What to do with what I got? Pioneer amp&sattelites + Wharfedale subwoffer&speakers

sheoul

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Man... my sistem is start to making me mad with all the different setups I can get and I really, really need some opinions from you guys so PLEASE HELP ME!

Here's what I have today (and since yesterday)

As amplifier I have the pioneer VSX915 (and this is the origin of my problems by having to many choices available)

A "SWEET" Wharfedale POWERCUBE PC10 subwoofer
2 (also sweet) Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 (got them yesterday)
5 Pioneer (not so bad) satellites (I took them from an old SC-HT80)

Till yesterday I used 2 huge speakers from an old hifi from the 80's as front L R speakers and replaced them with the new Diamond's in my 7.1 setup (pioneer satelites for center and surrounds) and guess what? Almost no difference at all!:mad: The overall sound quality did not change that much. I guess that having a really good subwoofer handling tose low frequencies and a good amplifier making up for the lack of good sound reproduction from the 80's speakers with compensating frequencies coming out of the sattelites were the factors that made the investment in the wharfedale diamonds not satisfactory. My doubts now are:

1-Keep the 7.1 as it is now?
2-Bi-amp the Diamonds and switch to 5.1? (my amp allow this)
3-Use the bi-amp mode and route the frequencies coming out of the bass chanels that would go to the speakers end up in the Subwoofer?

Now the killer:
The thing is that there is an option on most of these pioneer amplifiers that allows the identification of speakers as LARGE or SMALL. If you select SMALL the bass frequencies that would be destined to those speakers end up beeing reproduced by the subwoofer, if you choose LARGE then all the signal goes to the speaker. For the subwoofer there is also an option called PLUS and what happens in this case is that all bass frequencies are continuously reproduced by the subwoofer even if there are LARGE speakers connected.
The wharfedale diamonds can reproduce low freq but if identifying them as LARGE has a similar effect of turning of the subwoofer because almost all the lower frequencies seem to somehow end up beeing reproduced by them... I almost forgot I can choose the crossover frequency between 50-80-100-150-200 HZ (wich one is the best considering the powercube says 35-95HZ and the diamonds 48-24khz)

So what do you think I should do?

For now I have 7.1 (that means no bi-amping for me) front Diamonds as LARGE and subwoofer as PLUS but the supposedly awsome diamond 10.1 sound so dull that they make no improvement in my system. Opinions?:lease:
 
Have you tested the new set-up with movies, music - both?

For movies, you'll certainly notice an improvement if you got a new center speaker as this is where the majority of dialogue comes from - the diamond center being the obvious choice.

I'd be surprised of you didn't notice much difference if listening to music as generally most speakers will have their own characteristics - especially if you went from using big box, huge driver type speakers that I'm imagining you were previously using and then going to the smaller diamond speakers.

Edit:

In the meantime, before going and buying a center, go into the set up menu and set it up with no center speaker, which will force the dialogue along with the other center speaker sounds to the left and right speakers. Then, try alternating your old speakers with your new to see which ones you like.
If you can't tell the difference then you can sit back, happy in the knowledge that your tone deaf and it doesn't matter a hoot what speaker you hook up to it!

And 1 last thing, speakers generally need run in a bit before they sound their best - try to get 50-100 hours on them as soon as you can.
As for subwoofer set as plus, thats fine - and for crossover, set up as large is ok, but the only way to get the best results is to experiment. The room and placement of speakers also play a big factor so there is no definative rule of thumb for crossovers - other than trial and error and pick what sounds best. I like to set my crossovers at around 80hz regardless of speaker size but thats just me - sometimes I'll set them large but my subwoofer does a good job so I've no great need to tax my speakers to go really low.
 
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Thanks for your reply...
The first thing to point out is that there's an obvious huge difference between my new speakers and the old ones, if I turn the amp to stereo mode it's a totaly new sound league but when I get the 7.1 mode working I really can't tell that much difference... I guess that having 2 out of 8 sound sources replaced doesn't have that much difference in the overall sound.
Yesterday I altered the automatic settings a bit, turning the surround speakers down a bit, this allowed me to have a better perception of what the front speakers were doing and improved the overall sound (I guess that the MCACC has a bit to much preference for high frequencies and these are very well reproduced by my sattelites... perhaps "higher" than the diamonds not allowing for these to be heard).
Great advise on both buying a center speaker or switching of the current center (never thought of this second solution but I guess it might be ideal for the time beeing and will try it tonight).
Music in the 7 strereo mode sounds WOW!!!
Expected a little more of the direct stereo mode using only the diamonds and the cube (at low volumes sound is kind of dull (lacks brightness and only sounds great if pumped to quite high volumes).
Movies... I guess that what I was thinking was: dialogues suck!!! so maybe the advise will solve this but still expected more brighness from the diamonds, not as "shiny" as I thought it would be.

I'll update after trying the "no center" solution... crossover is at 100HZ was in doubt between 80 and 100... still am ;)

By the way between the the standard, advanced surround, auto surround wich one will do the best for 7.1 (Haven't found a movie with dts 7.1 yet) so I guess that maybe going for bi-amp and forgetting the surround back might be better, what are your thoughts?
 

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