Thursday, July 05, 2007

Twiddling and Tweeking

I did some rearranging, and moved the ProSub between the 7001's and connected the center speaker wire to the input and the C-25 to the output. I set the cross-over to 150Hz, the max that the ProSub would allow. I then connected the LFE pre-out to the pair of 7001's (along with the L/R speaker wires).

I re-ran my EzSet equalization on my HK 635, and as expected it now identified the center as LARGE rather than small (as it had with the C-25 previously alone). It also identified the 7001's as the sub channel. All the distances and cross-overs looked correct and when running the test tones I got a very good balance when measured with a RS sound meter.

I then checked out the speaker balances using the DVE HD disc and the 6-Channel output of the receiver. Everything was fine except for the sub. It was the same low 8-10dB that I have come to expect from using the analog outs on the HD player. I went back in and boosted the sub the required amount, and ran the all the tests again. I was very pleased with the results and was able to keep within 1 dB around the room.

The real test was playing the True-HD audio of the Matrix and finding out how it sounded. It was quite an improvement from my original un-powered center configuration. So after many, many hours of twiddling, I finally have a better understanding of what a sub enabled center channel can sound like. The towers seemed to handle the LFE without a problem, so I don't miss having the ProSub doing that function.

So I think I will stick with this configuration for a while and see if it grows on me. I can already appreciate the improvement in clarity of the dialog. Someday I do hope to have a matching set of speaker rather than what I have today, but I will just have to be patient and work with what I have.

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