Am I throwing good money away?

[johnner1999]

Yeah, but what particularly are the details?

Yeah correct. It’s in a media room (basement) on laminate floors (with cement under it)

room is medium sized around 18’ x 21’ with 7.5’ height ceiling (drop in)

crossover is 80hz and all fronts set to large. I’ve tried small and the towers and center had almost no impact and crossed at 90, 100, and 120. Set to to large and 80hz sounds the best.

 

[Pogre]

Yeah correct. It’s in a media room (basement) on laminate floors (with cement under it)

room is medium sized around 18’ x 21’ with 7.5’ height ceiling (drop in)

crossover is 80hz and all fronts set to large. I’ve tried small and the towers and center had almost no impact and crossed at 90, 100, and 120. Set to to large and 80hz sounds the best.

If you have your fronts set to large you're bypassing bass management. From everything you've said so far I strongly suspect you have some setup and integration issues.

 

[johnner1999]

If you have your fronts set to large you're bypassing bass management. From everything you've said so far I strongly suspect you have some setup and integration issues.

Thank you and the others here.

I’ll switch back to small and rerun calibration. I assume it’ll sound worse again....

 

[Pogre]

Thank you and the others here.

I’ll switch back to small and rerun calibration. I assume it’ll sound worse again....

Sub placement can make or break sq. Your room has a lot more to do with your bass response than most folks realize. How did you pick a spot for your sub? Ever heard of the sub crawl?

How to Place a Subwoofer For Best Bass Performance

Subwoofer Placement: An easy guide for placement of your home theater subwoofer. Crawl for bass to find the optimal location and achieve the best sound.

www.audioholics.com

Placement with subs is crucial for good bass.

 

[Pogre]

What I'm getting at is if you re-run setup without changing anything else you'll likely have the same results. I suggest a sub crawl to find a better location for your sub before you do another calibration. Speaker placement can make a big difference too.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Exactly. Placement is king. For speakers and subs. Those placement changes also alter how the speakers and subs interact with each other and the room AND the listening position. If idling the crawl, make sure to turn off ypao. Once you’ve found the best spot, then run the cal. And as @Pogre said, speaker placement is very important.
Being on concrete myself and in a large room as well, I am confident that if you spend the time to move things around and recalibrate you’ll have better results.
Also, I still recommend a new sub even after finding a good spot, for it and the speakers. That poor little sunfire doesn’t even have a chance in that big of space.

 

[Pogre]

Exactly. Placement is king. For speakers and subs. Those placement changes also alter how the speakers and subs interact with each other and the room AND the listening position. If idling the crawl, make sure to turn off ypao. Once you’ve found the best spot, then run the cal. And as @Pogre said, speaker placement is very important.
Being on concrete myself and in a large room as well, I am confident that if you spend the time to move things around and recalibrate you’ll have better results.
Also, I still recommend a new sub even after finding a good spot, for it and the speakers. That poor little sunfire doesn’t even have a chance in that big of space.

Yeah, that Sunfire is actually a decent sub for the size but woefully underpowered for the space. I think you can make some improvements with positional eq but ultimately a larger (or a pair) sub would be more appropriate and effective in a larger room.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Yeah, that Sunfire is actually a decent sub for the size but woefully underpowered for the space. I think you can make some improvements with positional eq but ultimately a larger (or a pair) sub would be more appropriate and effective in a larger room.

Exactly. And another overlooked aspect(that you’ve covered) is that when a subwoofer(s) isn’t working as hard, the distortion is lower, and the sound is cleaner, effortless and more linear. It’s easy to think that a bigger sub will naturally be “too much” but that’s all in the setup. Some people think I’m nuts using three 12’s(5 if you include my mains lol) but once they hear how smooth and linear it is. It’s all about setup. I will go bigger due to my room size and concrete, but that’s down the road.

 

[johnner1999]

So I’m not trying sound annoying ha. But why have these speakers with dual 8” and a center with quad 5.25s — if they aren’t supposed to provide or produce and mid bass levels?? I mean they hardly have movement and the movement they do is only if you lightly feel them. Only did it to make sure they were working.

placement is key you are beyond correct there! Over the years I’ve re-tweaked the two fronts and currently toed in towards center by a few degrees. As this RP8000f speakers seem somewhat narrow for a good equal stage. More so for music.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

The dual 8’s still need good placement in relation to the seating and room boundaries. Also, they’re made to give more impact and dynamics above the XO too. A sign that you have a setup issue is that lack of impact. The room is large too...

 

[Pogre]

So I’m not trying sound annoying ha. But why have these speakers with dual 8” and a center with quad 5.25s — if they aren’t supposed to provide or produce and mid bass levels?? I mean they hardly have movement and the movement they do is only if you lightly feel them. Only did it to make sure they were working.

placement is key you are beyond correct there! Over the years I’ve re-tweaked the two fronts and currently toed in towards center by a few degrees. As this RP8000f speakers seem somewhat narrow for a good equal stage. More so for music.

Hey, you're seeking clarification, not annoying anyone. There's nothing wrong with that.

I'm glad that you recognize placement is so important. When it comes to bass its even more so. Depending on your room size, below a certain frequency (Schroeder frequency, different for every room) the room is completely in charge and sub placement can make huge differences.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Also, those dual 8’s don’t really dig that deep.

 

[johnner1999]

The dual 8’s still need good placement in relation to the seating and room boundaries. Also, they’re made to give more impact and dynamics above the XO too. A sign that you have a setup issue is that lack of impact. The room is large too...

Maybe I should try to sell them :-(

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Maybe I should try to sell them :-(

Definitely not. IMO, there are plenty of worse speakers out there. Again, imo some time with setup and I think you’ll get there. Still need new subs though...

 

[Pogre]

Maybe I should try to sell them :-(

I think you should explore some positional EQ before you consider selling anything. Like Bill said, you could do much worse for speakers. That's why we keep stressing better integration and setup as possible solution.

Edit: and bigger Subs!

 

[mazersteven]

Some people think I’m nuts using three 12’s.

Hmmmmmmmmmm I don't think that's the reason

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Hmmmmmmmmmm I don't think that's the reason

Touché!
You are correct as well

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

...They sound great overall...mid bass and bass is lacking...

Try some adjustments in your Yamaha AVR. If they still don't sound better, you can change these settings back to previous settings.

1. Set YPAO to Manual PEQ.
2. Set all Speakers PEQ to 0.0dB (bypassing EQ for all speakers).
3. Adjust the Subwoofer PEQ. 39.4Hz, 49.6Hz, 62.5Hz, 78.7Hz. Set Q=0.5. Set to +1.0. If bass is not enough, increase Subwoofer PEQ to +2.0, then to +3.0 to get the bass you want.
4. Also play with the Subwoofer level/gain/volume.

Now if you were to end up with a Marantz or Denon anyway, then I highly recommend Dynamic EQ, Reference Offset to Zero, all Speaker Channel Levels to 80dB, instead of 75dB, since this will BOOST DEQ effects.

 

[lovinthehd]

You mention running speakers as large....did you try the double bass/LFE+Main type setting as well ? (I don't remember what Yamaha calls it).

 

[Teetertotter?]

I'd pair your Klipsch speakers with a Klipsch subwoofer. That's me. Good luck!

Also, with the AVR, I have the Audio adjustments turned OFF, but you can start anywhere and experiment with audio settings. Everyone's listening is different and you can play around with the AVR, as you know.