can handle the higher frequencies more easily.
2) The default/standard is 80.
3) Try both and pick the one that sounds better to you.
BTW, make sure your other speakers are set to small in the receiver's set-up.

 

[JasonJJJ]

There's really not a wrong answer. Here's three ways to decide:
1) If your sub is good, well placed, and the room acoustics are decent - run it at 80 so it handles all the low end and reduces stress on your mains so they can handle the higher frequencies more easily.
2) The default/standard is 80.
3) Try both and pick the one that sounds better to you.
BTW, make sure your other speakers are set to small in the receiver's set-up.

Thanks so much for your help. I changed the receiver and sub to 80hz and I hear a small but noticeable improvement at 80hz. Also, I changed my other speakers from large to small and I noticed an improvement there as well.

Movies are sounding great! I haven't tried music yet because the receiver doesn't have Bluetooth and I don't want to play low quality music from TV apps.

 

[Al.Anderson]

I changed the receiver and sub to 80hz ...

The sub should be set to "max" (or whatever it's called on your sub). Otherwise you'll have dueling crossover curves which will lose detail (the crossover is a slope, not a hard cut-over).

As for music I won't go into detail unsolicited, but those are too nice of speakers to deprive them of music! You could get a Roku and use one of the streaming services. Or if you have CDs laying around you could rip them and play them through the Roku media player, or use Plex to set-up a nice graphical interface.

 

[JasonJJJ]

The sub should be set to "max" (or whatever it's called on your sub). Otherwise you'll have dueling crossover curves which will lose detail (the crossover is a slope, not a hard cut-over).

As for music I won't go into detail unsolicited, but those are too nice of speakers to deprive them of music! You could get a Roku and use one of the streaming services. Or if you have CDs laying around you could rip them and play them through the Roku media player, or use Plex to set-up a nice graphical interface.

Thanks so much for the sub advice!

I pay for Amazon music for HD quality music but through my research yesterday it appears that the Amazon App via Roku gives mp3 quality, not CD or ultra HD quality like it does on the pc and mobile app. I could be wrong though.

Also regarding audio, I'm using optical out from my TV to my receiver which is apparently limiting my audio quality even further?

 

[Al.Anderson]

Yeah, Amazon Music is a PITA; I switched to Tidal for that very reason (and I have CDs).
You could try something like this; but it's expensive enough to just wait until you get a new receiver: https://www.crutchfield.com/S-PBIbQXAFHEE/learn/how-to-add-bluetooth-to-your-home-stereo-system.html

 

[JasonJJJ]

Yeah, Amazon Music is a PITA; I switched to Tidal for that very reason (and I have CDs).
You could try something like this; but it's expensive enough to just wait until you get a new receiver: https://www.crutchfield.com/S-PBIbQXAFHEE/learn/how-to-add-bluetooth-to-your-home-stereo-system.html

That's what I was thinking of doing, thanks again for your help!

 

[JohnRice]

FWIW, my starting point for crossover is to look up the +/-3dB low frequency, and double it. That puts your L&R speakers at 100Hz, since it is 48Hz for them. I didn't look up the center. That's the starting point. What you settle on will also depend on the sub, because some subs start getting sloppy once you start getting over 100Hz.

I have to check my living room system, but in my HT, my main speakers are perfectly flat (+/-0.25dB, which is extremely unusual) down to around 30Hz, but I still cross them over at 80Hz for movies, and 50Hz for music. The most common mistake is to set the crossover too low. You have a subwoofer for a reason. Let it do its job.