LFE level on Yamaha RX-Z9

[JOHN FICKEL]

I'm not sure how to reset everything to default settings. However is did go in and put everything at 0. I also turned the subs down on the back to 10:00. I only ran distance and leveling. Everything already had been set small and bass out to sub. It set my subs( my front ) left one at 16.1ft, and the (back sub ) at 15.5ft . As far as the level, the front left one 16.1 ft and -3.5db for the back sub (-5.5db) My LFE was set to (-2 ) which I forgot to put back to 0 before running the test. However I don't think two DB's gonna make any difference at all . The main speakers were set at +5db left and +6db right . lower than before. My center at +3db. My surrounds are at +4.5 db left, and right +4db , Front effects speakers are accurate as well . I've already increased each Sub by three DB in the AVR, Also I have put both volumes on the subs back to 12 o clock. As far as the listening test "so far so good " lol. You have been AWESOME The wiring test pass with flying colors , I did not let the test do the size because I manually set those before the test and cut off frequency . And I never use the equalization

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

Yeah you're probably right I probably didn't have to go in and turn all the speakers 0. It probably didn't matter matter either way But my guess is like yours YPAO takes total control and it doesn't matter where anything is set

 

[herbu]

John, I decided to copy the information related to LFE from the RX-Z9 instruction manual below so if you have questions we can always refer back to this post.

Page 62

LFE Level – Adjust the output level of the LFE channel for Dolby Digital or DTS signals.

Page 70

LFE Level (Low-frequency effect level)

Use to adjust the output level of the LFE channel according to the capacity of your subwoofer or headphones. The LFE channel carries low-frequency special effects which are only added to certain scenes. This setting is effective only when this unit decodes Dolby Digital or DTS signals.

Page 74

Front (Front speakers)

Choices: Large, Small

· Select Large if you have large front speakers. The unit directs the entire range of the front left and right channel signals to the front left and right speakers.

· Select Small if you have small front speakers. The unit directs the low-frequency signals of the front channel to the speakers selected with “Bass Out”.

Bass Out – LFE signals carry low-frequency effects when this unit decodes Dolby Digital or DTS signals. These low-frequency signals can be directed to both front left and right speakers, and to the subwoofer (which can be used for both stereo reproduction and sound field programs).

Choices: Both, SWFR, Front

· Select Both to direct LFE signals to the subwoofer. Front L/R low-frequency signals are directed to both the subwoofer and front channels, and all other low-frequency signals are directed in accordance with other speaker settings.

· Select SWFR if you connected a subwoofer. The unit directs all LFE and low-frequency signals in accordance with other speaker settings.

· Select Front if you have not connected a subwoofer. The unit directs all low-frequency and LFE signals to the front speakers (even if you have previously set Front to Small in Speaker Set).

It looks like you have everything set up right, but if you still have doubt about something may be wrong, you can try resetting the processor to factory default condition and then run YPAO again, following the instructions on Page 33-34.

After that, double check to make sure:

- All speakers are set to "Small", so that the low-frequencies of the front, centre, and surround speakers will be directed to (in other words, added to) the LFE out.

- Crossovers for the front, centre, and surrounds are set to 80 Hz.

- Bass out set to SWFR.

- LFE level set to default "0" (I am assuming the default setting is 0 but you can confirm that as you have the AVR and I don't).

- Check the speaker levels (see Page 76) and let us know what YPAO set them to, including the subwoofer level (again, this is not the same as the LFE level).

Resetting to default condition could possibly fix minor corrupted software but if you are happy with the way the unit is behaving and everything sounds good, then you should just relax and enjoy. The RX-Z9 is (or I should say "was") indeed a very high quality flag ship Yamaha unit.

Edit: You should also double check to make sure your L & R channels are in phase, that is, + to + and - to - at both the AVR speaker output terminals to the speaker input terminals. Normally YPAO should be able to detect whether they are in phase or not but you never know, only take a few minutes to check things out.

Wow! PENG is spending a lot of time to make sure you're good, John. You should listen to him. So I'm gonna back out of the way. But first, just 2 items...

1. You have one cable going from your Z9 to your sub. So yes, that cable must carry everything sent to the sub. That means the LFE channel or signal, and all other bass signals. Read the manual and PENG's excerpts carefully. The manual always refers to the LFE signal, or the LFE channel. Making an adjustment to the LFE should not effect the other "normal" bass set w/ your crossover.

2. Your Z9 does give you a way to adjust that other bass, kind of like an equalizer. I found this on page 72 of your manual:

Just remember, if you turn up the volume with the control on back of your sub, you are turning up everything on that sub.
On your AVR, there are ways to turn up only the LFE, OR all bass under your crossover, OR frequency bands within your bass, OR everything. Just pick the one you want. I still say that turning up/down ONLY THE LFE should not affect your music.

 

[PENG]

Wow! PENG is spending a lot of time to make sure you're good, John. You should listen to him. So I'm gonna back out of the way. But first, just 2 items...

1. You have one cable going from your Z9 to your sub. So yes, that cable must carry everything sent to the sub. That means the LFE channel or signal, and all other bass signals. Read the manual and PENG's excerpts carefully. The manual always refers to the LFE signal, or the LFE channel. Making an adjustment to the LFE should not effect the other "normal" bass set w/ your crossover.

2. Your Z9 does give you a way to adjust that other bass, kind of like an equalizer. I found this on page 72 of your manual:
View attachment 17032
Just remember, if you turn up the volume with the control on back of your sub, you are turning up everything on that sub.
On your AVR, there are ways to turn up only the LFE, OR all bass under your crossover, OR frequency bands within your bass, OR everything. Just pick the one you want. I still say that turning up/down ONLY THE LFE should not affect your music.

Don't you find the manual confusing, there is one line I can't understand exactly what they mean, also on page 72. So before you back out, perhaps you can help deciphering the statement below.

"Depending on the settings of the LFE level, some signals may not be output from the subwoofer jack".

I thought it might have meant if you set it to headphone (just an example I can think of) then it could make some sense that the bass signals from both the Small channel and LFE channel would not be output.

Then I though about what John has been telling us, that if he lowered the LFE level (didn't say to what value though), he was not getting any bass signal(s) at all so now I am thinking that may be the Yamaha's LFE level does have effects on the redirected bass from all channels, not just the LFE channel. Now if that's the case it does not a lot of sense to me.

After reading Gene's review on the RX-Z9, if I were the proud owner of one, I would not use YPAO at all. I am sure YPAO will work fine on the newer models but not the RX-Z9 the way Gene described it as well as what I understood/or misunderstood what they were trying to say in the manual.

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

Yeah guys when I adjusted my LFE, down to -10, the subwoofers wouldn't even kick on . And you're right everything that you're showing me in the user manual I have read probably 10 times and it is a little confusing. However YPAO works fine for (distances and leveling )I've never let it do any other thing. I can check the wiring myself, I decipher what size the speakers are and I never liked the equalization . The only other thing that I've always wondered about is how it sets the subwoofer distances much( further ) than the actual physical distance, however there has been videos on the site that says they do that for a reason to make up for the electronics in the sub. As far as the LFE is concerned, back in the beginning of this thread Wayne I believe his name was Wayne mentioned that some Subs are more sensitive than others and turning your LFE down to far you may not be feeding enough signal to the sub. another thing he said is if you turn the volume up loud most of the time you may be feeding too hot of a signal to your subwoofer.

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

I can't thank you guys enough for taking the time to really try to help me make sense of this I swear I am not nuts lol. I just really want to understand what's going on THANK YOU BOTH

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

You both have been right the whole time and I never doubted it I just now I am watching football at least the pregame show and I was adjusting the LFE while watching . There was a lot of bass going on and you're absolutely correct . when I adjusted my LFE level even down to -20 (no affect) on the bass at all because there was no LFE signal present. it was just normal bass. LFE IS BACK TO DEFAULT 0. And yes PENG 0 is my default as well. I think I'm going to go from 80 Hz cut off frequency to 60 Hz. Maybe 80 is just too strong in my room. That might've been my whole problem all along

 

[PENG]

I can't thank you guys enough for taking the time to really try to help me make sense of this I swear I am not nuts lol. I just really want to understand what's going on THANK YOU BOTH

You are not the only one. I thought D&M manuals were bad, to the point Batpig and Outlaw had to write simplified versions for the average users. Now I know Yamaha is worse, at least the one for the RX-Z9.

Did you read Gene's review on this unit? It was an excellent review, complete with bench test.

He also touched on a few YPAO issues including how it set the sub woofer level incorrectly.

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

I'll check out the review again

 

[PENG]

I'll check out the review again

Link:

http://www.audioholics.com/av-receiver-reviews/yamaha-RX-Z9/auto-setup-setting-checking-levels

Under the section "
Yamaha RX-Z9 Auto Setup: Setting & Checking Levels"

He said:

"The level check was the last auto test set-up feature that the RX-Z9 performed. This test absolutely required a quite room to properly perform. My ceiling fan actually caused it to give me an error message "Noisy". After I controlled the noise floor in my room, I reran the level check portion of YPAO. Unfortunately the RX-Z9 failed this test when it got to my subwoofers.

After I pondered on this for awhile, I believe I figured out the problem. My room has a pretty nasty bass peak at around 30-40Hz. The RX-Z9 likely measured this and interpreted it as my subwoofers being set too loud. Since it couldn't compensate for this it attempted to lower the subwoofer levels to its limits (-10dB) via the subwoofer level trims. Apparently this was not enough and hence the error message. In reality, if I were to take the advice of YPAO on determining my subwoofer levels, I would have near flat bass at my room peak, and a bass void for the rest of the audible spectrum - a listening configuration that both myself and most listeners would loath."

I realize you don't get an error but it is still possible that you have similar issue such that YPAO thought your sub(s) were too loud and raise the speaker levels to match. Anyway I am guessing of course, because I can't understand why you highly sensitive speakers would be set to between +3 and +5 while the sub was set to -3.5 to -5.5 with the volume at around 9 O'Clock. It would make more sense if it was the other way round. What kind of subs you have again? May be they are even more sensitive than the speakers.

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

I have two Klipsch R-115sw And thank you so much for helping me so much. I can't say thank you enough

 

[herbu]

"Depending on the settings of the LFE level, some signals may not be output from the subwoofer jack".

Yep, it's confusing. Here's how I interpret that statement:
"Since the subwoofer jack carries both the LFE signal and all bass below your crossover when your speakers are set to Small, if you set LFE off or too low, the jack will only carry your normal bass". Hard to say.

when I adjusted my LFE level even down to -20 (no affect) on the bass at all because there was no LFE signal present

It seems maybe now the magic settings have been found and everything is OK. John, with your settings as they are, have you tried an action movie w/ big booms? Does the LFE seem to be there? Again, PENG seems to have found important info about this in Gene's article.

Also, I wouldn't worry about the distance figures set by YPAO. Audyssey and YPAO use a fabricated distance to adjust the phase of your speakers and subs.

Think about it this way. Every speaker sends out waves. Those waves have peaks and valleys. Imagine your AVR sending the same signal, at the same time, to each speaker. The peak of the wave from each speaker should reach your ear at the same time. YPAO measures that. If the peak from one speaker arrives a bit earlier than the others, YPAO will electronically "move" that speaker a little further away from your listening spot, so the peak arrives at the same time as the others. (Actually it just delays the signal to that speaker.) It tells you what it's doing by showing you the "effective distance" of each speaker. Don't worry about it.

It sounds like you have everything sorted out. Good on you. Enjoy!!!

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

Yes the LFE is there and has always been there. The first time I played with the LFE setting my subs were not on yet. So I adjusted it to -10, so When I turned up the master volume the subs were on kicking on. both subs are on AUTO, and were not kicking on. Now I only turned up the master volume to -26 which in my opinion is pretty loud, maybe had I cranked it louder they may have kicked on . Now yesterday while watching the pregame show for football, there was a lot of bass and I adjusted the LFE down while watching and there was no Effect at all. All the bass was still there. But the subs were already on so I'm really starting to think the LFE level had something to do with input sensitivity of the sub? Cause when I had the LFE down to -10. I would've had to turn that receiver pretty loud to get those subs to kick on. Who knows I was only at -26 or -25, I've never turned the receiver louder than that really. With my LFE turned back to 0. My subs kick on Immediately. Please read post (11 ). And let me know what you think of that post, because Wayne hits on the input sensitivity of subwoofers.

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

So LFE (only) adjust that (LFE, ) which is only in certain scenes of movies. Explosions, earthquakes, bombs, and crashes. I understand that totally now. Thank you. While I was adjusting my LFE yesterday, it was just normal bass that was present ! And there was no EFFECT.

 

[PENG]

Yes the LFE is there and has always been there. The first time I played with the LFE setting my subs were not on yet. So I adjusted it to -10, so When I turned up the master volume the subs were on kicking on. both subs are on AUTO, and were not kicking on. Now I only turned up the master volume to -26 which in my opinion is pretty loud, maybe had I cranked it louder they may have kicked on . Now yesterday while watching the pregame show for football, there was a lot of bass and I adjusted the LFE down while watching and there was no Effect at all. All the bass was still there. But the subs were already on so I'm really starting to think the LFE level had something to do with input sensitivity of the sub? Cause when I had the LFE down to -10. I would've had to turn that receiver pretty loud to get those subs to kick on. Who knows I was only at -26 or -25, I've never turned the receiver louder than that really. With my LFE turned back to 0. My subs kick on Immediately. Please read post (11 ). And let me know what you think of that post, because Wayne hits on the input sensitivity of subwoofers.

I read that post but didn't buy it because I thought YPAO should have accounted for the sensitivities of all speakers including the sub when setting the levels up. So if the sensitivity of the speakers are, say 5 dB higher than that of the subwoofer, YPAO should have set the levels of the subwoofers 5 dB higher accordingly, more or less.

What I have trouble understanding so far is that YPAO apparently has set the levels of your RF-7ll, RC-64ll and RS-62 a few dB higher that for the subwoofer's. That's why I am wondering if the sub in your room is having similar issues that Gene had in his set up but just of a milder nature. If his case it was bad enough for YPAO to report an error.

I read a review of your RF-115SW and noticed that it had a bump in the 60 to 100 Hz, and if that happens to get reinforced in your room and the fact that you have 2 of them, you may in fact have some sort of a "nasty" bump that Gene had experienced during his review. That could be a reason, however remote or likely, the real reason YPAO set the subwoofer levels so low. Note: I have been talking about "subwoofer" level, not LFE. Let's agree LFE level is now 0 and leave it alone for the time being.

http://hometheaterreview.com/klipsch-r-115sw-subwoofer-reviewed/?page=2

I do feel you can now just trust your ears and enjoy your very nice system. Or if you really want to play around some more, then forget about YPAO and use the Radio Shack meter and test tones to set the levels. For distance though, I agree with herbu, you should still use the figures reported by YPAO.

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

I just got off the phone with Yamaha, and talked to a pretty cool guy, who had been there a while . He said that statement is referring to the signal being sent to the the sub, meaning if you had all your speakers set to (large) obviously the subs Are then seeing a lot less signal , Now you would have to increase your LFE signal. He said the same thing leave at 0, unless you have in adequate subs. He said indeed the LFE is a (line level) Signal and it (controls ) the (input signal being fed into ) the sub, and yes The subs amplifier input sensitivity makes a difference .( So if you turn the LFE too low some signals may never arrive at the sub.) I guess the moral of the story is Leave LFE too " 0" and like you guys of said all along, only adjust the volume of the subs, with the AVR or on the back of the subs. Thank you HERBU WAYNE'S (post) (11) hits on that exact thing

 

[PENG]

I just got off the phone with Yamaha, and talked to a pretty cool guy, who had been there a while . He said that statement is referring to the signal being sent to the the sub, meaning if you had all your speakers set to (large) obviously the subs Are then seeing a lot less signal , Now you would have to increase your LFE signal. He said the same thing leave at 0, unless you have in adequate subs. He said indeed the LFE is a (line level) Signal and it (controls ) the (input signal being fed into ) the sub, and yes The subs amplifier input sensitivity makes a difference .( So if you turn the LFE too low some signals may never arrive at the sub.) I guess the moral of the story is Leave LFE too " 0" and like you guys of said all along, only adjust the volume of the subs, with the AVR or on the back of the subs. Thank you HERBU WAYNE'S (post) (11) hits on that exact thing

I would say the Yamaha guy seem to be saying what we are saying, not post 11 though. He said:

"The LFE works along the same lines, simply allowing an outboard powered sub to be level-matched properly with the other speakers. Similar to the speakers, the inputs of some subs can be more “sensitive” than others (probably not the most accurate description from a technical standpoint, but good enough to make the point here). In other words, some subs may require a higher LFE signal than others to achieve the same volume level."

Now if by LFE he meant subwoofer level, then yes we perhaps have been saying more or less the same thing all along.

By the way, don't thank me because I learnt something from you too through this exercise. I thank you for not giving up on me/us too.

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

Yes it's at 0. And staying there. Lol

I read that post but didn't buy it because I thought YPAO should have accounted for the sensitivities of all speakers including the sub when setting the levels up. So if the sensitivity of the speakers are, say 5 dB higher than that of the subwoofer, YPAO should have set the levels of the subwoofers 5 dB higher accordingly, more or less.

What I have trouble understanding so far is that YPAO apparently has set the levels of your RF-7ll, RC-64ll and RS-62 a few dB higher that for the subwoofer's. That's why I am wondering if the sub in your room is having similar issues that Gene had in his set up but just of a milder nature. If his case it was bad enough for YPAO to report an error.

I read a review of your RF-115SW and noticed that it had a bump in the 60 to 100 Hz, and if that happens to get reinforced in your room and the fact that you have 2 of them, you may in fact have some sort of a "nasty" bump that Gene had experienced during his review. That could be a reason, however remote or likely, the real reason YPAO set the subwoofer levels so low. Note: I have been talking about "subwoofer" level, not LFE. Let's agree LFE level is now 0 and leave it alone for the time being.

http://hometheaterreview.com/klipsch-r-115sw-subwoofer-reviewed/?page=2

I do feel you can now just trust your ears and enjoy your very nice system. Or if you really want to play around some more, then forget about YPAO and use the Radio Shack meter and test tones to set the levels. For distance though, I agree with herbu, you should still use the figures reported by YPAO.

s

 

[JOHN FICKEL]

No problem at all. I love this stuff and love learning. Yea he said if u set the LFE too low certain things may never arrive to the subs. So depending on the subs. Some need a high LFE too achieve (maximum output ) so if the sub sees enough (line level ) ( input) it can achieve rated( output. ) so that would be the reason why, when I was at -10 LFE , my subs were not kicking on. Not enough signal. They still should have been on otherwise, because there was still bass present. Just not LFE signals. So turning the LFE down is pointless. Unless we have, or someone has an adequat subwoofers

 

[PENG]

So depending on the subs. Some need a high LFE too achieve (maximum output ) so if the sub sees enough (line level ) ( input) it can achieve rated( output. ) so that would be the reason why, when I was at -10 LFE , my subs were not kicking on.Not enough signal.

That is only true if the content contains only, or mainly LFE signals from DD or DTS movies. It will not be true if there are plenty of signals below the crossover points that are not in the LFE channel but are in the L,R,C,SR,SL channels because then those signals (again, non LFE channel signals) will be output via the same LFE out jack to the subwoofer, and if set correctly by YPAO, will still trigger the subwoofer to turn on, unless you have the AVR volume turned way down.

As page 76 stated clearly, it is speaker level setting that is used to balance the speakers including the subwoofers, not the LFE level.

They still should have been on otherwise, because there was still bass present. Just not LFE signals. So turning the LFE down is pointless. Unless we have, or someone has an adequat subwoofers

Exactly my point above.