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[syndromeofadown]

Hi all.

I want to setup a 3.0 channel system mostly for movies. I do not see this option in audio setting, there is just 3.1.

I was thinking to set MC to 5.1 then to have center channel sent to center speaker, left and left surround sent to left speaker, right and right surround sent to right speaker. But what do i do with the 0.1 LFE? Can it be dealt with by parametric equalizer too? If so, how?

Thanks for any help anyone may be able to provide.

[mattkhan]

Where do you want to send it?

[syndromeofadown]

Audio will go from PC to 8 channel dac to amp to speakers. I want to only have left, right, and center speakers. I am wondering how to redirect 5.1 channels to 3 channels, presumably with parametric equalizer.

[mattkhan]

what I mean is, how do you want to distribute the LFE channel across the actual physical speakers that are present?

you can certainly do all this with mix operations, just a question of how you want to do that mixdown

[syndromeofadown]

what I mean is, how do you want to distribute the LFE channel across the actual physical speakers that are present?

I have no idea, this is my question. What is best practice for this?

My latest thought is to send LFE to all three speakers, but if I simply copy LFE to the three speakers will this be 3 times the bass and way too much? Can / should bass be reduced if doing this? But LFE is probably too low for the little speakers, so how much of the LFE will even be audible? Whatever is done to get 5.1 into 2.0 is what I want, but for 3.0.

[mattkhan]

I have no idea, this is my question. What is best practice for this?

My latest thought is to send LFE to all three speakers, but if I simply copy LFE to the three speakers will this be 3 times the bass and way too much? Can / should bass be reduced if doing this? But LFE is probably too low for the little speakers, so how much of the LFE will even be audible? Whatever is done to get 5.1 into 2.0 is what I want, but for 3.0.

it really depends on your speakers and what they are capable of, do you know? or what are they?

[syndromeofadown]

Here is a link to speakers
https://www.paradigm.com/en/systems/cinema-100-3

Speakers are Paradigm Cinema 100. I have six of them but only 4 available at the moment. They are for a small TV room, around 8' by 12'. At the moment a full surround setup is not possible, but this is an option for the future. A sub will need purchased. So for now just stereo, or 3.0 is possible. The speakers are connected to 100 Watt per channel amp. Though they are tiny, i find that when amped properly they are comparable to my KEF Q150, and Q350 speakers.

[mattkhan]

I would think discarding the lfe makes most sense, just mix the surrounds into the front

[syndromeofadown]

Thanks for the advice. I will give it a go and see how it sounds.

[dtc]

The specs on the speakers say they go down to 125Hz with a 2 dB dropoff. You might want to mix in the lfe and low pass filter to maintain the lfe content above 100 Hz or so.

[mattkhan]

The amount of content lost will be small and avoids having to deal with potential gain issues with the lfe channel

[dtc]

True, but why give up what content there is. You know better than I how to do this, but if it is doable, I would at least consider figuring out how. Since the three speakers are identical, why not just reduce the level by 1/3 and send it to all speakers? Or, since it is non-direction, send the whole lfe to just 1.

Definitely a small  effect, but if possible I would give it a try.

[mattkhan]

no harm in trying, just have to make sure you get the level of the LFE channel correct when you mix it in

[syndromeofadown]

Thanks everyone for the help.
I added the LFE to all speakers and the sound was noticeably better. I also added a second center speaker.

Settings I used are below
I set MC to 5.1 first. In hindsight I could have set it to 7.1 then also mixed the side channels, but current setting work.

I used the left, right, center, sub outputs on the soundcard, so after adding the sub to left, right, center I copied center to sub.

All works well. No issues over the last couple weeks.