large or small speaker setting problems!

Dave H

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Hi I have set my speakers all to small setting on my amp (Yam A1) on advice of numerous people of this BB.
The problem is when watching a film I know quite well ( theres something more about Mary ) which I finally bought, there seemed to be a lack(spelling) of bass on the front soundstage.
I am using big Cerwin vega's for my mains and a Paradigm CC 350 for my center.
My sub is a Servo 15.
Should the sub not fill in the missing bass from the front soundstage or is only the very low sent to the sub that is why I am missing the bass on the center channel?
I had the same problem when I demo'd a Kef 200C in that it sounded ok but it lacked bass compared with my Paradigm CC350, so I gave it a miss. ( it was a tad overpriced at £300 for a ex demo speaker in my opinian)
I have now turned the speakers all back to large but Iam not sure if there is anything else I could try.

cheers Dave.

PS I think the Yamaha A1 sends all the bass below 90HZ to the sub.
 
What about the crossover setting on the sub? This should be set to bypass if available or if not to the highest setting.

Mark.
 
They only way to find the best setting for you is to experiment till you find the sound you prefer.
I had the same feeling you have with the fronts set to small. The sound just felt too thin and didn't have as much impact as when they're set to large so that's how I have mine set up. You may get issues with the sub and mains interfering with one another with this setting but the only way to find out is to try.
Have you set your system up properly with an spl meter? It's often a lot easier than doing it by ear and experiment with various crossover setting (on your amp) to find the best setting that integrates with your other speakers.

I ended up staying with speakers set to large with lfe sent to main and sub (80hz) works for me:devil:
 
Hi Hawklord I don't have a spl meter yet but I will be getting one shortly, does any one know the best one to get?
also I can't alter the freq to the sub, it is below 90HZ or nothing.
I don't have the X30 for my Servo 15 so I can't fine turn it to match my mains which go lower than most big speakers(my mates Ref Kef 4.2's included).
I suppose I will either after upgrade my amp or purchase a X30 for my Servo to fine turn the Bass that way.

cheers Dave.
 
Some things to try. (you may have already tryed but just in case);

Try different locations for the Sub. Subs interact with the room alot and there placement makes major changes to their performance. Some massive generalisations, if you need lots of acoustic gain, put it in a corner this will give you lots of SPL but is likely to make the bass response a bit lumpy. For a smother response the middle of a side wall often works well. Do try moving it backwards and forwads as well as a movment of a foot can make a massive difference to the in room response.

Look at your delay settings. If they are not all the same (its unlikely that they are) you could have distructive interference in the subwoofer output summation function in the DSP. Basically if you delay a signal you can end up putting it out of phase so it may simply cancel the base out at some frequencies. Try to get your main speakers (LCR) on an arc with the listening position so that they all have the same delay.

As an aside if you want to improve the delay for your speaker set up try to place your speakers in multiples of the setting steps in your AV Receiver. So if the av reciever works in 1 foot steps try to make sure that the distance to your listening position from all of the speakers is a whole number of feet. This way when you set the delays they will be correct rather than an approximation.

Regards,
Andrew
 

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