# Basic audyssey question



## uncola (Feb 19, 2012)

When I run audyssey it says to set my mains crossed at 40hz. I've always ignored it and set it to 80hz so my sb12-nsd sub gets used more, because I assume it's better than my speakers and I've read 80hz and below, you can't tell it's coming from the sub instead of the speakers. Is this reasonable to do or am I messing it up? I've tried A/B testing both settings and I can't tell the difference. I think war of the worlds lightning scenes sounded better when I was using 80hz crossover but I can't be sure.

My only other question is about the speaker levels.. I think it was showing like -12db for my subwoofer.. it also shows negative values for my front l/r speakers. Does this mean I have the gain set too high? Or it's not related? Should I adjust the gain knob until audyssey shows 0db speaker level setting?

I'm using a 2.1 speaker setup in a bedroom. My front speakers are Kef Q900 floorstanders.(pretty big)

Description: Two-and-a-half-way floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units (all aluminum): Uni-Q (coaxial) with 1.5" vented dome tweeter and 8" midrange unit, 8" woofer, two 8" passive radiators. Crossover frequency: 1.8kHz. Frequency response: 32Hz–40kHz, ±3dB. Impedance: 8 ohms. Sensitivity: 91dB/2.83V/m. Maximum output: 114dB. Amplification: 15–200W.


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## Ed Mullen (Jul 28, 2006)

uncola said:


> When I run audyssey it says to set my mains crossed at 40hz. I've always ignored it and set it to 80hz so my sb12-nsd sub gets used more, because I assume it's better than my speakers and I've read 80hz and below, you can't tell it's coming from the sub instead of the speakers. Is this reasonable to do or am I messing it up? I've tried A/B testing both settings and I can't tell the difference. I think war of the worlds lightning scenes sounded better when I was using 80hz crossover but I can't be sure.
> 
> My only other question is about the speaker levels.. I think it was showing like -12db for my subwoofer.. it also shows negative values for my front l/r speakers. Does this mean I have the gain set too high? Or it's not related? Should I adjust the gain knob until audyssey shows 0db speaker level setting?
> 
> ...


Negatives values for the speakers (provided it's not -12) is fine. A -12 for the subwoofer is a red flag and means the subwoofer was set too loud prior to running Audyssey. Drop the gain a notch on the subwoofer, re-run Audyssey, and it should come off the -12 floor and show the true level-matched value (i.e., something less negative than -12).

You can always move the speaker/sub crossover higher than where the AVR originally set it - so 80 Hz is fine if you prefer the sound better. Going in the opposite direction is a no-no because Audyssey only builds the filter set down to the originally set crossover frequency.


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## uncola (Feb 19, 2012)

Thanks Ed, dropping the gain one notch and re-running Audyssey changed the subwoofer level to 0db. I noticed my projector screen rattled when I crossed at 40hz but not at 80hz so I'm gonna leave it at 40hz


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## ALMFamily (Oct 19, 2011)

If you have the equipment to do it, I would run REW to check to see what kind of response you ended up with.

When I ran XT32, it set my mains and CC to 40 Hz. However, after running REW to see the response, I noticed a couple significant dips in my response below 80 Hz. Crossing over at 80 Hz really cleaned that up (my mains were really the culprit there).


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