Considering how small the woofers are in these speakers, I think that 150 Hz is rather typical for the roll off frequency. You may be able to get a little more extension by placing them closer to the wall, but not much more.

As for music vs. movies, there is no difference at all. Audyssey is fixing the acoustical problems of the room. These problems don't really know (or care) what the content is. They are there because of the size of the room, the furniture in it, and the placement of the speakers. So, I don't believe there is any reason to have different correction settings depending on the content.

One issue that comes up in music is that there are no industry standards on the mixing conditions. In film, all speakers are set to the same level including the sub. In music, there is more of a preference by each producer. So, unfortunately, it's not possible to predict that. It sounds like you may also have a preference for higher bass levels. If that's the case, there is nothing wrong with raising the subwoofer level in the AVR after the calibration is finished. It will have no effect on the most important part of what Audyssey does: room correction.

I have a marantz nr 1602 and harman kardon hkts 16. I run audyssay and the outcome is as follows:

Subwoofer mode: LFE

LPF for LFE: 120 hz

 
Crossover:

Front: 150hz

Center 150hz

Surround: 150hz

boxes are all set as small.

I like the settings for movies but for music  I am not verry happy with the settings. Don't you think that these crossover settings are quite high? I have read several sites and also some blogs on this site, but am still struggeling with these settings. Can you elaborate on which crossover settings (or other settings?) are perhaps in general better for regular music (cd, mp3 etc.)?

Regards,

Niels

I would recommend that you try any of the other 2-to-5 up mixing modes by Dolby or DTS. Anything but all channel stereo…Actually, the only thing worse than that are the so-called room simulators (club, stadium, etc.)

Thanks for the informative answer. If it is likely that I have a room issue at 100-120Hz and the sub filters are better equipped to handle that issue. I assume that this means that I should leave the sub at 120 even though I am starting to get some directionality out of the bass?

So you don't recommend all channel stereo. While I am curious as to why I will patiently wait untill that Blog is written… What mode would you recommend instead of all channel?

Thanks for your assistance,

James

Yes, the Direct mode disables everything. The All Channel Stereo mode on the other hand messes everything up. There is nothing worse I can think of to do to 2-ch music than use this horrible mode. I need to write another blog about this and rant for pages…If you want to up mix to surround there are much better modes that use some steering intelligence.

In MultEQ XT the subwoofer filters from Audyssey have 8x higher resolution in the sub. So, if there is a room issue near 100-120 Hz then it is much better handled by sending that content to the sub. When you set the cover lower, the speaker filters are trying to deal with the issue and are probably running out of resolution.

I have been listening to music using the All Channel Stereo mode. I actually do not like the direct mode as much since it disables both the subwoofer and possibly believe the Audyssey calibration on the receiver.

The subwoofer is working at the lower crossover frequencies and I do hear the really low frequencies coming out of it. It just seems like the bass is very lacking and thin (unless I either disable the sub or set the crossover to 120Hz).

Thanks,
James

One of the reasons I bought the HT-RC370 was because it had MultiEQ XT and the receiver did have me perform all 8 measurements and pinged the sub each time.

This is a brand new 2011 model middle of the line Onkyo receiver. Does Onkyo have the specs for this receiver listed incorrectly?

I have a Onkyo HT-RC370 powering a 5.1 channel system with AR 328PS main speakers (35Hz freq response) and a BIC V1220 subwoofer (23-180 hz response).

I originally had been using only the main speakers however I wanted a subwoofer to properly reproduce the LFE channel in movies. When I added the subwoofer and ran the calibration the crossover was set to 40 Hz for the main speakers. After listening to music with this setup I thought that the sound seemed very lacking in bass (actually less bass than before I added the subwoofer) and slightly unbalanced like it was missing all of the mid bass. Prior to finding this blog I had experimented with some of the settings in the receiver and had tried setting the fronts to full band (significantly more bass but not balanced) and I had even tried setting the crossover to the THX recommended setting (80Hz) but I could not get music to sound right.

After reading this article and the comments I tried adjusting the crossover and finally found that if I set the crossover higher I could finally get balanced sound. I eventually set the corssover for the main speakers to 120Hz since that seemed to be the fullest sounding setting.

Are you able to shed some light on why setting the speakers to small with a crossover would result in less even thinner sounding bass than when the speakers are set to full range?

Does 120Hz seem high for setting the corssover? I would prefer to have it lower (closer to the 80Hz range) to prevent directionality of the bass.

I verified that the speakers are capable of reproducing low frequencies (no blown woofers) by setting the receiver to no subwoofer.

Thanks,

James