To LFE +MAIN or not

[lovinthehd]

I did read the specs of your speakers, even the service manual of the 7702 MkII, so I took the time to try and help, please do keep in mind that things I said in this post is just my opinion based on my own knowledge and experience. Not everything is black and white, and in many case no right or wrong.

P.S. I just realized many have spoken, including Gene, though I don't see the need to delete my post, hopefully it aligned with Gene's on the important points lol...

I don't think you can be dogmatic about this. I use LFE + main. The system was designed that way. The front three were designed as a unit. The upper lines of the right and left mains and the center speaker are designed with F3 half an octave above the long bass lines, and a driver in the bass lines also carries the BSC of the upper lines, as a power sharing arrangement. So the whole system is designed as an integral unit including the active and passive crossovers. So adding another complete crossover would upset the total design. I just need the lower bass, the LFE and BSC to go to the lower drivers. The concept is following the work of the late John Wright of TDL, who conceived and developed this idea, and it's brilliant. If I put a full crossover at 60 or 80 Hz it would ruin the whole design. It would be missing the crucial dovetailing of the lines.

This leads me to the point I have made before, that the whole system of a generic crossover in the AVR or AVP is actually a bad idea. I believe that the speakers sub and mains anyway, and probably the center should be designed as a functional complete entity. We have gone down the road of a generic LF crossover and I maintain that is suboptimal.

I think this has led us down the road of so called "room correction" with Audyssey and Dirac, and added a less than optimal expensive work arounds.

I don't need those type of systems and engaging them upsets the system. This whole so called room correction is now getting over complex costly and totally out of hand in my view.

As the sources improve, with the development of Atmos, this system can reproduce with literally "being there" accuracy.

I think it is time to take a step back and really look at the systems from the ground up. I have feeling we are headed down the proverbial blind alley.
[/QUOTE]
How do you get LFE to the mains?

 

[TLS Guy]

I don't think you can be dogmatic about this. I use LFE + main. The system was designed that way. The front three were designed as a unit. The upper lines of the right and left mains and the center speaker are designed with F3 half an octave above the long bass lines, and a driver in the bass lines also carries the BSC of the upper lines, as a power sharing arrangement. So the whole system is designed as an integral unit including the active and passive crossovers. So adding another complete crossover would upset the total design. I just need the lower bass, the LFE and BSC to go to the lower drivers. The concept is following the work of the late John Wright of TDL, who conceived and developed this idea, and it's brilliant. If I put a full crossover at 60 or 80 Hz it would ruin the whole design. It would be missing the crucial dovetailing of the lines.

This leads me to the point I have made before, that the whole system of a generic crossover in the AVR or AVP is actually a bad idea. I believe that the speakers sub and mains anyway, and probably the center should be designed as a functional complete entity. We have gone down the road of a generic LF crossover and I maintain that is suboptimal.

I think this has led us down the road of so called "room correction" with Audyssey and Dirac, and added a less than optimal expensive work arounds.

I don't need those type of systems and engaging them upsets the system. This whole so called room correction is now getting over complex costly and totally out of hand in my view.

As the sources improve, with the development of Atmos, this system can reproduce with literally "being there" accuracy.

I think it is time to take a step back and really look at the systems from the ground up. I have feeling we are headed down the proverbial blind alley.

How do you get LFE to the mains?
[/QUOTE]

The speakers are totally integrated, so the bass lines get the sub outputs plus LFE, the upper 10" drivers also get the BSC correction via a mixing circuit and buffer amps. So nothing is missing. Each of the four 10" drivers have individual amps, so there are four power amp channels driving the large lines.

 

[lovinthehd]

How do you get LFE to the mains?

The speakers are totally integrated, so the bass lines get the sub outputs plus LFE, the upper 10" drivers also get the BSC correction via a mixing circuit and buffer amps. So nothing is missing. Each of the four 10" drivers have individual amps, so there are four power amp channels driving the large lines.
[/QUOTE]

LFE just goes to the sub in your scenario....

 

[TLS Guy]

The speakers are totally integrated, so the bass lines get the sub outputs plus LFE, the upper 10" drivers also get the BSC correction via a mixing circuit and buffer amps. So nothing is missing. Each of the four 10" drivers have individual amps, so there are four power amp channels driving the large lines.

LFE just goes to the sub in your scenario....
[/QUOTE]

Well that is true, but there is no sub in the accepted sense, it is a sub plus in a totally integrated system that is designed as a functioning full range system. As far as I know there is no commercial equivalent, making this a unique system.

 

[Trebdp83]

If one is using a custom made system with real full range main speakers placed optimally in the space, LFE+Main would be an appropriate setting for such a system.

Many will not be using such a system and will be using commercially available speakers in spaces that were designed for anything but a home theater.

When modest speakers, not custom floor to ceiling speakers, are placed in compromised rooms, crossover settings and subwoofer placement need more careful consideration.

While the Front speakers may be placed optimally concerning mid and hi frequencies and an appropriate distance from each other and the listener, they are often not in the optimal location for bass extension. Some may simply crank it up after buying speakers the likes of Def Tec.

It is no small task for many to blend their speakers and subs together in a way that sounds good to them at their listening position. Cranking things up when running speakers at Large/Full Band and hoping for the best isn’t the place to start for many receivers and speakers on the market.

Things are made more interesting in the Marantz AV10 as the LFE+Main setting can be set manually for 2CH Playback mode. So, multichannel signals can use Small Speaker settings with LFE and two channel signals can use Large Speaker settings for Mains with LFE+Main.

Note that anybody wanting to use the new “Directional” Subwoofer setting for ALL speakers MUST use a crossover and Audyssey SUB EQ HT will NOT work with the “Directional” Subwoofer setting ON. It hammers home the point of using matched speakers all the way around if possible in a system. The 80 Hz crossover is not a law but gets put in the default section of many settings more than once in these manuals.

Again, anybody wanting to use an external DAC for two channel signals from a music device can do so using Pure Direct mode and avoid ADC so long as LFE+Main is OFF all the way around.

Those wanting to compare DACs using the device of their choice that may include a sub pre out such as an Oppo disc player or even a Bluesound Node will be out of luck as the 7.1 EXT IN. analog ports are now completely gone from new Denon/Marantz AVPs and AVRs. If I’m not mistaken, the universal remote control has gone away as well.

With new devices requiring HDMI connection for 4K video and spatial audio formats, I’d have still ditched some coaxial/optical ports along with some of the two channel analog ports to accommodate the 7.1 EXT. IN analog ports. But, life goes on.

I really want to play with the “Directional” Subwoofer setting. If I was going to do it, I’d start at the X4800H and get the RC-1240 remote controller from the X4700H to see if it would work with it. You can keep that s#%ty abbreviated front panel display on the X3800H and lower models. I’d get two more subs and have some fun with it. I’d never go higher than the 4XXX models as the discontinued features and ports of higher models are inexcusable at their price points. But, that’s just me.

 

[TLS Guy]

If one is using a custom made system with real full range main speakers placed optimally in the space, LFE+Main would be an appropriate setting for such a system.

Many will not be using such a system and will be using commercially available speakers in spaces that were designed for anything but a home theater.

When modest speakers, not custom floor to ceiling speakers, are placed in compromised rooms, crossover settings and subwoofer placement need more careful consideration.

While the Front speakers may be placed optimally concerning mid and hi frequencies and an appropriate distance from each other and the listener, they are often not in the optimal location for bass extension. Some may simply crank it up after buying speakers the likes of Def Tec.

It is no small task for many to blend their speakers and subs together in a way that sounds good to them at their listening position. Cranking things up when running speakers at Large/Full Band and hoping for the best isn’t the place to start for many receivers and speakers on the market.

Things are made more interesting in the Marantz AV10 as the LFE+Main setting can be set manually for 2CH Playback mode. So, multichannel signals can use Small Speaker settings with LFE and two channel signals can use Large Speaker settings for Mains with LFE+Main.

Note that anybody wanting to use the new “Directional” Subwoofer setting for ALL speakers MUST use a crossover and Audyssey SUB EQ HT will NOT work with the “Directional” Subwoofer setting ON. It hammers home the point of using matched speakers all the way around if possible in a system. The 80 Hz crossover is not a law but gets put in the default section of many settings more than once in these manuals.

Again, anybody wanting to use an external DAC for two channel signals from a music device can do so using Pure Direct mode and avoid ADC so long as LFE+Main is OFF all the way around.

Those wanting to compare DACs using the device of their choice that may include a sub pre out such as an Oppo disc player or even a Bluesound Node will be out of luck as the 7.1 EXT IN. analog ports are now completely gone from new Denon/Marantz AVPs and AVRs. If I’m not mistaken, the universal remote control has gone away as well.

With new devices requiring HDMI connection for 4K video and spatial audio formats, I’d have still ditched some coaxial/optical ports along with some of the two channel analog ports to accommodate the 7.1 EXT. IN analog ports. But, life goes on.

I really want to play with the “Directional” Subwoofer setting. If I was going to do it, I’d start at the X4800H and get the RC-1240 remote controller from the X4700H to see if it would work with it. You can keep that s#%ty abbreviated front panel display on the X3800H and lower models. I’d get two more subs and have some fun with it. I’d never go higher than the 4XXX models as the discontinued features and ports of higher models are inexcusable at their price points. But, that’s just me.

Your points are well taken. I think that placing the speaker close to the speaker whose bass it is reproducing is walking towards integrated speakers.

However I think it might be more productive to think about crossover order first. This I think is a route cause of a lot of dissatisfaction and suboptimal results.

The original spec. for HT with subwoofer, by THX, and actually still is, that the speakers have second order roll off, and that the high pass to the speakers be second order roll off, and the low pass to the subs be fourth order roll off. This way you are far more likely to get a good symmetrical crossover splice. Well as it turns out most speakers are ported and have fourth order roll off unlike sealed which have second order roll off. This leads to sixth order high pass and fourth order low pass. On the other hand using LFE + Main is more likely to get you fourth order low and high pass due to the fourth order roll off of ported speakers. THX assumed wrongly that speakers for HT would be sealed speakers.

I think it is time to revisit the speaker to sub crossovers in AVPs and receivers. A start would be a switch to make the low pass sixth or fourth order.

 

[lovinthehd]

Well that is true, but there is no sub in the accepted sense, it is a sub plus in a totally integrated system that is designed as a functioning full range system. As far as I know there is no commercial equivalent, making this a unique system.

That's an unusual situation for most.

 

[lovinthehd]

Your points are well taken. I think that placing the speaker close to the speaker whose bass it is reproducing is walking towards integrated speakers.

However I think it might be more productive to think about crossover order first. This I think is a route cause of a lot of dissatisfaction and suboptimal results.

The original spec. for HT with subwoofer, by THX, and actually still is, that the speakers have second order roll off, and that the high pass to the speakers be second order roll off, and the low pass to the subs be fourth order roll off. This way you are far more likely to get a good symmetrical crossover splice. Well as it turns out most speakers are ported and have fourth order roll off unlike sealed which have second order roll off. This leads to sixth order high pass and fourth order low pass. On the other hand using LFE + Main is more likely to get you fourth order low and high pass due to the fourth order roll off of ported speakers. THX assumed wrongly that speakers for HT would be sealed speakers.

I think it is time to revisit the speaker to sub crossovers in AVPs and receivers. A start would be a switch to make the low pass sixth or fourth order.

Even better, selectable slopes for both high pass and low pass. Are theater speakers generally sealed or was the THX standard just for consumers?

 

[Trebdp83]

I also think, to keep folks upgrading far into the future, the Atmos configurations and speaker recommendations will evolve. Think of THX systems of thirty years ago that featured mono signals to small surround dipole speakers.

With “Directional” mode, four subs will play low frequencies below the crossover, 80 Hz recommended, from ALL of the speakers in each of their quarter of the room. Use a feeble surround and/or height speakers and the subs will have to carry their weight at higher frequencies than they should have to do so.

It is ON now folks and f#%king around with any speaker that can’t go down to say 60Hz without making a fuss is a waste of time. The 80 Hz crossover for a HPF is the unofficial minimum and the 120 Hz LPF the unofficial maximum and 120 Hz is already the official LFE maximum.

Very few can accommodate truly full range large speakers in their space. Forget about trying to do it with truly full range speakers on the walls and ceilings. Some might disagree, but I think the “Directional” Subwoofer feature deserves more headlines. It solves some problems but also has its own requirements. The speakers really do need to be matched and the mixing of Subs of various capabilities is no longer something that can really be accommodated fully with “Directional” mode.

There are many out there with mixed and matched system components in challenging spaces. Sorting things out with room correction is a tall order for any software. Starting with matching speakers and subs will only help matters when placing them in any space. I personally think too many are dependant on room correction. Your brain knows how to sort it all out. Just don’t f#%k with it by using s#%ty little bounce house modules all around the room crossed over at 250Hz.

 

[TLS Guy]

Even better, selectable slopes for both high pass and low pass. Are theater speakers generally sealed or was the THX standard just for consumers?

That is the consumer standard, and is why the orders are what they are in AVPs and receivers.

I did actually design around that as all my speakers in the HT room have second order roll off. I suspect it is an issue as few consumer speakers roll off second order.

I did follow this in my in wall system also, and all three main speakers are second order and sealed designs. The sub is a TL.

I suspect, but can't be certain that this adds people feeling they need so called room correction. I think it is an open question how much of this is room correction and how much system correction. I have a strong suspicion there is a lot of the latter.

 

[TLS Guy]

I also think, to keep folks upgrading far into the future, the Atmos configurations and speaker recommendations will evolve. Think of THX systems of thirty years ago that featured mono signals to small surround dipole speakers.

With “Directional” mode, four subs will play low frequencies below the crossover, 80 Hz recommended, from ALL of the speakers in each of their quarter of the room. Use a feeble surround and/or height speakers and the subs will have to carry their weight at higher frequencies than they should have to do so.

It is ON now folks and f#%king around with any speaker that can’t go down to say 60Hz without making a fuss is a waste of time. The 80 Hz crossover for a HPF is the unofficial minimum and the 120 Hz LPF the unofficial maximum and 120 Hz is already the official LFE maximum.

Very few can accommodate truly full range large speakers in their space. Forget about trying to do it with truly full range speakers on the walls and ceilings. Some might disagree, but I think the “Directional” Subwoofer feature deserves more headlines. It solves some problems but also has its own requirements. The speakers really do need to be matched and the mixing of Subs of various capabilities is no longer something that can really be accommodated fully with “Directional” mode.

There are many out there with mixed and matched system components in challenging spaces. Sorting things out with room correction is a tall order for any software. Starting with matching speakers and subs will only help matters when placing them in any space. I personally think too many are dependant on room correction. Your brain knows how to sort it all out. Just don’t f#%k with it by using s#%ty little bounce house modules all around the room crossed over at 250Hz.

The other thing I would point out is that engineers producing the media available are very reluctant to put major demands on any speakers other than the front three. I think they are really concerned about blowing up surrounds, rears and ceiling speakers.

In my pretty vast collection of media, I only have one disc that stresses the rears and surrounds. It is a disc of the AHO first symphony. It contains circular Laplander drumming on huge drums at huge intensity. There is also a rear chamber orchestra and a soloist. The reviewers shouted foul, and claimed the disc was unplayable. It is not unplayable here, and it is one of my go to demo discs for visitors. The drumming flows around the room with high intensity and no change in tonality from any direction. But I can see this disc would play back correctly and very, very few systems. My big rear TL lines, earn their keep on that one.

 

[Trebdp83]

I keep coming back to this thread and reading the original post over and over again. I get the wanting different settings for PCM 2.0 signals and multichannel signals but didn't realize that the AV7702mkII includes the 2ch Playback feature.

Basically, you have an additional Large and LFE+Main setting for use with Direct and Stereo modes. So, in the initial speakers settings, you can set the three speakers to Small with an 80Hz crossover. The Subwoofer will be ON by default using the Small setting and the SW Mode can be set to LFE. Then, you can go to the 2ch Playback mode settings and set the Front to Large and the Subwoofer to Yes and LFE+Main.

Now, when playing two channel or multichannel signals in any mode OTHER THAN Direct or Stereo modes, the speakers will be crossed at 80Hz and the subwoofer will get the LFE signal from 5.1 or 7.1 signals as well anything below 80Hz from upmixed two channel signals. Play those two channel signals in Direct or Stereo mode rather than upmixing them and the Fronts will be Large and the subwoofer will be set to LFE+Main. This may be preferred for music over the Small setting and 80Hz crossover and SW Mode set to LFE.

The 2ch Playback feature is missing from the X3800H and X4800H. BUT, they do feature LFE Distribution. Yeah, you can send LFE to speakers set to Large. As much as Denon has pissed me off over the years as features have moved up the ladder or just gone extinct, I'm really excited by the features of the X6800H. That thing features 2ch Playback, Directional Subwoofer Mode, LFE Distribution and Bass Extraction LPF. That's right, you can actually adjust the low frequency signal copied to the subs from speakers set to Large. The X6800H is kinda' f#%kin' awesome.