Help setting up 3803

[rscott4563]

Can anyone help

I've got a Denon 3803 and I'm in the process of setting it up properly, I've come to a bit of a problem or should I say confusion on my part.

I'm trying to setup my speakers which are KEF Q1's FLR, Q9c C, Eggs at the rear and the KEF PSW2000 sub. My previous setup was Eggs all round with the Denon 2802 and setup seemed very simple, all speakers set to small and cross over at 80Hz.
But as the Q1's are much more capable speakers than the Eggs and go down to 45Hz, so I figured that for movies I'd probably still be better having all speakers set to small and using the sub for the low freq and LFE, as this seems to be recommended for movies no matter what speakers are being used.
But for music I wanted to use the 3803 in pure direct/stereo and as the sub isn't very good with music I figured that I'd be best using the Q1's on there own, so I decided to set the Q1's (FLR) to large and the rest to small, I set the Sub to LFE only and I set the cross over at 60Hz, as you can't have different speaker setups for different surround modes I'll have to use this for movies as well but it sounds just as good as the previous settings so no problems.
When I tried a few CD's I found the sub was still outputting when in stereo, direct or pure direct modes, why??
The manual states:

and

So as far as I can see with the FLR set to large and playing something in stereo, nothing should go to the sub??

Where am I going wrong and any general setup help would be really appreciated

Cheers

Ryan

 

[chris]

select direct and then press CH SELECT/ENTER on the remote...you will see the front display of the 3803 will cycle through the settings, with each press of the CH SELECT button, from fronts L+R and then sub....you can then press the left cursor button and turn the sub setting all the way down to off.
If i remember rightly, this will also turn it off, for pure direct.

you can do this for all sound formats..

i.e.

Have more bass for STEREO.
turn the surrounds up a bit for PL11.
and so on.

Hope this helps and have fun.

 

[rscott4563]

Will doing this not mean I'll lose the low freq sounds that would be going to the sub, or will these then be sent to just the L&R because I've set the sub to off??

I still don't really understand why anything is going to the sub anyway as it says above from the manual, setting the speakers to large means setting it to use the "speakers for bass sound below the cross over frequency" and "The low frequency range of channels set to large are produced from those channels" is this right?

Cheers

Ryan

 

[chris]

i think, if you have the sub set to off, it will then send all the low stuff to your main L/R.

I've not read much of the manual....only bits when i got a bit stuck......to many pages and writing and not enough pictures for me.....

i just tend to mess about with the buttons and see what happens.

 

[rscott4563]

Thanks a lot for your help Chris, can I ask what speakers you have running with your 3803 (I'm assuming you have one)?

Anyone else out there have their Denon 3803 setup with the same speakers as myself (ie Q1's and Q9c), if so what are your settings, speaker settings, crossover etc??
Or does anyone else have the same speakers but a different amp, if so again what do you find are the best settings??

Cheers

Ryan

 

[wilber]

rscott4563 as per your pm.

I'm afraid my setup is different from yours in that I don't use my av amp for music. The sub is connected to my integrated amp via a high level connection with a crossover of 80hz. This seems fine (I'm not sure if the kefs go as low as they claim or if they just blend in nicely). On the av amp the fronts are small with the crossover on the amp set to 80hz. Some advise against this as you can suffer from what is I think called cascading crossovers but I haven't noticed any problems to date.

Sorry if that is as little help as I expect it is.

 

[Jase]

You don't need to set the front speakers to large. Set them all to small and all bass to the sub and choose your desired crossover setting e.g 80hz. In DIRECT & PURE DIRECT modes the amp sends FULL RANGE SIGNALS to the front speakers and bypasses all bass management. At the same time it also sends a filtered signal to the subwoofer which you can switch OFF if you so desire. This setup gives you the best of both worlds for movie and music performance.

 

[rscott4563]

Thanks a lot Jase, that was just what I was looking for, why it doesn't just say that in the manual I'll never know.

So I can setup all the speakers as small and sub on with the crossover set at 60/80Hz for movies and then for stereo I can just put it in to Direct/Pure Direct mode and put the subwoofer to off and it will treat the FLR speakers as large, ignoring what I have set them as in the setup menu, and all frequencies will go to the FLR with nothing going to the sub... Does this sound right?

Cheers

Ryan

 

[Jase]

Originally posted by rscott4563
Thanks a lot Jase, that was just what I was looking for, why it doesn't just say that in the manual I'll never know.

So I can setup all the speakers as small and sub on with the crossover set at 60/80Hz for movies and then for stereo I can just put it in to Direct/Pure Direct mode and put the subwoofer to off and it will treat the FLR speakers as large, ignoring what I have set them as in the setup menu, and all frequencies will go to the FLR with nothing going to the sub... Does this sound right?

Yes, spot on. Turn the sub off in Direct/Pure Direct by using the CH Select and cycling through to SW, lower it to -12db then OFF. You'll probably find the 80hz crossover works quite well but have a tinker around.

 

[rscott4563]

Just out of interest I've been looking over the manual for the HK AVR507 and all I can say is why don't Denon do manuals like this, it may be a bit detailed in parts but at least you can understand whats going on, Denon manuals just seem to either breeze over things or not mention them at all??

Cheers

Ryan

 

[rscott4563]

Also on the question of crossover, I'd always used 80Hz previously as this is whats generally recommended, but after getting the Q1's and Q9c which state they go down to 45Hz and after reading a number of posts regarding the fact that at 80Hz the sound can still be very positional and therefore best coming from your speakers and not your sub, also as the Kef PSW2000 isn't the best sub in the world, I'd rather leave it as little to do as possible, just the big bass....

 

[Jase]

Denon manuals aren't the best in the world, can't argue with that!

Crossover settings will vary from setup to setup, room to room etc. Best thing is just have a play around with the various options and stick with what sounds best to you.

 

[gpa]

RSCOTT

Just a quick note to say keep it up you will get there soon. Unfortunately I do not need or run a sub so cannot help, but sympathize with you. The manual for me was crap, took a while to work out were everything went and god what a lot of cables. I eventually got there and once happy went back to the manual with a few questions to ponder over, that I picked up during playing.

Good luck

PS anyone know how I make my link work?

 

[rscott4563]

Getting there now, I didn't realise that the 3803 stores all settings for all of the surround modes seperately, so I've been through each mode and altered the settings accordingly, I'm still toying with the crossover setting between 60Hz and 80Hz not too sure which works better yet.

I now have a whole new question though, what is the best way to play my CD's, now that I have sorted out how to use the Direct and Pure Direct modes without a sub, I don't know whether the DAC's in my Denon 2800MKII are better than the AVR3803, ie whether using the digital coax is better than using an analogue connection, I don't have any analogue cables at the moment so I can't do a direct comparision, without spending the money, possibly in error. Both the 2800MKII and the 3803 have AL24 processing which is meant to be better for stereo reproduction, so whats the best way to do it?

Cheers

Ryan

 

[Jase]

Ryan

I think you'll find the 3803 in Pure Direct mode using the digital connection will give you the best sound. It's DAC's are superior and in Pure Direct it doubles them up so is using four per channel which increases dynamic range, sound quality..........