where do you cross over your ht setup

I would like to respond a bit more here. But first I want to comment to Eldartford's situation with his 1.6 Maggies. Eldartford, you NEED TO BE CROSSING THOSE MAGGIES AT 80 or so, indeed!!! Especially given the delicate nature of those speakers (I know, I've sold them on a retail level for several years!!) The 1.6's need to focus on what they do best, and that's world class clarity, transparancy, midrange, and speed, etc! Bass, most all of it, in an HT context only really works adequately with those speakers deligated to the sub! Plain and simple. If you want to have squashed dynamics with these dynamics, strainted sounding bass, and just plain dammage to your speakers with these Maggies, then just play em full range for HT and see!(I'm talking in general to the masses here.
P.s., for the record, even though I'm not a "planar" speaker fan per se, I think you can't get better sound for the money for gorgeous sound than the 1.6!...very pretty speakers sonically. They do things most others can't anywhere near the price, conceeded. I like what they DO DO WELL!..which is offer a tremendous sonic value to the audiphile...you just can't sit off axis with em, or rock hard on em...that's all..no biggie. But I like 'em!
...Anyway regarding Vedric's stance that he likes his HT system(I think I read that right) to just be his 2 channel system, playing full range, I have tons of experience with that approach. And my comments are these...
...First, my last HT set up in my home has been a 2 cnannel music/HT system for the past several years! I've not gotten around to building a dedicated full blown HT system as of yet, since I'm in the process of a new home where it will reside.
I must say that I've heard WAY WAY WAY too many 2 channel high end systems in my years, and the reality is that there are few and far between stricktly passive 2 channel systems that can really handle a full range DD/DTS signals properly!!!(I say that, assuming one's using an outboard pre/pro to process DD/DTS material, rather than stricktly going through the analog outs of a DVD player, whatever, into the analog in's of a 2 channel preamp!...as using soley the processing in one's DVD player, WILL NOT YEILD YOUR PROPER DYNAMICS AND SOUND FROM YOUR DD/DTS SOURCES!...AND MANY AUDIPHILES DON'T REALIZE THIS!..YOU GOTTA GET A PRE/PRO IN THE CHAIN!). The problems, again,(and you're fooling yourselves if you think your dynamics are "ALL THAT!", AND OR ACCEPTALBE TO PROPERLY PLAY BACK WHAT THE MIXING ENGINEERS INTENDED YOU TO HEAR!) lye in the inability of your standard passive home audiophile speakers, full range or otherwise, to handle the bass information accurately, and without dynamic compression and lack of control!..this is a MAJOR PROBLEM AND SHORTCOMMING OF STANDARD PASSIVE SPEAKER DESIGNS TODAY!
Bass, wich is the hardests thing to control in an audio system, has MAJOR HURDLES TO OVERCOME being reproduced through PASSIVE CROSSOVER NEWORKS that most speakers posses! This is where the ACTIVE POWERED SUB HAS A HUGE ADVANTAGE, IN DAMPING FACTOR, CONTROL, AND DYNAMIC OUTPUT AND RANGE! Infact, I came back from the Hi-fi expo in San Fran this past year, and must have heard several hundred 2 channel only set up's for music. These systems, playing full range dynamic music simply can't hang!..that's the way it is. Infact, achieving true dyanmic transparancy isn't really so possible from passive speakers mostly, especially in the bass reigion! This is where active speakers have a HUGE ADVANTAGE!
Now, back to bass, just take a pair of Def Tech BP2000's, or NHT VT3's, or even ultra high end Avantgard horn speakers with ACTIVE POWERED BASS WOOFERS, and play em full range for movies versus ANY...I REPEAT, ANY standard passive home audio speaker for heavy dynamic, especially HT digital material, and you tell me which one's handle the bass properly!!!!....HANDS DOWN!..IT'S NO CONTEST! The standard home audio passive full range speakers out there can't handle the dynamics and the impact, that's capable from these current DD/DTS soundtracks, nor really demanding bass heavy music material!!!!
I beg to differ (it's all good..no worries..to each his own) with Vedric's stance that he believes that running your full range 2 channel music speaker set up for HT is just as good! I don't think so... And I've done maybe a 1000 home theater set up's in my last 15 years in this business. Infact, as I mentioned, I even pressently use a 2 channel set up for my HT!
Still, let me qualify that you CAN INDEED MAKE A 2 CHANNEL SET work well for HT! Infact, I'll take a quality 2 channel (added, you need a sub to do the bass though) system over a poor sounding 5.1 or better system any day! I prefer quality over quantity for certain. However, STill, as you've gathered, I've found out a few things the hard way over the years. And that's that you need to cross over your mains in a PASSIVE SPEAKER SYSTEM(wich most of us use), and let the active woofer handle the bass! Again, the bass dynamic range, output, and extenstion can't be handled properly by most all the passive speaker designs out there, for truely effective playback. yes, the bass will play down deep full range through a speaker, but it will be squashed, softer, less impactfull, less authoritative, and DEFINITELY less dynamically transparent! THX got this part very very right, and it works! Heck, they won industry awards from the Academy and such for their work....I think they know what they're doing when it comes to movie playback, as well as mixing! But hey, that's just my opinion/experience. To each his own.
And, like I mentioned, those of you(me included)who are doing your DD/DTS HT playback through your 2 channel preamp, without a dedicated outboard DD/DTS processor of some sort, your shorting yourself sonically! The dynamics and pressence, when you bypass the outboard processing just doesn't sound good!...sorry, that's the way it is.
I use an outboard DD/dts/pro-logic pre/pro looped into my 2 channel audio pre-amp's "BYPASS"(you can use Auxilary/dirrect, whateve) for best results in my two channel system. I then cross over the speakers as "small", or "80hz", (even though I can, and have tried different settings like 65hz, 50hz, 40hz, etc, etc), and kick in the powered sub for movies and heavy dyanamic music and such! There's really no comparison. Playing movies with the speakers full range doesn't cut it for movies...not even close.
But, I'm not saying I think everyone is don't it wrong using just their mains full range. But they will blow woofers, get shorted on the dynamic potential, impact, and accuracy of the sound in general for movie playback. But that's what it is. I've done it that way myself many many times, when I had no woofer. But it's not the best way. I'm sorry.
All you out there doing a 5.1 or 7.1 need a sub or two, or more...and you need to do bass managment to get the efficiency, dynamics, and control out of your system! You're effectively biamping your entire system, maximizing each portion of your sound spectrum from a "control" and "efficiency" stand point, and getting the sound you are supposed to by-enlarge! Only full active, high efficiency systems have it better in terms of total dynamic potential. And with movies out there like "The Hulk", "LOTR's", "Star Wars", action flicks in genral, whatever, proper bass distribution and control over the bass is a must if you want to hear more of what's capable from such demanding source material!
Again, as a comparison, go see any of these block buster, highly dynamic movies in the theaters, and then listen to em at home through your full range speakrs at home without proper bass MGMT! You'll be dissapointed I think. "The Hulk" just won't sound like it did in the movie theater...and it should!
Peace

Vedric...I normally don't use the LFE channel to drive my subs. If and when I get into movies I can switch the center SW to use the LFE signal.

I have watched a couple of movies since I made the changes mentioned above. It seiously improved the impact and extension of the lows in both DTS/DD. I may try bypassing the outboard controller(NHT SubTwoi) altogether, running the LFE directly from the Processor to the Sub. I'll lose Phase control and the LFE gain, but....I have phase at 0 degrees and I can easily compensate the gain with the Processor itself. I will repost after experimenting. Thanks again guys.

"Distortion"...without going back through all your threads, I just wanted to mention, not for just you but all reading, that when considering crossover frequencies/placement, for best sound, and correct sound even, you must make sure that all the speakers that are crossed over are coupling WELL AT THE CROSSOVER FREQUENCY! For example, if you are crossing all your speakers over at 80hz, or some of them even, those speakers MUST BE PLAYING CLOSE TO FLAT DOWN TO 80 HZ WHERE THEY'RE SET UP AND/OR WHERE YOUR LISTENING POSSITIONS ARE CORESPONDINGLY!!!
People most often get poor results with sub/sat systems, and even systems where they're using more full range speazkers but crossing them over to a sub, by not making sure their getting adequate frequency extension and balanced response at that frequency especially!!! The often result is that "hole in the middle/bass" sound that sounds incomplete!!! This is what most audiphile's who use full range speakers complain about with sub/sat systems, or otherwise against "not" running anything other than 2 channels full range for music/movies/whatever!!!...and to that, I can understand. Another issue becomes incorrect phase between speakers and sub vs. seating possition!!! another cause of problems in crossed over or sub/sat systems. And to which, I concure, you need to consider some other steps/issues when placing a sub/sat system up properly. But then you need to set up any speaker system up for flat/even frequency response anyway!...it's just a bit different proceedure when considering separate elements, such as a sub/sat combo, or even full range/crossed over to a sub set-up.
So, I just wanted to mention, that anyone crossing over speaekrs/satalites/whatever to a powered sub/bass module, that you need to consider making sure, first that have your speakers placed in possition that allows them to extend evely all the way to the crossover setting(i.e, 80hz, whatver). In general, I find a lot of sealed box satalite speakers need to be closer to the room boundaries often (not always, as room modes are scattered, but maximize near walls) to couple strongly down to 80hz(depending on design of course...some go deeper) to sound the best at 80hz. Also, placing smaller monitors on stands no higher than 24" is often a good way to ensure good bass resonse at 80hz, considering a standard 8' ceiling. IF you have a higher 9' or better ceiling, the stand height can go up!..this has been my "general" finding with most set up's. People often have trouble getting flat frequency response from their satalites who's bass woofer(s) and port are too high off the ground(unless up higher toward ceiling placemnt)! The problem there is that at 8' ceiling heights, the 74hz mode is in the middle of the ceiling to floor distance. And the close the speakers bass woofer/port is to the middle, the weaker the bass response in that reigion, which is close to teh 80hz cross point!..in general, I just find the bass response is stronger and better coupled to the speaker/room when the bass woofer is down lower on a stand. Of course, floor standing speakrs have the other problem, especialy in smaller rooms, and that's that the bass woofer/port are closer to the floor, which reinforces the bass who's 1/4 wavelength is not greater than the distance between woofer/port and floor! So floor stander often have no problem with crossing over to a sub, because they already couple well in the bass in most all settings! Of course, there are other room dimmension and size considerations. but still, the important thing is making sure your speakers sound full and extended down(flat is also the best) to the CRITICAL CROSSOVER FREQUENCY(In most cases, 80hz w/small setting).
If people would take time to properly set up EACH SPEAKER for flat, extended, and even a fruency resonse as possible (much easier the larger the room, but more critcal in smaller troublesome rooms!), especially down at the critical crossover point, they would get TREMENDOUSLY DYNAMIC, EXTENDED, FULL, COMPLETE, FAST(MUST HAVE PROPER PHASE BOY'S N GIRLS!), HARD HITTING, AND COHERENT/ACCURATE BASS overall!...and you'd be thrilled!
Again, as I posted earlier, dynamic transparancy and weight/speed is also largely a factor of efficiency. IN this case, you get more efficiency from passive speaker systems(i.e, B&W speakers, popular Paradigm studio's, and similar, etc) when you cross over those relatively inefficient speakers(considering the passive hard to control damping-wise passive networks in those speakrs, as opposed to ACTIVE PRO MONITORS AND SUCH) to an active sub, effectively bi-amping your system for maximum dynamic potential!(even more so considering most use less able receivers to drive their speakrs...separates are usually much stronger)
But still, after maximizing that part of the set up, getting proper frequency response, phase, proper crossover blending, and attaining overall coherence from ALL YOUR SPEAKERS, including and especially in relation to your sub from all speakrss, your system will rock!!! It'll be so dynamic, coherent, weighty(make sure you have enough sub and also amp for your room/volume needs!), and powerful..not to mention seamlessly transparent!
Most people never end up with a proplery set up/calibrated system/room, and they never end up even gettiing one speaker set up correctly, let alone 6 or more!!!!
Take one speaker at a time...first the mains, then the sub to the mains, then the center to the mains/sub, then the rears to the sub!..all for perfect frequency response, coupling, and phase alignment. YOu'll then have a system so complete, hard hitting, coherent, and dynamic you won't no what do do with yourself!
Of coure, there's lots more to acoustics and set up, regarding imaging, soundstange, inteligibility, and tonality and such, among others. But you'll be WAY AHEAD OF THE GAME, if you can just get the speakers set up right, and the crossover mazimized, and the phase right!
enough said.

Ok..not "enough said"!..my bad.
Actually, I forgot...for those consdidering larger tower speakers stuffed into smaller, even medium sized rooms, and are playing them full range, you are going to have to deal with the problems with bass boost and boom! IN general, the bass will be heavy, thick, and too dominant and boomy! In short, you'll have more bass mode problems and un-accurate bass playing those big speakers full range!..which is another benefit of crossing em over as "small"(or just using smaller speakers in smaller room environements), and concentrating on balancing a more flexibly place subwoofer(or more), and possibly "EQ'ing" out the bass just to the sub maybe!!!
Especially in the average "smallish" rooms that most people have to deal with, proper bass managment and balancing becomes even more critical for "flattest"(wich means best dynamic range between softest to hardest dynamic extremes by the way) bass response in a system. Larger rooms have more evenly distirbuted bass modes, and finding more flexible plaments for speakers becomes easier in such spaces. So you have more flexibility and likely hood of a novice getting "flatter" "more natural", and accurate "frequency response" from the system.
I just find that doing the "small" crossover setting already gives too many advantages towards getting a more accurate, dynamic, and easy to work with sound from most peoples scenarios they're likely dealing with.
Good luck