Subwoofer crossovers

Brad, glad there is professional confirmation for what my amateur intuition told me. I am running mains at full range and use a low pass filter for my discrete stereo sub signal. For MCH 5.1 I also sum the unfiltered LFE channel to the discrete stereo signal of my 2 subs. The only (non-pro, and non custom made) device I found that can do this is the NHT-X2 Xover. Now discontinued.

You mention cross-over frequency for LFE channel, but I presume this is only relevant is you cross over mains, center of surround to the LFE channel. If you don't you will simply get on the LFE channel what was mixed to that channel in the studio.

Hi Edorr
Yes the crossover applies to the mains and a lot of speaker manufacturers (like ATC) dislike the idea. Others do it out of compliance if they plan to sell a lot of small 5.1 systems in post-the customers (in this case post production engineers) need to hear exactly what the 5.1 mix will sound like.

Brad

The posts in this thread suggest you folks are knowledgable about bass management. It seems as though SACD discs output as DSD from my Sony XA5400ES or Oppo BDP-93 to my Cary Cinema 11a lack bass management. The subs are not invoked. OTOH, HDCD discs from the BDP-93 do invoke the subs. I read one of Kal Rubinson's remarks to suggest DSD might not carry bass management information. Do I need to output LPCM to get the subs to fire? Is it endemic to DSD or is it a problem with the Cinema 11a? I'm trying to understand this.

db

In case it's relevant to my previous post, the sub output from the Cinema 11a goes through a Velodyne SMS-1 to a pair of HGS-15s using XLR connectors. The 11a has movie and music modes. I use 80 Hz crossover to the mains for movies and 60 Hz or none for music.

db

You cannot apply bass management in either the Oppo or the Cary when playing in DSD Direct mode. However, when you play a 5.1 SACD you should still get information on your subs (this is the .1 channel), because this information is present on your source and does not require bass management to reproduce. When playing a stereo SACD (or a 4.0 or 5.0 SACD), you will not get any bass on the sub and need to convert to PCM if you want to use the subs. Try both modes and see if the benefits of bass management outweigh the loss in resolution of converting to DSD. Some have reporting no such loss exists, in which case PCM conversion is always preferable. To my ears the loss is substantial. IF you play a 5.1 SACD and you get no output on the subs something is wrong in your setup.