Question Denon avr-4520 settings

sussexhifi

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So I have setup my new receiver a denon avr4520. I was using a onkyo tx-nr801e

I cannot get the speakers to sound anywhere near as good on dvds. The onkyo used to shake the whole room.

Speakers are jamo D6 THX 7.1 with single sub.

I'm sure it's just the settings. But not sure what it should be

All the speakers are set to large, or should the rears and backs be small. Also the cross over for sub it's on 80hz.

Now I'm really missing the onky-donky
 
All speakers should be set to small, 80hz crossover and the subwoofer setting should be set to LFE only not LFE+Main.
 
I was told large when I got them with the onkyo as their 250rms so assumed same on new amp will try on small.
 
RMS rating is irrelevant to speaker size settings. It's their frequency response that's important. THX certified speakers are designed to be used in a sub/sat configuration with a crossover around 80hz and all bass routed to the subwoofer (hence the small speaker setting).
 
You may find this Audyssey article of some interest:

Small vs. Large


Do you have a subwoofer in your system? Great. Then your speakers are small. Before you get all upset, read on. This is one of those audio myths whose time has come to be busted. To understand why, we need to talk about Bass Management.

In the early days of home theater it was thought that in order to reproduce the full movie surround experience at home it was necessary to place 5 large loudspeakers in the room. The reason for the size was the woofers. To play at theatrical reference levels and reproduce the deepest bass available in the content requires each speaker to have 12” or larger woofers. Let’s just say that this theory didn’t get very far in the real world.

A better and more practical approach came after studying human perception. The mechanisms that we use to determine the direction of arrival of sound depend on the frequency. At high frequencies the wavelength of sound is small and so sound coming from the side is shadowed by our head. That creates a level difference between the sound reaching the ear closest to the source and the ear on the other side. Our brain analyzes these level differences and produces an estimate of where the sound is coming from. But at lower frequencies, the wavelength of sound gets longer and our head is not large enough to produce a level difference at the two ears. Instead, we analyze the difference in time of arrival of sound at the two ears. Sound arrives first at the closest ear and we use that to determine the direction. But even that ability fails us below about 80 Hz. The wavelengths get very large and it was found in listening tests that 80 Hz is the frequency below which most people can not localize the direction of sound.

Taking advantage of this apparent “deficiency” in our hearing was what made home theater practical for millions of homes. Five satellite speakers of reasonable size could now be used because they no longer required large woofers. A subwoofer (or two) can reproduce the lower octaves and it can be placed out of sight since its content is not directional.

But there is also a practical advantage: directing the bass to a dedicated subwoofer channel with its own amplifier greatly improves the headroom in the main channels. The idea behind this was proposed in a Society of Motion Picture Engineers (SMPTE) meeting in 1987. The participants could not agree on the minimum number of channels required for surround sound on film. Various numbers were being shouted out until a voice was heard from the back: “We need 5.1”. Everyone’s head turned around to look at Tom Holman. He proceeded to explain what he meant: Take the low frequency content from all 5 channels and redirect it away from the satellite speakers to the subwoofer. If we do the math, then the content below 80 Hz is 0.004 of the audible 20,000 Hz bandwidth. But 5.004 didn’t sound as catchy so Tom rounded up to 5.1. By the way, don’t make the amateur mistake of calling it 5 dot 1. It is a decimal: 5 point 1.
Fast forward to the early 90s when the first DSP powered home theater receivers started to appear. Along with progress came complexity. Some industry forces believed that Bass Management should be an option that could be turned on and off by the consumer. That’s not necessarily a bad idea, but to make an informed decision requires much more knowledge about the system than what was available to the typical consumer. So, the Large and Small rule of thumb was established. The idea was to look at the size of your speakers and decide whether their woofers were “large enough” to reproduce the lowest octaves at the required levels. It was a noble thought, but looking at it 15 years later I believe that it has led to nothing but massive confusion. The poor consumer was led to believe that Large is somehow a good thing and was then left wondering why there was nothing coming out of their subwoofer.

Redirecting the bass to the subwoofer relieves the receiver amplifiers from having to work on reproducing the low frequencies and this greatly improves the headroom. If you happen to be using Audyssey MultEQ for room correction, you will achieve much better low frequency performance because the MultEQ subwoofer filters have 8x higher resolution than the filters in the other channels.

Here is a better rule: All speakers are Small. In today’s complicated AVR lingo that just means: If you have a subwoofer you should always turn bass management on. Always. Even if your receiver clings to the past and automatically sets your speakers to Large.

http://www.audyssey.com/blog/small-vs-large

I was told large when I got them with the onkyo as their 250rms so assumed same on new amp will try on small.

Whether dealing with a new or old receiver, the advice has always been to set speaker sizes to SMALL irrespective of the speakers' actual size.
 
ok cheers, i have now done this, what should i have the settings on the Sub set to as its still not sounding as good as it was?

im in the top in put MONO, i think on the old system i was using the THX input bottom

what about crossover as just dont sound right?

my wife even sound it dont sound as good so thats not good for me lol
 

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Prior to running the receiver's calibration, turn the sub's phase to 0°, its cutoff frequency filter to 150Hz and the Level setting to about the 10 o'clock position. Use either the MONO or the THX input.

After calibration, set the receiver's bass management so that all speakers are designated as being SMALL and set appropriate crossovers for them.
 
Yeah I am not sure what the crossovers should be set to for the front,center and rears. All new to me as first receiver I bought in 7 years lol
 
Being THX certified, I'd suggest you use an 80Hz crossover for all your speakers. Being THX certified means you can be assured that they can all handle frequencies down to at least 80Hz.
 
will try this tomorrow, really realy hope i can get it sounding as good if not better than before,

i know this should be a much better amp, but at the moment im really missing the ONKYO

will try this and them maybe re-calibrate and see how it sounds

thanks for your help on this Dante
 
Being THX certified, I'd suggest you use an 80Hz crossover for all your speakers. Being THX certified means you can be assured that they can all handle frequencies down to at least 80Hz.

just checked what its set to for crossover and currently on the following

speaker selection = individual

front = 40hz
centre = 60hz
surround = 80hz
surr back = 80hz

so set them all to 80hz yeah?
 
I would. You can always revert back or change the settings to something else if you don't like the results. You can actually improve the headroom in of your speakers association with upper frequencies by increasing the crossover. The only thing you've to be warry of is setting the crossovers too high. 80Hz is regarded as being the point at which the human auditory system starts to localise frequencies so the higher you set the crossovers above this point then the more chance their is that you'll start to notice where the sub is in relation to its output.
 

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