Current Set-up and ARC Crossover Settings

[hifihillbilly]

I have attached a picture of my current set-up and ARC crossover settings. I am not an audio engineer but the crossover settings seems unusually high. Anthem says crossovers does not too far off. Joe with RSL agrees they are way off. What do you guys think? I know THX says 80 Hz for crossover. But does this work with smaller speakers such as the GE SS3's?
I have also set up a profile using my SPL meter as well.

Current gear includes....
- Anthem MRX-720
- Emotiva XPA-5 Gen2 Amp
- Sony UBP X-800 4k Blu-Ray
- LG OLED65C9PUA
- GoldenEar SuperSat 3's @ L/C/R and surrounds
- 2ea. RSL C34e ceiling-mount height speakers
- 2ea. RSL Speedwoofer 10S subs

The area is open to the left and behind

 

[ryanosaur]

What are your speakers F3... low end extension at -3dB? I’ve seen recommendations for as little as 1/2 octave above F3, to the usual full octave above. If your fronts are rated at 100Hz, 200 would be the starting point I would use and experiment from there. See what sounds better to you just playing 2-channel music with the sub(s).
A doubling of frequency is 1 octave.
Hope this helps.

 

[hifihillbilly]

Here are the specs from GoldenEar. Again, I will have to educate myself regarding F3 speakers, 1/2 octave, etc. I appreciate the input.

SuperSat Satellite Speakers Specifications
SuperSat 3/3C
Frequency Response 80 Hz - 35 kHz
Efficiency 92 dB
Driver Complement Two - 4-1/2˝ High-Definition Cast-Basket MVPP™ Mid/Bass Drivers, One - HVFR™ High-Velocity Folded Ribbon Tweeter
Recommended Amplification 20 - 200 watt/channel 20 - 200 watt/channel 20 - 300 watt/channel

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

https://www.goldenear.com/products/supersat-series?gktab=2
GE shows low FR of 80hz. Given that Sandy Grosses other companies are generous with the numbers, I’d guess with dual 4-1/2 woofs 110-120hz would be appt. Not too familiar with ARC so I can’t speak to any anomalies. What happens if you run it again? Does it consistently set the same XO’s?
What does your manual profile sound like compared to ARC?

 

[ryanosaur]

Half Octave above 80Hz is 120. One octave above is 160Hz. When I was trying to choose for my speakers, I played with 60 and 80Hz as my two choices. 60 sounded good, but I heard a little more clarity in the Mids at 80 Hz, as well as getting slightly punchier Bass from the Sub.
I would experiment with everything in that range above. just experiment with stereo+sub listening and see what sounds best. If you hear any weird sounds coming from the woofers of your mains, your XO is probably too low. There will be a lot of sound energy around that frequency range, and in-part, the XO is designed to protect the drivers from signals that could cause damage.

 

[hifihillbilly]

https://www.goldenear.com/products/supersat-series?gktab=2
GE shows low FR of 80hz. Given that Sandy Grosses other companies are generous with the numbers, I’d guess with dual 4-1/2 woofs 110-120hz would be appt. Not too familiar with ARC so I can’t speak to any anomalies. What happens if you run it again? Does it consistently set the same XO’s?
What does your manual profile sound like compared to ARC?

I have run ARC several times. It sets the crossover within 20Hz every time. My manual profile has a lower volume than ARC profile when played at the same dB on the receiver but actually does not sound bad at all.

 

[hifihillbilly]

Half Octave above 80Hz is 120. One octave above is 160Hz. When I was trying to choose for my speakers, I played with 60 and 80Hz as my two choices. 60 sounded good, but I heard a little more clarity in the Mids at 80 Hz, as well as getting slightly punchier Bass from the Sub.
I would experiment with everything in that range above. just experiment with stereo+sub listening and see what sounds best. If you hear any weird sounds coming from the woofers of your mains, your XO is probably too low. There will be a lot of sound energy around that frequency range, and in-part, the XO is designed to protect the drivers from signals that could cause damage.

Thanks for the input. I will have to take some time and experiment with different settings for sure. Cheers!!

 

[hifihillbilly]

What exactly is the Subwoofer LPF for LFE? Do I need to match this with other crossover settings?

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

What exactly is the Subwoofer LPF for LFE? Do I need to match this with other crossover settings?

No you don’t.
Lpf of lfe refers ONLY to the .1. This is a separate track recorded into movies and is not related to the redirected bass below the XO point. If you adjust the lpf, what your basically doing is removing the upper part of the lfe signal. The only reason to do this is if you have localization issues. This isn’t very common as I don’t believe there’s much in the lfe track that goes that high, although the range is from about 3hz-120hz.

 

[lovinthehd]

Within 20Hz I assume I would wonder about the subs with such a high crossover, what did Joe say about the highest crossover that should be used with his subs since they're only spec'd to 200Hz on the upper end?

I have run ARC several times. It sets the crossover within 20dB every time. My manual profile has a lower volume than ARC profile when played at the same dB on the receiver but actually does not sound bad at all.

 

[hifihillbilly]

Within 20Hz I assume I would wonder about the subs with such a high crossover, what did Joe say about the highest crossover that should be used with his subs since they're only spec'd to 200Hz on the upper end?

Yes 20Hz . Joe recommended 90 - 100Hz for all speakers including the Speedwoofers.

 

[ryanosaur]

Joe recommended 90 - 100Hz for all speakers

That scares me a little. Only mean this as a word of caution.
My rears are rated down in the mid 60's. Those little 5" woofers were JUMPIN' when I put some RZA cuts through them as mains. I was really impressed with how well they handled it, but at volume, putting that kind of energy into a driver rated at 80Hz, even conservatively, might be a risky proposition.
The Godzilla Anime on Netfix had scenes with so much extended Low Frequency content, as an example... I get most of it might be in the LFE, but if any is going through the mains, I could see something like your speakers getting taxed pretty hard.
Ed Mullen from SVS likes that 1/2 octave above for XOs. 90-100Hz is below that, and doesn't offer a lot of protection. Just my 2¢. YMMV

 

[snakeeyes]

That scares me a little. Only mean this as a word of caution.
My rears are rated down in the mid 60's. Those little 5" woofers were JUMPIN' when I put some RZA cuts through them as mains. I was really impressed with how well they handled it, but at volume, putting that kind of energy into a driver rated at 80Hz, even conservatively, might be a risky proposition.
The Godzilla Anime on Netfix had scenes with so much extended Low Frequency content, as an example... I get most of it might be in the LFE, but if any is going through the mains, I could see something like your speakers getting taxed pretty hard.
Ed Mullen from SVS likes that 1/2 octave above for XOs. 90-100Hz is below that, and doesn't offer a lot of protection. Just my 2¢. YMMV

Seems like the 5in driver speakers should crossover to the subs at 90hz. Let the subs do the heavy work.

 

[ryanosaur]

Seems like the 5in driver speakers should crossover to the subs at 90hz. Let the subs do the heavy work.

Crossing the minis at 100 now... when I had them as surrounds I had them at 120.

 

[ryanosaur]

Open conversation here...
I think the rule of thumb approach to using driver size as a measure of possible performance (setting an XO, for example) is useful but flawed. Granted, the numbers can come close, but a small sealed box vs large sealed box vs small ported box vs lg ported box could potentially see a range of 30+ Hz in frequency extension.
Here is what Madisound lists for a premium Satori driver, a 7.5" mid woofer:

Here are some box alignments you might consider using.

• around 0.32 cubic feet sealed for an F3 of 73Hz
• 0.7 cubic feet with a 2" vent by 7" long for an F3 of 41Hz
• 1.0 cubic feet with a 2" vent by 5.6" long for an F3 of 36Hz
• 1.2 cubic feet with 2" vent by 5.2" long for an F3 of 33Hz

First you'll notice that there is a 40Hz difference in tuning frequencies, depending on usage. One source I looked at, using the rule of thumb approach, suggests this woofer should be fine at an XO of 60Hz. I challenge you to try that in a small sealed box. It will cost you 364.30+shipping to replace those as a pair.
That said, crossing at 60Hz could work very well for any of the ported tunings: at an F3 of 41Hz, 60Hz will be just a hair below 1/2 an octave; at 33Hz its close to a full octave.

Further discussion is welcome and encouraged! I'm still learning this stuff, after all.

Best,
R

 

[hifihillbilly]

Open conversation here...
I think the rule of thumb approach to using driver size as a measure of possible performance (setting an XO, for example) is useful but flawed. Granted, the numbers can come close, but a small sealed box vs large sealed box vs small ported box vs lg ported box could potentially see a range of 30+ Hz in frequency extension.
Here is what Madisound lists for a premium Satori driver, a 7.5" mid woofer:


First you'll notice that there is a 40Hz difference in tuning frequencies, depending on usage. One source I looked at, using the rule of thumb approach, suggests this woofer should be fine at an XO of 60Hz. I challenge you to try that in a small sealed box. It will cost you 364.30+shipping to replace those as a pair.
That said, crossing at 60Hz could work very well for any of the ported tunings: at an F3 of 41Hz, 60Hz will be just a hair below 1/2 an octave; at 33Hz its close to a full octave.

Further discussion is welcome and encouraged! I'm still learning this stuff, after all.

Best,
R

Good stuff. Thanks.

 

[snakeeyes]

Bass management at the AVR on all channels is actually a great thing. (No fixed 80 or 90 like in the old days)

I would try to avoid being near the tuning point of a ported bookshelf (artificial bump).

I would also get one sub near the center speaker if crossover is higher on a center than 80hz. (Voices are easier to localize).

I also would go high on crossovers for surrounds as they don’t offer much anyhow in the low end unless you are running a DSP that copies mains to all channels. (No reason to overdrive small drivers as this can distort).

And finally, 2 subs is a big improvement over 1 sub. (Evens out the bass)

 

[hifihillbilly]

First off thanks to the folks who gave me advice and suggestions on my XO issue(s). I am now at 120Hz XO for all speakers and the system sounds much better than the Anthem ARC settings. I will continue to tweak things to try and get the most out of it. I contacted Anthem about the issue and their response was "I think the system is trying to account for the dip around 100hz. so that is why the setting is so high". I replied back and asked what they recommended as a corrective action". Their response was "You are more than welcome to change the crossovers based on preference". Although their reply is correct, I was expecting something more. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting but a large part of my decision to purchase Anthem was their ARC. Hindsight is 20-20. Maybe I should have went with Yamaha. Cheers everyone!! Have a safe 4th of July!!

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Glad it’s working out for you. I agree, their answer is likely correct, but it’s frustrating when CS agents use the default, “customer is dummer than me” answers. Anyways, Happy 4th!!! Blow something up!!!!!!!

 

[ryanosaur]

First off thanks to the folks who gave me advice and suggestions on my XO issue(s). I am now at 120Hz XO for all speakers and the system sounds much better than the Anthem ARC settings. I will continue to tweak things to try and get the most out of it. I contacted Anthem about the issue and their response was "I think the system is trying to account for the dip around 100hz. so that is why the setting is so high". I replied back and asked what they recommended as a corrective action". Their response was "You are more than welcome to change the crossovers based on preference". Although their reply is correct, I was expecting something more. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting but a large part of my decision to purchase Anthem was their ARC. Hindsight is 20-20. Maybe I should have went with Yamaha. Cheers everyone!! Have a safe 4th of July!!

Glad things are sounding better to you! Does ARC show you the image of the test results, at all? Might be interesting to share.

I might have missed this elsewhere, but what are the dimensions of your room? How far do you sit from the speakers, and what is the distance between speakers?

For me, the next step would be understanding that dip. If its floor bounce or a standing wave... Your speakers should be mostly out of the way at that frequency, though they are still going to be contributing energy at 100Hz... This leads me to think about placement and such... especially with your subs. You won't necessarily get rid of that dip, but it is absolutely possible to minimize it!

Cheers!