Low treble from mains (crate pa's)

[aaron6939]

Hello all, I have recently put together a monster of a surround sound system. By monster I mean I have many random pieces of equiptment...not much is uniform. I have a yamaha htr-5280 natural sound a/v receiver that I am using to push two Crate s10 pa's. The pa's are my mains and as far as I can tell, the receiver/amp has no problem pushing them. However, even with the treble turned all the way up on the receiver, I can't get anywhere near a sufficient amount of highs. I know the pa's can sound fantastic, because when I use them as actual pa's poweredby a mixer, the highs can be almost overpowering. My question then, I guess, is: Is there a way to boost the highs? Is there something I can do or get that will correct this or is it possibly a setting that is wrong on the receiver?

thanks, Aaron

 

[mazersteven]

I have a yamaha htr-5280 natural sound a/v receiver

Natural sound? Receiver are not suppose to have a sound. Speakers reproduce sound, and have there own sound signature. Electronics are not suppose to influence sound.

EQ's influence sound.

 

[aaron6939]

first off, "natural sound" is just part of the model name of the receiver. I know that eq's influence the sound, i'm saying the treble (all my highs) are non existant through my mains. The only speaker of mine that is reproducing the highs is my center channel, which is sort of ok for 5 channel surround, but say I want to switch the receiver to 2 channel stereo mode....I do so, and I have no highs.

 

[mazersteven]

first off, "natural sound" is just part of the model name of the receiver. I know that eq's influence the sound, i'm saying the treble (all my highs) are non existant through my mains. The only speaker of mine that is reproducing the highs is my center channel, which is sort of ok for 5 channel surround, but say I want to switch the receiver to 2 channel stereo mode....I do so, and I have no highs.

Have you run test tones through your receiver, and calibrated using a Sound Level Meter?

 

[aaron6939]

I switched out the crate pa's for set of midsize towers and the highs are there...i don't want to use these speakers though because they are pretty cheap and do not have the best sound...but the fact remains "the highs are there." I just don't understand, why are they different? The stereo mode on the amp supplies the full range of sound...there is no electronic crossover eliminating a certain range or anything. I know that the crate speakers have crossovers built in that separates the sound inside the cabs to the two speakers (they are two way, a woofer and a horn) but why would this make any difference? I don't think impedience would effect the sound in this way...the crate cabs are wired into 4 ohms, which I have the receiver set to anyway.

 

[markw]

Re-read this post.

I switched out the crate pa's for set of midsize towers and the highs are there...i don't want to use these speakers though because they are pretty cheap and do not have the best sound...but the fact remains "the highs are there." I just don't understand, why are they different? The stereo mode on the amp supplies the full range of sound...there is no electronic crossover eliminating a certain range or anything. I know that the crate speakers have crossovers built in that separates the sound inside the cabs to the two speakers (they are two way, a woofer and a horn) but why would this make any difference? I don't think impedience would effect the sound in this way...the crate cabs are wired into 4 ohms, which I have the receiver set to anyway.

It's the Crate speakers, pure and simple. Why doesn't matter.

For many reasons you can look up elsewhere, commercial PA speakers are not the same as "home hi-fi" speakers. There are differences.

If other speakers sound better in this application, use them.

Oh, running four ohm speakers can put a strain on an amplifier. Just a little something to keep in mind.

 

[adwilk]

Have you tested just the horn? Perhaps they arent hooked up correctly. I'm not meaning to dumb this down or anything. Are the crates bi-wireable? How are they hooked up to the receiver? How do you hook them up to your mixer?

 

[Patriot]

I run PA speakers as my mains and I get great high's, mid's, and bottom end. Maybe you are underpowering them........

 

[aaron6939]

I use the same cables to hook the PAs up to the receiver as the mixer, the cables are 20 foot rubber coated with 1/4 jacks on each end...the only thing different for the receiver is that i have a cable with bare wires on one end and the 1/4 female end on the other which plugs into the 20 footer....the underpowering statement is interesting...the PAs are 150 rms each with 300 peak watts and the receiver supplies 600 watts into 5 separate channels, so that would give me what, 120 each....would low power cause them to have no highs??? I guess that kind of makes sense.

 

[adwilk]

I really dont think the wattage is the issue.... the amt of watts would not change the frequencies played. I dont think this is the issue... If anything you would lose low end... usually sensitivity on those horns would be very high. Hard to imagine you couldnt hear them... Even with a very low sensitivity those pa speakers would run you out of your room with that receiver. Something is wrong with the speakers or they are hooked up wrong.

 

[aaron6939]

That is what I originally thought about the amount of power the speakers were receiving. Would phase affect the speakers in this way? maybe I just have the wires mixed up inside the cable ends that I put together. What about wire gauge?

 

[adwilk]

Phase wouldnt have anything to do with you not hearing the higher frequencies, likewise, the gauge wire used would not affect it.

Its hard to imagine that its on the receiver end as well. The speaker gets the signal. The receiver doesnt separate the frequencies, it sends the entire bandwidth and lets the crossover do the work.

Can you tell if the high frequency driver is playing anything?

That would have probably been the most important question for troubleshooting...

 

[aaron6939]

I found the problem, The high frequency drivers are not producing sound. This makes no sense to me, when they are hooked up to my powered mixer, they work perfectly. What could be the issue?

 

[markw]

Are they wired for biamping?

 

[aaron6939]

My knowledge of this term is pretty small, but from what i understand...i assume not. I guess i don't understand the difference between powering the speakers with an eight channel powered mixer or powering them from the front main speaker outputs on the receiver? either way, i use one cable that plugs into the speaker. i know there is a passive crossover inside the speakers, i have seen it. I guess there must be some kind of difference between the signals - or what ever you want to call the electricity flowing through the cable to the speaker - otherwise why would I be having this problem...To me, i think no mater what is powering the speakers, they should receive the signal, the crossover should divide the highs and lows, and then send them to the appropriate speaker within the cab. Am I wrong in thinking this? To clear up any possible confusion these speakers are passive and are powered directly from the receiver or mixer, whatever they are hooked to at the time.