Sub/Sat crossover opinion... (1 Viewer)

[Alan Pummill]

Speakers are Paradigm Cinema sats and center and a PDR-10 sub.

Frequency response on Cinemas is 115Hz - 20kHz. I have the sub's cutoff frequency set at 150Hz. The receiver has three settings for crossover, (80Hz, 100Hz, or 150Hz).

Which would you use? TIA for your help!

 

[Paul Chalk]

I would use 100 Hz. 150 Hz is way too high for the sub.

And here's something you should try. On your receiver, change the front speakers to Large and the Sub to No. Keep the center and rears to Small. Using speaker wire, connect both your sub and your fronts to the front speaker posts. Then on your sub, adjust the crossover to about 115 Hz.

This way, you will get an almost seemless mix between your sub and your fronts. Also, there will only be a small 15 Hz gap in your center and rears, whereas before you would have the gap in the fronts as well.

 

[Alan Pummill]

Paul,

The 150Hz I mentioned is the subwoofer cutoff frequency knob on the sub. So if I use the 100Hz crossover setting at the receiver, the gap would be between the 115Hz bottom of the sats and 100Hz crossover of the receiver. There would be an overlap between 115Hz and 150Hz with the sats and sub.

As far as the wiring of both mains and sub together, I think that might do some damage, but I may be wrong.

Anyone else out there with input on my crossover question? I'm thinking 100Hz crossover would be best??

 

[RichardH]

I would just set it at 100Hz and forget about it. It's unlikely you'll hear any problems while watching movies. Now, if you listen to music extensively on this system, you might consider doing what Paul has recommended, which is using the sub's high-pass filtering.

Only thing with that is you have to know what the sub's high-pass outputs are set at. See, those are usually fixed. So, if it happens to be 115Hz, you're in luck, but that's unlikely. It's probably 100Hz or 80Hz. That's why I suggest just using 100Hz and enjoying your system.

If you really feel like it's lacking on music, I would suggest considering an upgrade for the mains or main/center, which would let you use the 80Hz setting and have no hole.

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

You should turn the crossover on the subwoofer to its maximum (150Hz, as you have it) and then use 100Hz crossover on the receiver with all speakers set to small and sub to yes. This will prevent cascading of the two crossovers, since turning the sub's crossover as high as it will go effectively disables it, letting the receiver handle all bass management duties.

Paul's suggestion is NOT the way to go, since setting the sub to no and running the mains as large with the subwoofer connected there does something particularly nasty: It sends the LFE channel to the mains. In other words, whereas in my setup above you're limiting the response of your speakers to about their -3dB limit (and therefore shouldn't have a noticable gap in response), in Paul's setup you're not only sending full range signals from all the other channels but the LFE as well... which will distort your mains, since there's no bass management with them set to large. The only way you could run it as Paul says is through one of Paradigm's control units (X-10, X-20, etc.), which have a high pass filter for running the satellites at speaker level. But for your setup, that's still unnecessary.

 

[Alan Pummill]

Thank you Jeremy. That is what I will do. BTW, this was a new system that I installed for my sister and brother-in -law the other day, an early Christmas present to themselves. It sounds really good.

They also got a Pioneer Elite VSX-33TX receiver and a Toshiba DVD player. A big step up from there VHS and stereo speakers hooked up to their TV.

They wanted a sub/sat package, and I convinced them to get the Paradigm Cinema series instead of the dreaded BOSE AM whatever, thank God.

My HT consist of Paradigm's Monitor 7's front, Monitor 3's surround. CC-350 center, and a Velodyne CT120 sub.

I quess Richard and Paul meant well, but I would never rig a system like that.