Help with LFE Digital/speaker level Bass

[st4evr]

Hello all. I've been visiting this site for a few weeks now and just joined since i just recently made the leap to BDs. Was waiting for the whole HD-DVD vs BD battle to be over and done with. Go BDs! LOL

Anyways, i have a set of SCS150 JBL 5.1 speakers and a AVR125 Harman/Kardon. I know they are oldies, but we've been through thousands of DVDs together and now with my HTPC they are still kicking and still rock. Obviously i have hooked up my AVR via analog to the HTPC for the beautiful Lossless audio BDs hit you with. I was playing around recently after i moved my room around due to a new carpet installation and realized i had the subwoofer hook up as "(Non-Digital) – Speaker Level", where the front speakers basically pass the bass to the subwoofer. it's literally been years since i paid attention to how the cables behind were hooked up since i would just go back there to clean and dust off. So i had an extra Coax. cable laying around and decide to hook it up to the actual line-level in LFE DTS/Dolby Digital connection and to the AVR. But i realized that the bass with that connection sucks @$$. It sounds really flat and i don't get the cool vibrations through the room as i do with the speaker level hook up. i go to the theater a lot too and with speaker level bass it feels more authentic and natural too for some reason. Certain low frequencies have this weird "POP" sound with the digital LFE hook up method. For example, shotgun blasts sound like firecrackers popping, very flat, no depth. Where with the speaker level set up they sound more accurate and you can tell it's a shotgun blast. So my question is, am i doing something wrong? Am i missing an option or a setting to get this bass to sound better? This happens on both the 6 channel set up for the analog for BDs and on DVDs which i watch on a DVP5990 hooked up with another Coax. to the AVR for DTS/Dolby Digital 5.1. Anybody else experience this? I though i was losing it at first, but i had some friends come over to see which sounded better and we all agreed it was the speaker level hook up. We were stumped though as to why. Is it right for this set up to sound better than LFE Digital hook up? Thanks to anyone in advance who can help. Sorry for the long post. LOL. I wanted to explain myself as best as possible.

[beefytwinkie]

Sup, homey. The first thing I can think of is: Did you go into the receiver's settings and set the subwoofer to "Yes"?

Also, you may need to change the settings on your fronts, center, and rears to "Small" if that applies to your receiver. You may need to adjust the crossovers for the speakers as well. Start at say, 100Hz or so and adjust up or down depending on how it sounds to you.

Turn the crossover knob on the back of the subwoofer all the way as high as it will go.

That's all I can really think of. I never used the speaker level inputs before so my knowledge in this area is very limited. I'm sure someone else with more knowledge will chime in and help you troubleshoot this!

[un4gvn94538]

if this is happening to more than one source component then i would say that your receiver settings are off. double check that your receiver settings are set to the correct coax input since you have two. i would download the manual if you dont already have it and reconfigure your settings to make sure things are correct. manual: http://manuals.harman.com/HK/HOM/Own...%204-3-02).pdf

[st4evr]

Thanks for the replies guys.

The subwoofer is already set to "ON" which is basically what the manual says is same as "Yes". Also, the speakers are set to "Small" as well. The AVR sets them to small automatically once the the subwoofer set to on. So that's good. I will check on the crossovers though and see what i get. Don't think i've played with that yet. I will also double check to see if the reveiver settings are set to the correct coax inputs and that they are placed correctly. I checked before and everything seemed fine, but doesn't hurt to check again. Again, thanks for the advise.

[beefytwinkie]

Just to be clear, you plugged your subwoofer cable to the part on the receiver that says "Pre-Out Subwoofer", right?

(I see on the manual there is a section that says 5CH DIRECT IN right above the binding posts for your speakers and there is an input for a subwoofer there. That's not where it should be plugged in.)

[st4evr]

Originally Posted by beefytwinkie

Just to be clear, you plugged your subwoofer cable to the part on the receiver that says "Pre-Out Subwoofer", right?

(I see on the manual there is a section that says 5CH DIRECT IN right above the binding posts for your speakers and there is an input for a subwoofer there. That's not where it should be plugged in.)

Yeah it's plug into the "pre-out"

I played around with the individual speaker settings and sub settings that the AVR provides and it seems i got it working. I had to adjust the dBs on each individual speaker and then the sub to get it to the right tones. i also found a setting i was unaware of before in the AVR and it helped a lot. It seems the sub was set to high by default in this setting and overshadowed the sound from the front speakers. Too much flat bass was being produced so i lowered it a bit and set the from speakers a bit higher so that it would even out. Thanks all for all the help and ideas. Much appreciated. All i gotta do now is continue testing it with BDs and play with it as i go to find the perfect sweet spot.