In my never-ending quest for improvements, for the past several months, I have been trying to improve the bass in my system. I was looking for a bass response that had certain characteristics, among which were the following:
1. Flat - you can hear distinct bass notes and they will have the same volume
2. Tight – a “thud,” not a “thump”
3. Deep – you can’t actually hear the deepest bass frequencies, which are sometimes harmonics or ambience but you should be able to "feel" them!
4. Volume – should fill up my big room
I wasn’t happy with my bass and I recall that the best bass I had ever heard was from a huge Thiel CS6.2 (I think that’s the model), which had all these characteristics. So I started a long journey to improve my bass.
The first step was the bass management of the AVR and the subwoofer. A lot of this is explained all over the web but let me describe my final settings:
1. Even if all my speakers are physically large and can go really deep, I decided to set them all as “Small” in the AVR. Crossover points were 60 hz for LCR and back, while the SR and SL were set at 80 hz kasi mas slightly smaller sila. This meant that all bass signals below these points were being sent to the sub.
2. The Low-Pass Filter (LPF) at the AVR was set to 120 hz. Even if many manufacturers recommend setting this to 80 hz, it is more accurate to set it at 120 hz. The function of the LPF is to limit the LFE frequencies sent to the sub to only those below the LPF point. LFE frequencies can go all the way up to 120 hz and therefore, you must set the LPF to 120 hz if you don’t want to lose any bass signal. Logically, you must set the LPF of the sub at 120 hz or higher.
3. The subwoofer output was set to “LFE,” not “LFE+Main” (in the Onkyo AVR’s, that is termed “Double Bass”). If you use “LFE+Main,” the sub will reproduce the LFE channel, bass below the crossover point of “Small” speakers AND bass below the crossover point of “Large” speakers. These last bass signals will ALSO be reproduced by the “Large” speakers. Therefore, both the sub and the “Large” speakers will be reproducing the same bass signals and you will get boomy bass.
4. Set the volume of the sub at less than 50%. I am using 25%.
