# If you have 5 or 6 or 10 full range speakers that will go low, why set them in your receiver to "small"?



## RAJBCPA (Jul 31, 2021)

I never understood this. More and more of "modern" speakers sold today are designed to produce lows to around 500hz[??] so, in this case, it makes sense to me to run them on "small".

If your speakers where made around 2000 or earlier, chances are that they are designed to go low to around 50kh or so.

Isn't that a waste to set your receiver to "small" for these drivers??


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

I think you mean 50Hz. Only dogs and other animals can hear 50 kHz. 

There are at least a few good reasons to set speakers to small, assuming capable subwoofers are in use. Relieving the speakers of the chore of reproducing low bass, they can play louder without damage. Plus, directing the low bass to a subwoofer allows it (or them) to be located for optimal performance. Typically the locations of the main speakers are great for imaging, but not so much for optimal low frequency performance.

Regards,
Wayne


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## Mr645 (Apr 9, 2020)

The low end is the most difficult to play and requires the most power. Letting our subwoofers do what they are best at allows your other speakers do what they are best at, the mids and higher ranges


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

RAJBCPA said:


> I never understood this. More and more of "modern" speakers sold today are designed to produce lows to around 500hz[??] so, in this case, it makes sense to me to run them on "small".
> 
> If your speakers where made around 2000 or earlier, chances are that they are designed to go low to around 50kh or so.
> 
> Isn't that a waste to set your receiver to "small" for these drivers??


In regards to the actual question, “what is low”? You said 500hz. Wtf? That’s barely the tip of the bass ice berg. If you meant 50hz, big deal. That’s not that low. Good mains should go down to the mid 30’s. So your point is…0

Btw “small” just means that the speakers f3 is probably around 60-70hz. If crossing to a sub who cares. So no, it’s not a waste. It’s all relative.


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## Da Wiz (May 8, 2019)

You don't understand what "small" and "large" mean in relation to speaker "size". It is an unfortunate choice the industry made because it is not obvious. When you set a speaker to large, no bass from that speaker goes to the subwoofer. That means if you set a speaker to LARGE and it stops making bass at 40 Hz, you will lose 100% of the bass from 16 Hz to 39Hz (not precisely that, but very close, close enough for purposes of this explanation). If you set a speaker to "SMALL" you are telling the AVR or surround processor that you want the low bass for that speaker sent to the subwoofer. So if you use a speaker that has good bass at 40 Hz, but nothing significant BELOW 40 Hz, you can set the crossover point for that speaker to 60 Hz (you always want the crossover point to be higher than the bass capability of the speaker to make sure you do not lose any bass), So if a speaker is good for 60 Hz to 20,000 Hz, you should set the size to SMALL and set the crossover for that speaker to 80Hz. The next speaker in your system might have frequency response from 100 Hz to 20,000 Hz, so for that speaker, you would select SMALL and set the crossover to 120 Hz so send bass above 120 Hz to the subwoofer so it is not lost. The subwoofer will also receive the bass from the LFE channel... so in a home theater system, the subwoofer receives bass from 1) the LFE channel and 2) from loudspeakers that do not have bass response to 16 Hz or lower. If you have an 8 foot tall loudspeaker with bass from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, you could set it to LARGE but it might not reproduce bass from 16 Hz to 20 Hz. So even with a HUGE speaker with POWERFUL bass, if that loudspeaker cannot make sound at 16 Hz, you may STILL want to set that giant speaker to SMALL and set the crossover to 40 Hz. That way bass from 20 Hz to 40 Hz will go to the big loudspeaker (but reduced at 20 Hz by the crossover) while the subwoofer would receive the bass for that channel from 16 Hz up to 40 Hz. The speaker and subwoofer will "overlap" their response from 20 Hz to 40 Hz at the proper level. So SMALL and LARGE are essentially an off-on switch for sending low bass to the subwoofer when the speaker cannot produce the lowest bass that might be on the movie soundtrack. The lowest frequency I know of on a UHD/HDR movie is 10 Hz near the beginning of The Edge of Tomorrow (Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt). You cannot hear that, but if your subwoofer can reproduce 10 Hz (Hsu Research subs with 12-inch or larger drivers can reproduce 10 Hz) you will feel WIND as though somebody turned on a fan while the bass below 16 Hz is present.


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## nathan_h (Feb 19, 2009)

Two words: room modes.

Google the Todd Welti subwoofer research he did for Harman to learn the details.



RAJBCPA said:


> I never understood this. More and more of "modern" speakers sold today are designed to produce lows to around 500hz[??] so, in this case, it makes sense to me to run them on "small".
> 
> If your speakers where made around 2000 or earlier, chances are that they are designed to go low to around 50kh or so.
> 
> Isn't that a waste to set your receiver to "small" for these drivers??


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