Finding the correct crossover is the last of a ten step process and can change based on your room. I bought the miniDSP 2x4hd a few months ago and think I spent six hours placing my subs, time aligning, measuring, and finally finding the best crossover for lcr integration with my two subs. Probably spent that much time also learning how to use the DSP through TH-cam videos.
Lifted my crossovers to 90/100 and let dual svs handle lower frequencies and it transformed my theatre! Going back to 80hz exposed a lot of missing info!
Same here I have 6 wharfedale diamond 9.5 towers and three subs in my 7.2 set up, the towers are specified down to 30hz but it just sounds better when crossovers on Sony STR-DN 1050 AVR are set at 100hz especially for music, I listen to a lot of reggae and rock
I'm with Erin. You need to measure with REW. Try each crossover and pick the one that provides the best response with your speakers in your room. It's usually not as simple as looking the -3db of your speakers. Home Theater Gamer has some good videos on this.
Very good topic! I have five Kef ls50' s for my home theater and I am using Arcam 550 receiver. It took me two years to figure out that I was missing out on bass. Once I adjusted my dirac settings equalizer to raising up 11 dB to the 40 Hz, 50 Hz, 60 Hz, 80 Hz, and 100 Hz,, while lowering my receiver crossover to 50 Hz, I noticed a tremendous amount of improvement with sound. And I played loud in enough to the point that it was uncomfortable to my ears. So far, no problem with the speakers or receiver, and it's been over three months now. When my brother came into my room to watch a movie, he said, "wait, I hear so much bass coming from the front." And a good bass at that, not a struggling bass. I have two subwoofers to contribute to the lower end below 50 Hz.. Not only that, but the music sounds way better as well. I prefer to listen in surround mode rather than the two fronts. With that said, the whole room brings in a lot more bass along with the well-known incredible mids and highs that the ls50s are known for. I used to get frustrated thinking that I needed a subwoofer to compensate for areas of the room that needed it. But making this change has pretty much eliminated the frustration. It is not yet perfect, but I couldn't be happier!
I would think a lot of speakers have issues playing anything below 80-70 hz with THD. Most speaker companies do not tell you the THD of the speaker like I have seen on Bowers & Wilkins on some speakers have a 1% distortion at 90hz at 1m at 90 db. If you are not going to play loud then you are ok. I would still not go below 80 on like 90 percent of speakers. I dont know when the percent will be bad for speakers or when you can hear it. And for that speaker to be below 1 percent THD is 120hz would be .3
In my 2-ch system my mains is sinking as a rock at ~50hz. I measure and program crossover at 52, 53, 54 and 55. So for each Hz i measure and see how the mains and subwoofers interact at and around the crossover point. The DSP for the subwoofer fix the crossover point, slope (48 dB/octave), PEQ, custom curve, rumble filter (for the tonearm and cartridge), time alignment and so on. Yeah you need to know what you do and it is rather high threshold.
What about measuring each output with different crossover points and see which one is closer to the house curve you are aiming for? Regarding the placement, there is a white paper by Tood Welti from Harman. In a couple of words, they did a LOT of research regarding the best placement of 2, 4 subs in rooms. The best locations are 4 subs in corners, 4 subs in each wall midpoint. For 2 subs, the best configuration is 1 sub centered on a width of front wall, and 1 sub centered on a width of a back wall if there is a possibility to place listening position away from the back wall of course. The white paper was instigated by Dr. Floyd Toole.
The Answer / Approach would differ considerably based on whether or not one is using Auto-EQ vs Manually. -OR- in very recent times vs the exception to the rule Auto-EQ systems that can now handle optimizing the Bass coming from both the Subwoofer(s) AND all of the Speakers.
My ears on my system have me crossing over at different points. I'll play a couple choice selections of music and listen to where a set of speakers start to run out of gas and estimate the Hz where that happened. then assign the Cross maybe 10 above that for the Subs to do the heavy lifting. So far that has worked very well for me.
The only way to really determine the best crossover is to measure it via REW, so try 60, 80, 100, etc till it looks the best. Then test it with your favorite music or movies, and make sure it sounds the best
Don't think you'll ever get a perfect math equation as it's too complex to figure out. Best you'll get is a generic number like the one THX did research to figure out (80hz) which is based on typical rooms, typical speakers speakers and general physics of acoustics. Pretty much to create a equation you would need to know where each speaker is, the shape/dimension of the room, material of the walls, absorption/reflection coefficients of all the furniture and where they are, and the speaker's measurements and your amps capabilities and SPL levels and where the seats are. Then once you have all that information you would need to do sophisticated calculations to figure out how the speakers will sound to therefore know where to place the crossover. I think software like that exists but it's so expensive that only high end system integrators could justify spending the money for it and doesn't work perfect for non-ideal rooms ie non-rectangular sealed rooms. That's why I think UMIK-1 and REW are the best option like Erin said as you don't need to calculate anything as you're just looking at what is actually happening and it's pretty easy to set the volume to your normal level and click measure between changing one settting.
The CEA 2034 has a crossover section: “measurement shall be averaged over the frequency range from 100 Hz to 1 kHz…The frequency at which… level of no less than the Average Level minus 3 dB shall be the Lower Frequency Limit.” It then goes on to say classify it as 80/100/120 The issue is that it doesn’t take into account max SPL and compression. However, make the anechoic measurements at a high level and use that. Erin is doing compression testing at high levels now.
This was a waste of time you never answer the question how do you determine correct crossover. If you expert can't answer this there's no hope for people like me😢
They answered it. The answer is that like most things in life, it’s not simple, and it depends on your room and your gear. Your answer will also vary depending on how much work you’re willing to put in. If you don’t have the ability, time, or inclination to spend time placing your sub(s) in the optimal location, then place everything where it will go, run your room correction software, and then experiment with different crossover points. Choose the one you like most for the type of content you’re listening to. For my own setup, I haven’t settled on one choice. 80 seems to work well for movies, but on some music, it’s way punchier at 50. But that’s based on my speakers and subs. The way my speakers (DIY with 2x 7” woofers and a 1.25” tweeter each) play with my subs (2x DIY 18” driven by an iNuke 6000dsp) in my room will 100% assuredly be different than the way your speakers integrate with your subs placed where you have them in your room.
Finding the correct crossover is the last of a ten step process and can change based on your room. I bought the miniDSP 2x4hd a few months ago and think I spent six hours placing my subs, time aligning, measuring, and finally finding the best crossover for lcr integration with my two subs. Probably spent that much time also learning how to use the DSP through TH-cam videos.
Audioholics has some really good videos on crossover settings. Dual sub setups etc
Lifted my crossovers to 90/100 and let dual svs handle lower frequencies and it transformed my theatre! Going back to 80hz exposed a lot of missing info!
Same here I have 6 wharfedale diamond 9.5 towers and three subs in my 7.2 set up, the towers are specified down to 30hz but it just sounds better when crossovers on Sony STR-DN 1050 AVR are set at 100hz especially for music, I listen to a lot of reggae and rock
I'm with Erin. You need to measure with REW. Try each crossover and pick the one that provides the best response with your speakers in your room. It's usually not as simple as looking the -3db of your speakers. Home Theater Gamer has some good videos on this.
Very good topic!
I have five Kef ls50' s for my home theater and I am using Arcam 550 receiver. It took me two years to figure out that I was missing out on bass.
Once I adjusted my dirac settings equalizer to raising up 11 dB to the 40 Hz, 50 Hz, 60 Hz, 80 Hz, and 100 Hz,, while lowering my receiver crossover to 50 Hz, I noticed a tremendous amount of improvement with sound. And I played loud in enough to the point that it was uncomfortable to my ears. So far, no problem with the speakers or receiver, and it's been over three months now.
When my brother came into my room to watch a movie, he said, "wait, I hear so much bass coming from the front."
And a good bass at that, not a struggling bass. I have two subwoofers to contribute to the lower end below 50 Hz..
Not only that, but the music sounds way better as well. I prefer to listen in surround mode rather than the two fronts. With that said, the whole room brings in a lot more bass along with the well-known incredible mids and highs that the ls50s are known for.
I used to get frustrated thinking that I needed a subwoofer to compensate for areas of the room that needed it. But making this change has pretty much eliminated the frustration. It is not yet perfect, but I couldn't be happier!
Being an Arcam owner I find your comment very interesting! Would you mind listing your complete setup please.
I would think a lot of speakers have issues playing anything below 80-70 hz with THD. Most speaker companies do not tell you the THD of the speaker like I have seen on Bowers & Wilkins on some speakers have a 1% distortion at 90hz at 1m at 90 db. If you are not going to play loud then you are ok. I would still not go below 80 on like 90 percent of speakers. I dont know when the percent will be bad for speakers or when you can hear it. And for that speaker to be below 1 percent THD is 120hz would be .3
In my 2-ch system my mains is sinking as a rock at ~50hz.
I measure and program crossover at 52, 53, 54 and 55.
So for each Hz i measure and see how the mains and subwoofers interact at and around the crossover point.
The DSP for the subwoofer fix the crossover point, slope (48 dB/octave), PEQ, custom curve, rumble filter (for the tonearm and cartridge), time alignment and so on.
Yeah you need to know what you do and it is rather high threshold.
What about measuring each output with different crossover points and see which one is closer to the house curve you are aiming for? Regarding the placement, there is a white paper by Tood Welti from Harman. In a couple of words, they did a LOT of research regarding the best placement of 2, 4 subs in rooms. The best locations are 4 subs in corners, 4 subs in each wall midpoint. For 2 subs, the best configuration is 1 sub centered on a width of front wall, and 1 sub centered on a width of a back wall if there is a possibility to place listening position away from the back wall of course. The white paper was instigated by Dr. Floyd Toole.
The Answer / Approach would differ considerably based on whether or not one is using Auto-EQ vs Manually. -OR- in very recent times vs the exception to the rule Auto-EQ systems that can now handle optimizing the Bass coming from both the Subwoofer(s) AND all of the Speakers.
My ears on my system have me crossing over at different points. I'll play a couple choice selections of music and listen to where a set of speakers start to run out of gas and estimate the Hz where that happened. then assign the Cross maybe 10 above that for the Subs to do the heavy lifting.
So far that has worked very well for me.
The only way to really determine the best crossover is to measure it via REW, so try 60, 80, 100, etc till it looks the best. Then test it with your favorite music or movies, and make sure it sounds the best
Someone needs to develop the perfect math equation for setting crossovers.
Don't think you'll ever get a perfect math equation as it's too complex to figure out. Best you'll get is a generic number like the one THX did research to figure out (80hz) which is based on typical rooms, typical speakers speakers and general physics of acoustics. Pretty much to create a equation you would need to know where each speaker is, the shape/dimension of the room, material of the walls, absorption/reflection coefficients of all the furniture and where they are, and the speaker's measurements and your amps capabilities and SPL levels and where the seats are. Then once you have all that information you would need to do sophisticated calculations to figure out how the speakers will sound to therefore know where to place the crossover. I think software like that exists but it's so expensive that only high end system integrators could justify spending the money for it and doesn't work perfect for non-ideal rooms ie non-rectangular sealed rooms. That's why I think UMIK-1 and REW are the best option like Erin said as you don't need to calculate anything as you're just looking at what is actually happening and it's pretty easy to set the volume to your normal level and click measure between changing one settting.
@@TylerStout thanks for explanation
The CEA 2034 has a crossover section:
“measurement shall be averaged over the frequency range from 100 Hz to 1 kHz…The frequency at which… level of no less than the Average Level minus 3 dB shall be the Lower Frequency Limit.”
It then goes on to say classify it as 80/100/120
The issue is that it doesn’t take into account max SPL and compression. However, make the anechoic measurements at a high level and use that. Erin is doing compression testing at high levels now.
2 ears. Simple.
@@weseehowcommiegoogleis3770 experience in critical listening pays off 👍
Channa stuffing his face. 😆
I have a 7 channel 200w monolith amp powering my front, back, center speakers crossing at 60-80hz. no issues and tons of noise.
SHOVEL that stuff in!!
I think Denon/Marantz is 24dB on the speakers and 18dB on the sub.
Short answer for the non-techies...
Experiment a lot and trust your ears! 😁
For my 2 subs crossover 120 whit bookshelves speakers
Do we really watch your associate eat?
stop eating
You first.
This was a waste of time you never answer the question how do you determine correct crossover. If you expert can't answer this there's no hope for people like me😢
They answered it. The answer is that like most things in life, it’s not simple, and it depends on your room and your gear.
Your answer will also vary depending on how much work you’re willing to put in. If you don’t have the ability, time, or inclination to spend time placing your sub(s) in the optimal location, then place everything where it will go, run your room correction software, and then experiment with different crossover points. Choose the one you like most for the type of content you’re listening to.
For my own setup, I haven’t settled on one choice. 80 seems to work well for movies, but on some music, it’s way punchier at 50. But that’s based on my speakers and subs. The way my speakers (DIY with 2x 7” woofers and a 1.25” tweeter each) play with my subs (2x DIY 18” driven by an iNuke 6000dsp) in my room will 100% assuredly be different than the way your speakers integrate with your subs placed where you have them in your room.