Setup help, Meridian 565!

[fraggle]

Hi All,

The nice Mr Smurphin of this parish has loaned me the 565 he loaned from Audio T to have a listen to.

I've reset it and gone through all the setups and configs and for movies its great, but I'm a little bit stumped by the differences in the sound modes.

Basically what is the difference between:-
Direct & Stereo?

I *thought* that stereo used the sub as well as the main front speakers? But its not.

Now I've got a typical 5.1 speaker setup, which is Layout A right? So I can choose either type 1 or type 2 at the initial setup (I chose type 1)

What I want : Main fronts large, centre small, sides none, rears small, sub to use the LFE and also the < 80Hz signals from all the other 5 channels.

Now looking at the speaker table on page 24 of the installation manual, Layouts B, H, N, A and J are close, but nothing exactly matches. I've actually chosen H but the sub only works with the LFE and doesn't work in stereo mode.

Would I be right in guessing that "Centre" in the sub column indicates the sub gets the LFE channel AND the LFE effects from the CENTRE speaker? Which to my mind is really wierd! And what does a "Mono" sub mean? Which channels does it tahe the bass from?

Should I select Layout A (which says "sub : Mono") and then tweek the main speakers to "Large" later on, turn the Sides off and set the rears to Small?

Its gonna take me a week to set this thing up!

Help!

 

[buns]

Its a tad of a nightmare! Without the manual to hand, its tough to answer your questions, but when i get home tonight, i will have a look at it and see what i can remember when i did it.

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[mutley]

i think that if you select fronts as large, you cannot use crossover on them so they will always get the <80 hz info...

 

[buns]

I agree with Mutley, though was going to check first. If you dont want them getting less than 80Hz, why not just set them small?

hold on, maybe ive got confused..... so you want all 5 channels giving the lower than 80 Hz? So you want to run them all full range? And have the sub do LFE?

 

[chrisgeary]

i have a 561 - i believe its the same principle. i think you want layout N. this should be large fronts, small centre and rears, no sides. sub mode = mono. i would suggest downloading the meridian application as you can use it in offline mode. once you have set the speakers sizes and types, it will tell you what layout that corresponds to.

this thread on the hitchhikers site which details bass management, here is snippet:

LFE: Sub handles LFE channel only and no other bass. Rest of system bass below the crossover setting is handled by large speakers. If there are small speakers, their bass below the crossover setting will be directed to the large speakers in the system and not the sub. Low pass filter for LFE channel is adjustable, at least in the latest software release.

Mono (also known as "bass-heavy"): Sub and large speakers handle the LFE and all bass for the system. There will be redundant production of bass information by the sub and large speakers. If there are small speakers, their bass below the crossover setting will be directed to the large speakers in the system and the sub. NB. This is partially incorrect, small speakers bass below xover it will not be duplicated by the sub!

Center (also known as "bass-neutral"): Sub handles the LFE and all bass for small speakers (i.e. center, side, rear). Bass information directed to large speaker channels will go there only and not to the sub. Large speakers will also share the LFE.

Since the mono description is slightly incorrect, I am not sure about the validity of the center description. In any case, the site has many other threads about bass management that ought to be of interest.

mutley is correct, any speakers set to large will get a full range signal.

direct is 2 channel audio with no bass management is applied. however, any analogue audio is still converted into D even though its 'direct'. i have not tested, so im not sure if you have smalls all round whether the sub defaults into action or not.

stereo is 2 channel audio with bass management applied

so yes, stereo will use the sub provided you are not using an LFE sub. you need to use a mono sub. (these are configurable by processing mode as well - you can have a mono sub for music, and a LFE sub for movies).

hope this helps!

Chris