Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[MrHaugen]

I've gotten to the point where I'm finally somewhat happy with my speaker setup. It sounds much better than anything I've had before, as video has always been my main focus.... This setup might not be much, but I'd like to know if there's something more I could or should do. Both to protect them from blowing up during heavy use, and perhaps to get something more out of them than the default settings in MC.

Here's what I have today...
Receiver: Yamaha RX-V661 (90W x 7)
Front Speakers: DALI IKON 1 MK2 (45-30.000 Hz, 6 ohm, Sensitivity 86 dB, Crossover Frequency 2.500 / 14.000 Hz)
Center: ARGON 6344C (80-20.000 Hz, 4 ohm, Sensitivity 85 dB (1W/1m))
Rear Speakers: Dali Stile (75-22.000 Hz, 6 ohm, sensitivity 83 dB, Crossover Frequency 2300 Hz
Sub: DALI FAZON SUB 1 (150 watt max / 90 watt RMS, 37-200 Hz, Crossover Frequency 50-150 Hz)

It's connected with HDMI from the HTPC to the Receiver. I've mainly been thinking about protecting some of the speakers by setting the crossover frequencies. Especially removing some of the bass from the front speakers, and using the sub for that instead. How would I go about doing that? Is there any gain? Is there other recommended settings to look into?

I would really appreciate it if anyone could give me some suggestions as to what I should do! I'm stumbling in the dark

[mwillems]

My first question would be: do you know what the rated power handling of your various speakers are?  I ask this only to potentially put your mind at ease about blowing them up.  Most speakers have a specified amount of power they can handle, and that rating will let you know if you're in the danger zone.  Obviously amps can put out much more than their rated power when driven to clipping or in unusual circumstances, but I've never owned a pre-fabricated speaker with a sensitivity in the 80's that wasn't rated to at least 100 watts. You should look into that to set your mind at ease.  EDIT: Also I forgot to ask, are your speakers vented or sealed?  If they're vented there's another factor in play besides power handling.

But there are other good reasons (besides protecting your speakers) to redirect bass to your subwoofer (i.e. it can play those frequencies!). A good first step would be to have a look at the "room correction" entry in the DSP studio.  It has options to reroute bass on a speaker by speaker basis and with variable crossover options.  Based on the ratings you provide you might not get much advantage out of re-routing the front speakers (they go almost as low as your sub), but you'd get some bonus bass from the rear and center if you redirected them below their response range. 

[Urbanito]

I am very sorry, but I think that all your system selection is quite wrong.
First, you should have all your speakers from the same brand, since there are a "signature in the sound" that should be preserved.
If you don't want or already have some speakers, the rear ones can be smaller and less powerful. The center channel is, at least, as important as the front speakers.
You will need a better AV amplifier than the Yamaha. Either a Marantz, a Denon or a Pioneer one with, at least 150 watts for channel (the more, the best).
You will also need a good subwoofer. The best it is, the smaller speakers you can have.
Please don't choose a Japanese one. You have several US made that are outstanding and not very expensive.
A good AV amplifier (or receiver) will have a very easy system to calibrate all your system, taking into account your room characteristics. It will setup all your system in 4 or 5 minutes and it is very easy.
If you need more advice, please ask. There are some B&W systems, small in size, but grate in sound and not terrible costly. They are very beautiful and the sound is wonderful.
Kind regards,

Joao

[mojave]

It's connected with HDMI from the HTPC to the Receiver. I've mainly been thinking about protecting some of the speakers by setting the crossover frequencies. Especially removing some of the bass from the front speakers, and using the sub for that instead. How would I go about doing that? Is there any gain? Is there other recommended settings to look into?

I would really appreciate it if anyone could give me some suggestions as to what I should do! I'm stumbling in the dark

1. Any ported speaker or subwoofer (which yours are and listed in the specs as "bass reflex") has a built in high pass filter to prevent over-excursion of the driver. You could give them 2x more power and you wouldn't have to worry about them "blowing up during heavy use."

2. Your subwoofer has only a 6.5" driver and won't be able to output much bass. I would recommend just letting it get the LFE signal and not re-routing bass from your mains/surrounds. If you had a more powerful subwoofer, I would make much different suggestions.

3.  Your sub is spec'd to go down to 37 Hz and your mains to 45 Hz. Re-routing bass won't help much.


Here are some suggestions - some of which you may already be doing.
Subwoofer
1.  Use the R/LFE connector on the sub to connect to the receiver
2.  Set the MODE to LFE, the PHASE to 0, and the CROSSOVER all the way up (at 150)

This settings will ensure the subwoofer isn't adding any additional filtering to the signal.

Receiver
Unless you use it for several sources, I would set all distances and levels to 0, speaker sizes to large, and turn up the volume. I would also turn off any additional surround processing. This will allow you to use the DSP in JRiver for any processing and prevent the receiver from adding any processing.

JRiver
1.  Use Internal Volume Control
2.  Use the Room Correction DSP and set your distance settings. In the bass management just leave it to No Crossover.
3.  Get yourself an SPL meter if you don't already have one.
4.  Using the SPL meter and the level tool in Room Correction (at the bottom of each speaker tab), set the relative volume levels for all the speakers and your sub.
5.  Go to Tools > Advanced Tools > Audio Calibration and use the 5.1 volume calibration to set the Reference Level in Options > Audio > Volume. Turn up the internal volume until the SPL meter reads 83 dB with the test tones and then set that as the Reference Level.
6.  Use Loudness if you prefer.

I've got to go and may have more suggestions tomorrow.

[MrHaugen]

Thanks for the input.

Yes, I know the speakers should be of the same brand, and possibly in the same series. But I did not have the money at the time to afford a 500-1000 dollar center speaker. This is very much still a budget setup. And it will take time before I upgrade it all. And I know my center speaker is bad. It's cheap, and I'm afraid I've already made a dent in it. It has a tendency to give me this bad sound on some actors' voices when I crank up the volume. So, this is probably the first speakers to get swapped out. Probably a middle class Dali center.

This is also the reason why I asked if there was anything I could do to prevent such "accidents". Yes, I like to have high volume sometimes. That's often more important than the quality it self. When I purchase another speaker, is it only the Watt that has something to say of how much it can handle before it's broken?

My current speakers are not vented.

The sub is small, yes. It worked well for my smaller room, one year ago. Now, I'm in a big living room, and I have to sit on top of it to really notice the bass. So, this will probably be the second thing I'll upgrade. I've allready looked into it. I know I need bigger elements here, and with that more watt.
I've been looking into a new receiver as well. Especially the Onkyo TX-NR616, 7x160 watt. It should be better than what I currently have.

Thanks a lot for the detailed suggestion, Mojave. I'll take a look at them later when I have the time.

 

[jmone]

Unfortunatly there are no free rides on this one.  You will/should hear distortion if you are driving the system (amp and speakers) at a SPL level too high.  If you hear this you just have to turn it down as if you don't you will end up burning out the voice coil on one or more of you drivers (I've gone through three on my PC setup so far but Axiom Audio keeps replacing them  ).  If the system is not "loud" enough without distorting you are up for $$$ to replace the system with one that can deliver more "clean un clipped power" to speakers rated to handle them.

[MrHaugen]

See? That's how newbie I am at this. I did not realize that the receiver also can be the source of this distortion. I've always just thought of the speakers, and what they can handle.

Onkyo TX-NR717 just ordered. I could not resist when I found a 40% off sale I've been looking at the little brother for some time, but this is a more powerfull one, and it has pre out. Which might be handy one day. Who knows.... This also sorts out other issues I had about the lack of DLNA on the Yamaha, Spotify integration and a nice Android/iOS app, as well as more inputs which I need. Perhaps some of my distortions on the voice level might be fixed by this. But I also suspect that I have to replace that low quality cheap-ass center speaker soon.

[jmone]

Ahhh good start.  What happens when a amp clips is that it drives a flat line current to the speaker heating the speaker coil till it fails.  No doubt you will need to replace speakers as well!

[jmone]

...blurb on clipping http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(audio)

[BillyBoyBlue]

TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK

There are just as many audio nuts as video nuts that waste their days trying to built a better system and can't get off the merry-go-round of endlessly fiddling and fooling around. Well sorry, 99.9999% percent fail, mostly because they don't have a clue what they're doing falling for endless hype from both manufacturers and users. Quite foolish I would think.  

Two of the biggest mistakes many setting up an audio system make is having one or more speakers out of phase and being unable to resist fudging things by using their receiver to add or take away, usually boosting bass levels. Next to that not understanding it is the RECEIVER, not the speakers that really matters. It makes no sense to buy top of the line speakers if you just hook them up to some Walmart receiver. That said, receivers too are way over hyped and few really can tell any difference between a mid range system ($400-700) and one costing double or triple that.

[Micromecca]

TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK

99.9999% percent fail

Where are you getting your statistics from?

[JimH]

I've told you a million times not to exaggerate.

[Micromecca]

Same Place as Jim perhaps 

[InflatableMouse]

What I'm missing here is your room layout and positioning of the speakers. To get the best out of any system you need to position your speakers properly. People can give you guidelines but in the end you're going to need to experiment, moving them around, toeing them in or out and sometimes raising them helps too.

The best advise I can give you is to read up about this topic and play with positioning to find the optimal setup. Also find some reference material to listen to. In their optimal position, you can expect the sound to improve not just in soundstage but in quality as well.

[Micromecca]

+1 on what Mouse said, positioning of speakers is Key IMO to get the best out of any equipment, regardless of cost.

[mojave]

78% of all statistics are made up.

+2 on positioning

My current speakers are not vented.

According to the specs for the Dali Ikon 1 Mk2, the manual, the product pdf, and the pictures (port in rear of speaker) they are vented. Also, you can't have a speaker that small with extension to 45 Hz unless it is vented. Do I have the model correct?

Regarding power, it takes twice as much power to increase the volume by 3 dB. Going from 90 watts to 160 watts is an increase of 2.45 dB of maximum output.

A friend has a cheap center speaker with some better mains. We switched JRiver in Output Format to JRSS mixing and checked "move center to front L/R." The phantom center sounded much better than using a cheap center. I've been using a phantom center at home (I'm the one that requested the feature) for the past several years and prefer it. Going to no center can actually be an improvement. If you go to Options > Video > Adaptive Volume and set it to Medium, the center speaker level will be increased by about 3 dB and can help with voices. This works before the JRSS mixing so it can even be used with a phantom center. It has been requested that a Light (with center boost) option be added since the Medium option uses compression.

To prevent accidents, you have to know when they will happen which is accomplished by turning up the volume. Once you reach the maximum volume you want to use, then set the Maximum Volume in Options > Audio > Volume. You could alternatively use the adaptive limiter in the Parametric Equalizer DSP.

[BillyBoyBlue]

Where are you getting your statistics from?

Same place all the audophiles get "their system is better than yours" because they say so.

[MrHaugen]

Alternative positioning is not an option for me, unfortunately. There's not many places they CAN be.
You're right that the Argon center is vented. The other Dali speakers seems to be very closed though!

I will try to set up the phantom center speaker as you suggested. That might be better. The main speakers are of a much better quality than the center I believe.

[InflatableMouse]

Alternative positioning is not an option for me, unfortunately. There's not many places they CAN be.

Moving them forward, backward, toeing them in or out, can make a world of difference.

Make small changes. Centimeters or even less.

[MrHaugen]

I've had some time to test my new Onkyo TX-NR717. It's pretty impressive so far. I love the Spotify playback from my Phone and Pad! I think it reduced the bad sound on voices quite a bit. But my center is still struggling in some cases. Even pushing the front channel to the side speakers does not help much. I think it might be that I just like to hear the voices really well, and that my speakers are not created for those levels. I'll try to change them as soon as my Las Vegas trip is over, in April

[aquatarkus]

I'm going to suggest something different here

have you used the calibration microphone and run Audyssey set up on the Onkyo NR717, if you haven't I suggest you do that as a starting point.
Once you have run that and set your system up run it for a few days to see if you like the sound. then I would take a note of the settings, set everything back to default and the use JRiver to set the crossover frequencies speaker distance's etc, then have a listen and try to compare.

have a look at these threads as there is some interesting information within them (you might have to register on the forum free of course to see some of the videos)
http://www.avforums.com/forums/av-amplifiers-receivers/1178772-av-receiver-tutorials-inc-auto-eq-systems.html

http://www.avforums.com/forums/video-productions/1178455-tutorial-av-receivers-amps-auto-eq-set-up.html

http://www.avforums.com/forums/av-amplifiers-receivers/1019893-crossover-speaker-settings-relation-bass-management.html

Regards
Aquatarkus