New rig upgrade help.

[Joshua Olson]

First off, hello and glad to be here.

Second, I've upgraded my surround system significantly from a no name Samsung 5.1 to a 5.1 Paradigm Atom monitor v7 fronts, surround 1, and center 1 speakers with a Klipsch sw-350 sub and Pioneer vsx-821 receiver.

I'm a little at a loss for figuring out what to set everything at decibel wise. Also heard that setting your speakers to small is better than having them set on large. As of now I'm having a lot of bass, like ungodly amounts. My crossover for the fronts are set to 100hz and my sub is the same.

If you need any more specs on my system I'll be sure to get that for ya.

Thanks

 

[jliedeka]

I think 80 Hz is a good place to set the sub crossover. You want to set that in your receiver only. The sub should be set to bypass. If there isn't a bypass, turn the crossover frequency all the way up. After that, you may want to play with the relative channel volumes in your receiver. I'm assuming you used the auto setup. That gets you close but often a little tweaking is needed. Usually they set the sub too low but too high happens also.

You want all your speakers set to small. That will keep the bass confined to the sub.

if your bass sounds bloated, see if you have any equalization options in your receiver. A slight cut at 125 Hz could help.

Jim

 

[JohnnieB]

Hey Joshua, welcome to the forum. What size room is your system in? Is your processor currently set to large speakers? Setting speaker output to large will run full range frequencies to your speakers. The atom monitors are not designed to run full range effictively. The specs show 50hz is the rated low response limit. Really you would like to be set slightly above this point. Set your speakers to small setting. Your receiver should default to 100hz crossover, set this to 80hz. This will send anything above this freq to your fronts and surrounds. In the subwoofer settings, you have a plus setting. I would initially set this to "no". This should keep your frequencies going to the sub below your crossover setting of 80hz. I suspect what you are getting is bass from every speaker + the sub. Especially with 100hz crossover and speakers set to full. At the top of the page is a link "home theatre setup". In this you will find a link for "subwoofer setup". This will guide you through sub placement. It should help to tone down the bass.

 

[Joshua Olson]

Ahhh, much better. Set the sub to bypass, 80hz and small on fronts and surrounds. The only question I have left is my db setting on my sub was set to -4 after I redid the auto setup. Not sure when you say low if that's too low and should be moved up or if this is all on a personal preference. As for Johnnie's question about room size, it hits the roof at about 14ft, 50ft from back to front and 20ft across. Basically it's a loft in the attic, all wood floors and cement/brick walls.

Appreciate the help, both of ya.

 

[JohnnieB]

Glad it worked out. I would suggest some room treatments, rugs for the hardwood floors. Sloping walls might not be bad, i've never had a setup in that type of room. The cement walls may require some type of treatment as well. If you did the recommended reading in "home theatre setup" you may have come across some info on reflections, room response, and room treatment. As far as the sub volume, it's personal preference, same with room treatments. If it sounds good and you don't want to mess with it, great. Jliedeka mentioned above, auto setup gets you so far, a little tweaking may be required. Have fun, experiment, enjoy.

 

[herbu]

The only question I have left is my db setting on my sub was set to -4 after I redid the auto setup. Not sure when you say low if that's too low and should be moved up or if this is all on a personal preference.

You have 2 volume controls for your sub... 1 is on back of the sub itself, and 1 is in your AVR. One thing that happens when you run "setup" is, the AVR plays tones of known volume through each speaker, and measures how loud each is at your listening area, (microphone). Then it balances the volume from each speaker by setting the volume controls within the AVR.

I don't know where you had the volume/gain knob on back of your sub when you ran setup. Maybe it was at half volume, (12:00?). Your setup program told you the sub volume was a little loud for accurate balance, so it decreased the volume in the AVR by 4db. You could turn down the knob on your sub a little, run setup again, and see the AVR setting becomes a little higher. I don't think it matters much, unless the volume on your sub is so far off that it exceeds the AVRs ability to compensate. (AVRs have a maximum they can increase/decrease volume to a speaker... I think it's ~12dB.)

Now, whether it's "right" or not is up to you. Some, (a lot), of people like a little more bass. You can play with it, (either the volume setting in the AVR or knob on the sub), and see what you like. You may even decide to turn it up a bit for movies, and down for music. Whatever floats your boat.