Using External Crossover (1 Viewer)

[sasschary]

Hi, y'all,

So, I run my receiver (Denon AVR-S930H) almost solely from my laptop, and I control the audio through a DAW, Studio One, on my laptop. Currently I have my system set up so that the crossover is happening in the receiver. However, I'd like to modify that so that I control the crossover from within Studio One (Put a high pass filter on the output LCR and surrounds, and a low pass filter on the subwoofer output). But I can't seem to find a way to disable the crossover on my receiver. How could I accomplish that?

I was thinking I might be able to just set the crossover on the Denon to the lowest it goes, 40Hz, and set the crossover in Studio One to 80Hz, as it currently is in the receiver. Since there won't be any frequencies that low going into the LCR and surrounds, it shouldn't affect anything I don't think. But I wasn't sure if that would then cause frequencies higher than 40Hz in the LFE channel to get mixed into the LCR channels. My other thought was to just use the receiver in pure direct mode, but then I lose access to the on-screen UI.

I will experiment a bit with it. If anyone has any suggested, I'd appreciate them!

Thanks in advance,
Sasschary

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

A crossover has two outputs, high and low, that goes to separate amplifiers. In the case of a home theater receiver, the low pass (subwoofer) amplifier is by necessity an outboard unit, typically (but not always) built into the subwoofer itself, as the receiver has no internal amplification for the subwoofer.

So your plan isn’t going to work, sending both outputs to inputs on the same device. It would only work if the Denon’s subwoofer output had its own dedicated input, but it doesn’t.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[sasschary]

Hi, Wayne,

Thanks for your response. I think I understand what you're saying. However, with my setup, I do have a separate subwoofer input. Studio One is setup to use each of the 8 speaker channels as separate outputs, so I can control what audio goes to what speakers individually, i.e. I have an individual output in my DAW for left, right, center, LFE, etc., and using audio routing options in the DAW I can choose to send audio from applications on my computer to the left and right while I have music coming from the surrounds, or something like that. Which includes output channel 4, for LFE, which would really end up as the full subwoofer output if I can manage to get it set up how I'd like.

If I've misunderstood what you meant, or am unclear in my explanation, feel free to correct me/ask for explanation.

Thanks,
Sasschary

 

[JohnRice]

Wayne is saying it won’t work with the Denon receiver you have. It has nothing to do with DAW. You need a surround receiver that has a 7.1 analog input that accepts the 7.1 output from DAW. That’s typically only found in higher end receivers, or you could check into used ones. I didn’t double check your Denon, but I expect Wayne did.

Remember, inputs and outputs aren’t the same thing. DAW has t(e outputs, the receiver has the inputs, for the most part.

7.1 analog inputs bypass all crossover settings used for digital inputs, so that should be your solution. You just need a different receiver.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

If I've misunderstood what you meant, or am unclear in my explanation, feel free to correct me/ask for explanation.

Well, I can’t tell if there is any hardware involved in all that signal routing you’re talking about, or if it’s all floating around in a computer program.

Regardless, please study the picture below. You can see that the individual outputs of the processor, which divides the audio signal in to highs and lows (or highs, mids and lows in this case) feed to the inputs if an amplifier. A separate amplifier for each signal. This is the only way it will work.

Now, your Denon receiver does have multiple amplifiers, but there is no direct access (read “inputs”) to them. Plug into the input jacks will only give you to the front left and right amplifiers.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[sasschary]

Well, I can’t tell if there is any hardware involved in all that signal routing you’re talking about, or if it’s all floating around in a computer program.

It's all being done in a computer program, which is outputting 8 channels of audio through HDMI. The only hardware is my laptop, receiver, tv, and speakers and such/

I understand how the image you show works, but that only has two (analog) XLR inputs, which would be analogous to using an 1/8" to RCA from my laptop headphone output to the receiver's RCA input. I am outputting audio as 8 channel (digital) over HDMI.

I think I may have just understood what you mean though. Even though I have a channel exclusively for LFE, it's still going to go through audio processing within the receiver (and therefore the receiver's crossover), since I can't bypass the processing unless I use direct/pure direct mode. Is this correct?

Thanks,
Sasschary

 

[JohnRice]

Can your hardware output 7.1 analog instead of digital through hdmi? Sorry to repeat myself, but it seems a logical option is 7.1 analog output to a 7.1 input on a receiver that has it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation. A digital surround input on any consumer receiver is going to want to run it through its own crossovers, even in direct or pure direct modes. It's just how the stuff works. 7.1 inputs use the crossovers as set up in the source hardware, and don't alter it at all.

 

[sasschary]

Am I invisible?

Sorry, I didn't intend to ignore you. The receiver has analog inputs. There are 8 of them, however I'm not certain whether or not I can use them all for one input, as they are labeled to go with certain inputs. I do however feel like I remember the receiver asking what analog inputs I was using, if any, when I set it up though... As for the receiver wanting to run its own crossovers even in direct and pure direct mode, I think mine actually does bypass the crossover. However I then also lose access to the on-screen UI and the Audyssey room correction. I can test it later today to verify, though.

 

[JohnRice]

Your receiver does not have what I'm talking about. A 7.1 input is an analog input for (up to) 7.1 channels that are already decoded into their discrete channels (the .1 is always a subwoofer) that is passed through with no modification other than volume.

In the image below it is marked "Multi Channel Input". If your hardware can output analog 7.1 and you have a receiver that has the an input like shown below, it should be exactly what you're looking for. When asking for help with specialized equipment that most home audio people aren't familiar with, it will help them and you if you provide as much information about the equipment you are using as possible, so THEY can help you.

 

[JohnRice]

As for the receiver wanting to run its own crossovers even in direct and pure direct mode, I think mine actually does bypass the crossover.

No, it doesn't with digital surround sound signals, only with two channel analog, which won't give you the 7.1 channel you want.

 

[sasschary]

No, it doesn't with digital surround sound signals,

I just checked, and direct mode definitely does bypass the crossover. Sending a 20 Hz tone from a tone generator through only the left and right channels in a "normal" sound mode crosses the audio over into the sub, and includes room correction. But when the receiver is in direct mode, it has no room correction, and the same 20Hz wave sent to the left and right channels is (attempted) to sound through the left and right speakers, with nothing coming from the sub.

You are correct in that my receiver does not have a multi-channel in, though.

 

[JohnRice]

Then that should be your solution.

 

[sasschary]

Unfortunately, I then loose my Audyssey room correction. I could probably look into getting a room correction DAW plugin though, and doing that in Studio One, as well. I can probably figure something out.

Thank you for your help!
Sasschary

 

[JohnRice]

I’m almost certain you’d lose those with my solution as well. Something that probably could have been mentioned previously.

 

[JohnRice]

It occurred to me that since you have an ironclad way of testing what happens, you could go into the speaker setup in the receiver, set all the speakers to "Large", the sub to "Yes" (which it already is) and the crossover (LP) for the sub to the highest setting, you might get what you want without losing room corrections. Your receiver may not allow you to set the surround speakers to "Large" though. Some don't. When a speaker is set to large, it should shut off the crossover for that channel. The problem is, implementation of this stuff varies from brand to brand and even between models of the same brand. The thing is, using your software you have the opportunity to verify exactly what happens in all situations, like you did to test direct mode.

BTW, just set the sub to "Yes". there may be other options like "Plus" or "L/R+" or things like that, which duplicate the low frequencies in both the front and the sub. There is no established standard.

 

[sasschary]

That worked! The crossover settings are now greyed out, so it would seem that I can no longer use a crossover on the receiver, which is what I wanted. Now to get proper crossover EQs in Studio One... Thank you!

Sasschary