In quickly glancing through these Kgveteran/Vedric responses, I must say I more agree with Kgveteran. However, from a CRITICAL flat/even frequecy response standpoint, I understand Vedric's point of simply getting your speakers set up properly in the first place, thus assumedly eliminating much of the need EQ in the first place, possilbly ading some negatives to the sonic purity. However, in all practicallity, and since 99.999% of the people can't get their speakers set up properly from lack of knowledge(or worse, the room is too small to find adequate placement for flat response) makes Kgveteran's standpoint more valid and practical motly! It's easier, simply refering to balancing the speakers frequency response-wise, to EQ one sub, and not have to worry as much about flat response from all your satalites/speakers!...thus allowing you to balance the bass bellow 80hz out with placement and EQ alone! Still, you'll need to focus on speaker placment, but it give you much more options this way! Case in point:
You've got a small room acoustically, like most, and placing full range speakers in a small to medium room,un-EQ'd, will make for boomy, bloated, one note, lack of pitch and dynamic range sounding bass every time inthese rooms!...unless you introduce unpractical(often) placment options out in the middle of that small room, and/or EQ'ing extensively for the seating possitions! This is a major common problem in most all small/medium acoustic spaces! Now, in Vedcric's deffense, LARGE ROOMS (like, yes, 20x30x9 or better) you can get away with more flexibilt of placement usin full range speakers even!!! However most people don't have such luxury.
Case in point, my last custom theater room I set up for a client, involved a room that was 17(21 at some points)x14.5x9. I was using all 2 way sealed DiApplito HT monitors for mains/center, plus smaller Bipoles and a sub rounding the 5.1 system out. THERE WERE SOOOOOOO many room mode challenges in that smallish room, that I ended up having to EQ the whole system out(this is better in a digital system using internal Digital EQ's if you can mind you, unless you spend big bucks on many higher expense EQ's!!!, like Rives EQ), since the seating options where limited in this case, not to mention speaker placement limitations.
So, responding to Vedric's assumption regarding peoples need to simply set the speakers up right in the first place, I find it doesn't MOSTLY end up being an option for most, for many reasons!!! In this case, being able to set speakers up closer to walls/boundaries, in cabinets, near big TV's, whatever, becomes much more practical when setting speakers to only play above 80hz or so, and EQing out a single(or better, multiple subs) instead!!!!
Case in point again: If anyone went to this past year's Hifi expo in San Francisco, There were at least 6 or more rooms in the hotel that were using Rives Audio's Parametric EQ in them! The sound difference was tremendous! Granted, this EQ cost's thousands for a high end system, but you need to do something to get the modes down in these smaller acoustic spaces, like THE VAST MAJORITY of smaller domestic rooms we mostly see consumers having to use at home!!!
In large acoustic spaces like commercial theaters, placment isn't a problem at all!...as you can put speakers most anywhere and mostly be garanted flat response because of the tight modal distribution in such large spaces...you don't have that luxury in small house rooms, which is what we mostly live in. Thus, in small rooms, speaker placement and, often, EQing become necessary for optimal sound!
Now, back to the issue regarding bass distribution for efficiency, coherency, dynamic potential, speed, and transparncy, and practicality from an "option" standpoint fo distribution, there are other considerations here.
Second, regarding Vedric's statement that your WASTING USEFUL BASS OUTPUT FROM YOUR OTHERWISE CAPABLE FULL RANGE SPEAKERS by setting 80hz cross for your speakers, this doesn't work mostly!!! AGain, THX figured this out because passive speakers can't properly deal with the 5-10x's as demanding bass mixed into these soundracks!(music is much less dynamic mostly, as music doensn't have explosions mixed in)
I've seen/heared it time and time and time again!...people using their full range speakers (passive types going through a rather inefficient passive crossover built in) full range for movies! Blown woofers and fried tweeters, distorted mushed out bass from the speakers, and generally muddy and non-dynamic inpactfull bass is largely the results this gets!...sorry to say, but I've worked in 2 large audio chain stores, and 4 high end audio stores over the last 10 years now, and unless your using speakers with large powered subs built in or MARGINALLY high efficiency Klipsch type horn speakers, playing full range through all your tower speakers for movies SUCKS!!! You think you're wasting the bass potential by playing them as "small", but your not! And, yes, all the bass is being mixed down into your sub when you do this, but it's still much better do to the limitation of your speakers!
I've played full range dynamic movies, at all volume levels and intensities, with evey kind of speaker you can immagine! And, by far, taking the rather inefficient bass load of of these passive speaker set-up's is the way to go for sure! If you're worried about lossing bass in teh room, get MORE ACTIVE SUBS!!!! Those passive, even full range speakers need to only be trying to reproduce the rather EASY 80hz and above info dynamically!...YES!
The reason people get distortion and blown speakrs running these action movies on DVD through their towers full range is largely do to a poor distribution of power through their passively crossed over speaker designs, and in-efficient amps in their recievers and underpowered poweramps! So, from a less dynamically demanding bass standpoint when playing most music through your main speakers full range, this problem isn't as bad for most people. yes, you can get fast, cohrerent, dynamic enough sounding bass from full range speakers for this application, I conceed for the most part. But, play techno, hard rock, rap, heavy R&B/Hip-hop, whatever through this same set up and listen to your speakers bass go all to hell!..they'll scream for relief and more power! In short, you'll either distort your woofers, get washed out mush, or hear slopy washed out bass! My worst fear is blowing drivers! If you don't think so, just put on some of this heavy techno, or rap and hear your systems inefficiency! If you've got powered speakers with big woofers, or much more efficient horn speakers(even pro audio types), this is much less of an issue. Still, for all practicality, if you can get a crossover at 80hz between a speaker and passive sub, the systems dynamic potential will come alive with that effectively "bi-amped" set up!!!(i.e, sub's amp and main amp combined).
Yes, I find that only in the speakers that are using active bass woofers of large enough size, can you get USEFUL bass that's controled enough not to blow woofers for DD/DTS movies! ACtually, I've heard Linn's active speakrs played full range for movies on occasions. And, even though the sound was more dynamic by far than any other passive speakers(mostly home audio) sounded full range, the bass was still distoring quite a bit when pushed at THX level! Definitely sounded better crossed over to a larger powered 1000 watt sub!(infact, commercial set up's use 1000 watt/ch amps to drive the bass woofers for a reason1!!!...just like Russ Herschelmann of HT/STereophile/AVInteriors uses in all his full blow theaters!).
It all comes down to efficiency, flexibility, control, dynamics, and accuracy of sound when it comes to bass distribution. I've played around with all the processors(in board and out) that offer flexibility from 20hz to 250hz for crossover setting for HT purposes. And, I like the 80hz setting, because I know how it works and how to work with it! I'm not saying you can't get good results by not using this, but it all becomes a trade-off. And for movies, the trade-off of potential dynamics and efficiency is not one that should be given up!...at any volume level!. I say this, and I'm a two channel audio guy as well.
I've argued with many audiophile who use their large Dunlavy's, Wilson's, JM Utopia's Even Avantgards or whatever, and even less expensive PSB's, NHT's, B&w's, whatever, about running full range for HT! I've tried all those scenarios, with all kinds of amps and set-up's. Infact, if you call all the high end speaker makers and tell em you're going to run HT at anywhere near THX levels through THEIR SPEAKERS, they'll tell ya you might consider a powered sub and the "SMALL" SETTING ON YOUR PRE PRO! Justr Ask Thiel, Wilson, Martin logan, B&W, whoever! I know, I've not only sold all these people products, but I've talked with their people extensively!
Now, there are those companies who set up speakers to be played full range for movies, and I think Def Tech and the powered NHT's and such are two of them! Yes, Klipsch makes some very large passive horn speakers that will do much better here than most standard non-powered passives full range for movies. But The likes of the active woofered speakers like Def Tech's and NHT VT3 system have advantages of having active woofers on their large bass drivers! IN these cases, bass distribution from an efficiency stand point becomes less of an issue. I've even owned the INfinity Prelude composition and MTS full range ACTIVE-woofered speakers, and so I know this is the case, including
Def TEch BP2000's! So, I know what I'm talking here. In large rooms, those powered speakers can handle the bass for sure!..and they do it well. This isn't the case with large passive audiphile designs for the most. You NEED A POWERED SUB!..OR MORE!!!
So, again, M&K whith their powered sub/sat systems are doing it righ for movies in homes! I like their stuff as well. You can use, yes, your audiphile speakers and a sub, but you gotta cross em over at 80 and set up right! Large rooms get more freedom of speaker placement, for that option. For most people however, I'd stick with running full range for passive music, and crossover for rock/HT dubites every time! Yes, higherend horn speakers with active woofers like AVantgard's can play full range if need be for movies, but most other high ender's can't handle the truth for movies!
It's all good. But THX didn't spend a small fortune trying to sort all this out for nothing! Many audiophile think their old 2 channel full range stereo approach to DD/DTS/THX movies can be adressed by thier outdated approach/set-up's! But this isn't the case. Just go slap in "The Hulk" on DVD and play it about 5 db bellow THX level, try full range through your speakers vs. "small" with a powered sub(s), and see what your ears/speakers think??? If you havn't blown your speakers up playing em full range, and you like the sound, then there you are!....
I think you'll rethink after you've done it just once.
Have fun
