Need help with Subwoofer crossover setting.

[Hifi_Noob]

Hi Guys,

Below is my setup:

• Sony Str-dh-190 - Amp
• Polk PSW10 - Sub with Crossover range 80-160
• Sony SSCS5 - Speakers

I have connected sub to amp and then connected speakers to sub.

I have set Crossover Freq on sub to 100 and volume to 50%.

Could someone please recommend the best setting for sub? What is the role of volume on sub? Should the sub volume be max? Should I control volume from sub or from amp? Also, what is the best setting for crossover?

What should be the right setting for phase on sub? I have tried to set it to 0 and also to 180 but there is no difference in output.

Sorry for too many questions. Please help.

Thanks & Regards

 

[Love4sound]

Hi Guys,

Below is my setup:

• Sony Str-dh-190 - Amp
• Polk PSW10 - Sub with Crossover range 80-160
• Sony SSCS5 - Speakers

I have connected sub to amp and then connected speakers to sub.

I have set Crossover Freq on sub to 100 and volume to 50%.

Could someone please recommend the best setting for sub? What is the role of volume on sub? Should the sub volume be max? Should I control volume from sub or from amp? Also, what is the best setting for crossover?

What should be the right setting for phase on sub? I have tried to set it to 0 and also to 180 but there is no difference in output.

Sorry for too many questions. Please help.

Thanks & Regards

Leave the phase at 0. Volume on sub should not be at max. If your amp has room auto calibration it will assist you with setting the gain. If you have to set it manually start at 30% Also amps will have gain settings for subwoofer. Best is to set it at -7 or -8 and calibrate the gain knob in the subwoofer when doing manual calibration

 

[Hifi_Noob]

Leave the phase at 0. Volume on sub should not be at max. If your amp has room auto calibration it will assist you with setting the gain. If you have to set it manually start at 30% Also amps will have gain settings for subwoofer. Best is to set it at -7 or -8 and calibrate the gain knob in the subwoofer when doing manual calibration

I am sorry to say bro but could you please elaborate it more for a newbie like me.

If I understood it correct - phase is volume on sub and gain is crossover Freq..

What is gain setting? I didn't find anything like that in str-dh-190 amp.

 

[Love4sound]

I am sorry to say bro but could you please elaborate it more for a newbie like me.

If I understood it correct - phase is volume on sub and gain is crossover Freq..

What is gain setting? I didn't find anything like that in str-dh-190 amp.

Gain and volume are similar but slight difference is there. But the term phase and crossover frequency is completely different to volume and gain. Volume in general when coming to amplifiers is the overall loudness control and Gain is amplifying the input signal say for a particular channel. So let’s take your case. You now have a stereo amplifier so this means you have two channels and can connect two speakers. Also It should have a physical volume knob. This you can use to control the overall loudness which is the master volume control same as in the remote control.So now you can relate gain and volume. What will you do if you feel the left speaker sounds less compared to the right speaker? Well you will increase the gain for left channel to match the right speaker.Your amplifier doesn’t seem to have a LFE channel which you can use to connect subwoofers. There are other ways which I am sure knowledgeable audiophiles will help you understand. I am purely in to home theatres and will explain the remaining terms in general. Phase is related to time domain. You will adjust phase so the speakers and subwoofers are aligned to reach your ears at the same time. If not set correctly you will hear the bass separately either before or late which will make it sound boomy, muddy and flat. 0 or 180 is basic and won’t be good enough to time align and midrange to expensive subs will have 0-180 so you can set the delays in increments of milliseconds to align it perfectly with the speakers. If you have an LFE channel in amplifiers the phase knob in sub won’t work and you can directly set the delays for the subwoofers in the amplifier by changing the distance values.Now don’t get confused by delays. I mentioned phase is setting up the subwoofers so the sound from sub and speakers reaches you at the same time. So if bass is hitting you early you need to delay the sub. For that you will reduce the sub distance so the amplifier thinks you are close and will send the signal delayed according to the distance values you have set. If you want it early then increase the distance of the sub and the amplifier will think you are far and send the bass early.Now coming to cross over which again you need go set for your speakers cause they cannot play the low frequencies like how a subwoofer can. So for example a song you listen has recordings in the region 20hz to 20000khz. Let’s say you have speakers that will dominantly play 60hz to 20000khz you are going to miss the frequencies below 60hz. Now say you have a subwoofer that can handle low frequencies up to 19hz. If you set crossovers for speakers as 80hz the sub will take control of the speakers response below 80hz. Do note it doesn’t mean speakers won’t respond below 80hz it will start to roll off and will be playing along with the sub. Now coming back to phase, we have set crossovers at 80 hz so if subwoofer is not in phase the crossover won’t be smooth cause the bass is either hitting you before or after the sound from speakers reaches you and hope you can now relate. Sorry if you still don’t get it and feel free to ask more doubts

 

[sandeepmohan]

From reading the specifications of your Sony SS CS5's, they can play down to 53Hz.

Ensure correct wiring from the amplifier to sub woofer and to main Sony loudspeakers (from the sub). That is, red to red (positive), black to black (negative)
Start by setting the sub woofer volume at 40% (11am mark)*
Cross over all the way to the left at 80Hz. Thats the lowest it goes.
Phase - Start off at Zero. There is no particular setting that guarantees how this can work. Depending on the phase of the electrical signal, how your main loudspeakers are wired and the acoustic properties of your room, it can work in either Zero or 180 position. Its trial by ear. You want to leave it at the setting where the bass sounds right. Take your time with this one. It took me several days before I ended up leaving it at Zero.

Play some familiar music and listen. The goal is to "NOT" hear the sub. It needs to blend in with your Sony's. The sound you want to hear is as though the bass is coming from your Sony's. Not the sub woofer.

For this experiment, start by listening to the track with the sub woofer volume at MIN. Play the track again with the sub woofer Volume at the 9am mark, 10am, 11am, 12pm and so on. Make incremental changes to the sub woofer volume. You don't want to notice the sub woofer is playing.

After you arrive at an ideal sub woofer volume, flip the Phase switch to 180 and listen again. You will either like the bass, or you won't. Settle for a switch position where the bass sounds right, to your ears.

It can take several listening sessions to get the volume and phase right for a sub woofer. Spend time. Don't be in a hurry. When you get it right, the results will please your ears (and senses).

The position of your sub woofer is also vital to how it will sound in your room. If its stuffed into a corner, you will likely get a lot of bass bloat. Start by placing it next to (or beside) either of your Sony's. If you have a corner wall, place it about a foot away from the rear and side wall.

Good luck. This is about the simplest way I can explain the process.

*In correct room and listening conditions, you should not have to exceed 40% of the sub woofer volume. However, this can change with the type of music (genre) you are playing.

 

[Hifi_Noob]

Gain and volume are similar but slight difference is there. But the term phase and crossover frequency is completely different to volume and gain. Volume in general when coming to amplifiers is the overall loudness control and Gain is amplifying the input signal say for a particular channel. So let’s take your case. You now have a stereo amplifier so this means you have two channels and can connect two speakers. Also It should have a physical volume knob. This you can use to control the overall loudness which is the master volume control same as in the remote control.So now you can relate gain and volume. What will you do if you feel the left speaker sounds less compared to the right speaker? Well you will increase the gain for left channel to match the right speaker.Your amplifier doesn’t seem to have a LFE channel which you can use to connect subwoofers. There are other ways which I am sure knowledgeable audiophiles will help you understand. I am purely in to home theatres and will explain the remaining terms in general. Phase is related to time domain. You will adjust phase so the speakers and subwoofers are aligned to reach your ears at the same time. If not set correctly you will hear the bass separately either before or late which will make it sound boomy, muddy and flat. 0 or 180 is basic and won’t be good enough to time align and midrange to expensive subs will have 0-180 so you can set the delays in increments of milliseconds to align it perfectly with the speakers. If you have an LFE channel in amplifiers the phase knob in sub won’t work and you can directly set the delays for the subwoofers in the amplifier by changing the distance values.Now don’t get confused by delays. I mentioned phase is setting up the subwoofers so the sound from sub and speakers reaches you at the same time. So if bass is hitting you early you need to delay the sub. For that you will reduce the sub distance so the amplifier thinks you are close and will send the signal delayed according to the distance values you have set. If you want it early then increase the distance of the sub and the amplifier will think you are far and send the bass early.Now coming to cross over which again you need go set for your speakers cause they cannot play the low frequencies like how a subwoofer can. So for example a song you listen has recordings in the region 20hz to 20000khz. Let’s say you have speakers that will dominantly play 60hz to 20000khz you are going to miss the frequencies below 60hz. Now say you have a subwoofer that can handle low frequencies up to 19hz. If you set crossovers for speakers as 80hz the sub will take control of the speakers response below 80hz. Do note it doesn’t mean speakers won’t respond below 80hz it will start to roll off and will be playing along with the sub. Now coming back to phase, we have set crossovers at 80 hz so if subwoofer is not in phase the crossover won’t be smooth cause the bass is either hitting you before or after the sound from speakers reaches you and hope you can now relate. Sorry if you still don’t get it and feel free to ask more doubts

Thnaks bro. Yes I understood most of it. Kind of you bro to explain it like this.

 

[Hifi_Noob]

From reading the specifications of your Sony SS CS5's, they can play down to 53Hz.

Ensure correct wiring from the amplifier to sub woofer and to main Sony loudspeakers (from the sub). That is, red to red (positive), black to black (negative)
Start by setting the sub woofer volume at 40% (11am mark)*
Cross over all the way to the left at 80Hz. Thats the lowest it goes.
Phase - Start off at Zero. There is no particular setting that guarantees how this can work. Depending on the phase of the electrical signal, how your main loudspeakers are wired and the acoustic properties of your room, it can work in either Zero or 180 position. Its trial by ear. You want to leave it at the setting where the bass sounds right. Take your time with this one. It took me several days before I ended up leaving it at Zero.

Play some familiar music and listen. The goal is to "NOT" hear the sub. It needs to blend in with your Sony's. The sound you want to hear is as though the bass is coming from your Sony's. Not the sub woofer.

For this experiment, start by listening to the track with the sub woofer volume at MIN. Play the track again with the sub woofer Volume at the 9am mark, 10am, 11am, 12pm and so on. Make incremental changes to the sub woofer volume. You don't want to notice the sub woofer is playing.

After you arrive at an ideal sub woofer volume, flip the Phase switch to 180 and listen again. You will either like the bass, or you won't. Settle for a switch position where the bass sounds right, to your ears.

It can take several listening sessions to get the volume and phase right for a sub woofer. Spend time. Don't be in a hurry. When you get it right, the results will please your ears (and senses).

The position of your sub woofer is also vital to how it will sound in your room. If its stuffed into a corner, you will likely get a lot of bass bloat. Start by placing it next to (or beside) either of your Sony's. If you have a corner wall, place it about a foot away from the rear and side wall.

Good luck. This is about the simplest way I can explain the process.

*In correct room and listening conditions, you should not have to exceed 40% of the sub woofer volume. However, this can change with the type of music (genre) you are playing.

Thanks so much. You have made it sound so simple and easy. So extra thanks for this also. I will for sure try it this way.

 

[Hifi_Noob]

Gain and volume are similar but slight difference is there. But the term phase and crossover frequency is completely different to volume and gain. Volume in general when coming to amplifiers is the overall loudness control and Gain is amplifying the input signal say for a particular channel. So let’s take your case. You now have a stereo amplifier so this means you have two channels and can connect two speakers. Also It should have a physical volume knob. This you can use to control the overall loudness which is the master volume control same as in the remote control.So now you can relate gain and volume. What will you do if you feel the left speaker sounds less compared to the right speaker? Well you will increase the gain for left channel to match the right speaker.Your amplifier doesn’t seem to have a LFE channel which you can use to connect subwoofers. There are other ways which I am sure knowledgeable audiophiles will help you understand. I am purely in to home theatres and will explain the remaining terms in general. Phase is related to time domain. You will adjust phase so the speakers and subwoofers are aligned to reach your ears at the same time. If not set correctly you will hear the bass separately either before or late which will make it sound boomy, muddy and flat. 0 or 180 is basic and won’t be good enough to time align and midrange to expensive subs will have 0-180 so you can set the delays in increments of milliseconds to align it perfectly with the speakers. If you have an LFE channel in amplifiers the phase knob in sub won’t work and you can directly set the delays for the subwoofers in the amplifier by changing the distance values.Now don’t get confused by delays. I mentioned phase is setting up the subwoofers so the sound from sub and speakers reaches you at the same time. So if bass is hitting you early you need to delay the sub. For that you will reduce the sub distance so the amplifier thinks you are close and will send the signal delayed according to the distance values you have set. If you want it early then increase the distance of the sub and the amplifier will think you are far and send the bass early.Now coming to cross over which again you need go set for your speakers cause they cannot play the low frequencies like how a subwoofer can. So for example a song you listen has recordings in the region 20hz to 20000khz. Let’s say you have speakers that will dominantly play 60hz to 20000khz you are going to miss the frequencies below 60hz. Now say you have a subwoofer that can handle low frequencies up to 19hz. If you set crossovers for speakers as 80hz the sub will take control of the speakers response below 80hz. Do note it doesn’t mean speakers won’t respond below 80hz it will start to roll off and will be playing along with the sub. Now coming back to phase, we have set crossovers at 80 hz so if subwoofer is not in phase the crossover won’t be smooth cause the bass is either hitting you before or after the sound from speakers reaches you and hope you can now relate. Sorry if you still don’t get it and feel free to ask more doubts

Bro, when I set phase to 0 then I can feel bass. It's more boomy. When it is at 180 then it's like sub is merged in music i.e bass is there but not boomy or standing out. Does this mean the bass is flat?

At phase 0, I can feel bass in the music and at phase 180 it's like bass is there but not standing our. Now I am confused if at 180 the bass is flat? L

 

[Hifi_Noob]

From reading the specifications of your Sony SS CS5's, they can play down to 53Hz.

Ensure correct wiring from the amplifier to sub woofer and to main Sony loudspeakers (from the sub). That is, red to red (positive), black to black (negative)
Start by setting the sub woofer volume at 40% (11am mark)*
Cross over all the way to the left at 80Hz. Thats the lowest it goes.
Phase - Start off at Zero. There is no particular setting that guarantees how this can work. Depending on the phase of the electrical signal, how your main loudspeakers are wired and the acoustic properties of your room, it can work in either Zero or 180 position. Its trial by ear. You want to leave it at the setting where the bass sounds right. Take your time with this one. It took me several days before I ended up leaving it at Zero.

Play some familiar music and listen. The goal is to "NOT" hear the sub. It needs to blend in with your Sony's. The sound you want to hear is as though the bass is coming from your Sony's. Not the sub woofer.

For this experiment, start by listening to the track with the sub woofer volume at MIN. Play the track again with the sub woofer Volume at the 9am mark, 10am, 11am, 12pm and so on. Make incremental changes to the sub woofer volume. You don't want to notice the sub woofer is playing.

After you arrive at an ideal sub woofer volume, flip the Phase switch to 180 and listen again. You will either like the bass, or you won't. Settle for a switch position where the bass sounds right, to your ears.

It can take several listening sessions to get the volume and phase right for a sub woofer. Spend time. Don't be in a hurry. When you get it right, the results will please your ears (and senses).

The position of your sub woofer is also vital to how it will sound in your room. If its stuffed into a corner, you will likely get a lot of bass bloat. Start by placing it next to (or beside) either of your Sony's. If you have a corner wall, place it about a foot away from the rear and side wall.

Good luck. This is about the simplest way I can explain the process.

*In correct room and listening conditions, you should not have to exceed 40% of the sub woofer volume. However, this can change with the type of music (genre) you are playing.

When I set volume to 40%, phase to 180 and cross over to 85 , it feels like sub is not playing any music but I beleive sub is playing but it's output is merged in music and this is the right setting. But when I switch phase to 0 then I can feel bass.

Where should I set the phase to? And If I dont feel bass is this mean the bass is falt?

 

[Love4sound]

Bro, when I set phase to 0 then I can feel bass. It's more boomy. When it is at 180 then it's like sub is merged in music i.e bass is there but not boomy or standing out. Does this mean the bass is flat?

At phase 0, I can feel bass in the music and at phase 180 it's like bass is there but not standing our. Now I am confused if at 180 the bass is flat? L

Keep phase at what sounds best to you. Bass is very hard to get it right immediately. Just listen for few days and experiment different settings and position. Best way to understand or know if bass is set properly in our room is to listen to few reference tracks in a well calibrated system

 

[sandeepmohan]

Where should I set the phase to? And If I dont feel bass is this mean the bass is falt?

You're trying to do this in a hurry.
Spend time with each setting and vary the music. Play something you know well

• Turn down the sub woofer volume to zero and listen for some time*. Capture or understand the low end reproduction of your Sony's by themselves.
• Next, turn up the sub woofer volume to 40% and listen at Phase Zero
• *Repeat first point, that is, No sub woofer participation.
• Next, turn up the sub woofer volume to 40% and listen at Phase 180

Either one or the other phase setting will work. Once you get this right, you may choose to gradually increase sub woofer volume based on your need for extra bass fill.

On a side note, have you dialed in any bass from the tone control settings on your Sony Integrated? If so, set it Flat or at Zero for Bass. You may dial it up a bit for Treble. This is more a personal preference.

Spend time listening.

 

[Hifi_Noob]

Thanks alot guys. Surely, I will follow what you guys have recommended.

 

[Subbu68]

Thanks alot guys. Surely, I will follow what you guys have recommended.

I had a hard time when I got my sub in 2019. Then a patient adjustment as described by Sandeep above solved it. It took a few days too.

My daughter has pretty sharp ears and is musically much more intelligent than me. She sat the listening position to help out blend the sub and speakers. If there is someone at your place well and good or ask someone to adjust the sub while you site listening to the sound.

My gear in the signature.

 

[Hifi_Noob]

I had a hard time when I got my sub in 2019. Then a patient adjustment as described by Sandeep above solved it. It took a few days too.

My daughter has pretty sharp ears and is musically much more intelligent than me. She sat the listening position to help out blend the sub and speakers. If there is someone at your place well and good or ask someone to adjust the sub while you site listening to the sound.

My gear in the signature.

Thanks. Will try. Though not lucky as you to have such a sweet daughter. But will try to find some help.